'Gramma Bep' Hamer is a master of the art of customer satisfaction. Adhering to her time-honoured maxim of "if it looks good, it should taste good," she has created a selection of mouth-watering culinary treats that are guaranteed to please, and a visit to Gramma Bep’s Gourmet Foods, Gift Shop and Guest House is an experience by itself.
For Bep Hamer, the specialty food and catering business is a return to her first love - making good food that people love to eat. After all, Bep descends from generations of Dutch bakers. Bep emigrated from Holland in 1952. Her family, the Schimmels, waited for seven days in Winnipeg's immigration hall until her father was offered a job in Saskatchewan. Bep recalls journeying by train to Central Butte, in the middle of the winter. "I had never seen so much snow in my entire life. They had to plow a trail through the Prairie and over the summerfallow."
Jack Hamer met them with a half-ton truck when they arrived. Bep laughs as she recalls that first meeting with the man she would marry many years later: "We didn't speak any English. When we met Jack's mother and brother, they said 'Hello' to us and we all politely said 'good-bye' to them!"
Baking was and always has been a part of the Schimmel’s life. As a child growing up, Bep spent time working in her father's Saskatchewan bakery and owned her own bakery-restaurant by age 16. In 1974, Bep started a business with Jack Hamer, the man she met when she arrived on the prairies. The partnership became a marriage and the pair spent a quarter century together.
Today, Gramma Bep’s is a thriving gourmet food business, a gift shop featuring Sask Made products, and a 5 bedroom guest house. Bep has always believed strongly in the promotion of local products, and inside her own gift shop you’ll find the best the province has to offer.
95% of Gramma Bep's ingredients are Saskatchewan grown, which highlights her pride in promoting the province's underutilized edible resources. High bush cranberries, saskatoon berries, chokecherries, prairie sage, and a host of other ingredients combine to produce jams, jellies, sauces, antipasto, vinegars, syrups, spice mixes and teas, that deliver to visitors the true taste of the Canadian prairies.
Gramma Bep's Gourmet Foods has been a leader in the province and her Saskatchewan Made products have placed Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada on the North American specialty food industry map. For travellers crossing Saskatchewan on the Trans Canada Highway, it is a favourite place to stop, shop and stay.
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Gramma Bep's Gourmet Foods, Gift Shop & Guest House
37 Pondarosa Trail North, Swift Current, Saskatchewan, Canada S9H 5M5
Gourmet Foods & Gift Shop: (306) 773-7224 Guest House: (306) 773-7359
Fax: (306) 778-3883 E-mail: Gramma Bep
