KENT DAVIES: You’re listening to Preserves: A Manitoba Food History Podcast. Exploring the rich, flavourful history of Manitoba food and the people who make it, sell it and eat it. From the packing table to the dinner table. From restaurant specials to grandma’s secret recipes. We consider the cultural, social, and commercial aspects of Manitoba food and what it means to us. I’m your host Kent Davies. As per usual, I’m joined by Manitoba business historian, Professor Janis Thiessen.
JANIS THIESSEN: Hi, Kent.
KENT DAVIES: So, what’s in the pantry for us today, Janis?
JANIS THIESSEN: Today we’re learning about Riediger’s Supermarket. which was a business that had a very long multi-generational history in North End Winnipeg.
KENT DAVIES: Yes. This is a series of interviews you conducted about independent grocery stores in Manitoba. Can you talk a little about that project?
JANIS THIESSEN: Yeah, we conducted a series of interviews with a couple of independently-owned, family-owned grocery stores. This one here in Winnipeg and then another one in Letellier. And we were interested in the changes that have happened in the grocery industry over the last fifty to a hundred years, and the shift from corner stores that were independently owned to what seems to be the dominant player in the industry now, these large national chains that are, have a totally different ownership structure.
KENT DAVIES: So yeah, obviously the grocery landscape has changed significantly over the past century. We still have a number of corner stores around the downtown area in Winnipeg. But independent stores are few and far between. But then again, we’ve seen the restructuring of the large grocery store chains. Some are being bought out. Some are just closing down stores. And then we’ve also seen small, specialized, I would say maybe boutique grocery stores or bakeries or butcher shop and the like pop up. Do you think, you know, there might be a trend towards smaller shops again?
JANIS THIESSEN: Yeah, you’ve highlighted an important point here, and that is that these trends are never monolithic or all-encompassing, right? There’s always those who are going against the grain, and smaller trends that combat it, right? And so, you know, this is one of the things that a former student of ours, Brendan Dvorak, presented in his Story of Food in Place on our website, where he talks about “A Cup of Coffee in the Desert.” He’s looking at North End Winnipeg and its reputation as being a food desert, and he says that it’s a food desert in the sense of, if what you’re looking for is large chain grocery stores, yeah, there’s not many of those in the neighbourhood. But if you look at independently-owned small businesses producing one specialized item — butcher shops, coffee roasters, things of that sort — you know, it’s actually, the North End is actually a very rich food area.
KENT DAVIES: Definitely. And we know that from the restaurants alone.
JANIS THIESSEN: Yeah.
KENT DAVIES: Just the countless amazing restaurants in the downtown core area, the North End. Yeah, so I’m excited to hear the story of this independent grocery store that was located in North End Winnipeg. Let’s give it a listen.
JANIS THIESSEN: The retail sale of groceries in Manitoba has changed significantly over the last century, shifting from pedlars in streets and stalls at Winnipeg’s Old Market Square (established 1889)1 to corner stores and nation-wide grocery chains.2
As Manitoba Food History Project team member Kimberley Moore explains in our forthcoming book, street pedlars were regulated as early as 1885, with the City of Winnipeg requiring licenses with fees that ranged from $25 to $75 by 1904, and by the 1930s, prohibiting sales by pedlars between 10 PM and 6 AM.3 Perhaps the first corner grocery store in the province was that established by David Anderson Ritchie at the corner of Main Street and Jarvis Avenue; it opened in 1882 and folded in 1929.4 Grocery chains arrived in Winnipeg in 1929 with Mutual and Piggly Wiggly (both owned by Safeway); many of their employees joined Local 832 of the United Food and Commercial Workers union after it formed in 1938.5 By the 1980s, grocery chains had supplanted most of the independent grocers in the province, and UFCW Local 832 expanded to become, in the words of Manitoba Food History Project Fellow Scott Price, “one of the biggest and most influential private sector unions in Manitoba.”6
While independent grocers still persist in Manitoba (and some, such as De Luca’s Specialty Food Store and Dino’s Grocery Mart, even thrive and expand), their architectural traces throughout Winnipeg are evidence of their slow decline and disappearance. Small one- or two-storey buildings dot the city, distinguished by their angled placement at street corners, their large main-floor picture windows at ninety degrees on either side of a central entrance. Some of these buildings have been converted to private residences, others house convenience stores (with their original, now unused, butcher counters still incongruously in place at the back of the shop), and some have been knocked down and replaced by other, more modern, facilities.
Riediger’s Supermarket was one such independent grocer, its physical presence in Winnipeg’s North End now replaced by a Tim Hortons donut shop. Riediger’s was founded on Isabel Street by Heinrich (Henry) Riediger in 1937. Henry and his children sold groceries from behind a counter, in the traditional general store format); Henry had had experience as a shopkeeper in Russia.7 Born in Nikolaifeld, Yayokvo, Russia in 1884, Henry Riediger moved in 1912 with his wife Helena to Arkadak, Russia (where his son Nick Riediger, later known as Nick Sr., was born in 1922) before the family migrated to Canada in 1923.8 They farmed unsuccessfully in Saskatchewan for several years, and moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1935.9
Henry’s grandson Ken Riediger described how Riediger’s Supermarket began:
KEN RIEDIGER: When our grandfather started that store, in 1936, he borrowed fifty dollars from this Doctor Neufeldt to start that store. And that’s how it got off the ground. Yeah, well they started with a little store on the east side of Isabel. That was their first one there for ten years. Like from ’36 to ’46 or ’47. And then they moved across the street and built a store with an upstairs where my grandfather could live… But my mom and dad used to live up there when they first got married and my aunt Susie lived there after her husband died.10
JANIS THIESSEN: Serving a clientele of primarily immigrants and inner-city residents, Riediger’s offered credit to their customers. Betty Riediger, wife of Nick Sr., explained:
BETTY RIEDIGER: Most people had no money. So, when they came into buy something, it was always on credit. And my father-in-law was… he had a list this long of people he gave credit to. But you know, the people were migrating from Europe and they all wanted to shop somewhere where they could speak their language, the German language. And so, they came to Riediger’s. Because there, they could talk it over and they would buy a few things. If they didn’t have enough money, my father-in-law says, “That’s fine, I’ll just write it down.” But they could take home whatever they needed. And they were getting a lot of customers because you know, there’s quite an influx of immigrants coming. And so then they decided that we should build a bigger store.11
JANIS THIESSEN: The family had little access to capital, however, nor could they obtain a bank loan. Instead, Henry Riediger turned to his son, Nick Sr., newly returned from his war service. In exchange for part ownership in the store, he used his $5000 Royal Canadian Air Force severance to help the family build a new self-serve grocery store in 1946 at 188 Isabel Street.12 Betty Riediger noted that her husband’s investment did not result in his immediate involvement in the day-to-day running of the store.
BETTY RIEDIGER: When my husband came back from the Air Force, I mean, he didn’t know anything about the store. And so, they decided… Well, there was a meat market on Sargent. They were also German, and they said, “Well, we’ll hire you for $100 a month and you can work here for a year and learn the meat business. Learn how to cut meat.” So, that’s what he did.13
JANIS THIESSEN: The business grew steadily, with a building expansion in 1953, incorporation in 1955, and another expansion in 1976. At its height, the store employed three full-time butchers and operated three delivery trucks.14 Betty recalled that this progress led Henry Riediger to gradually include all four of his sons in the business (Henry, John, Vern, and Betty’s husband, Nick Sr.) as well as his two daughters.
BETTY RIEDIGER: And my father-in-law was so happy. And then he has another son that – another one who was three years younger than my husband. And he says, “Well, let’s take him in too. Let’s take him in,” he says, “I don’t want to leave any of my family out.” So, there they were, my father-in-law with his four sons. And he had two daughters that needed work, so they worked in the store. And he always hired people from our church whose children were looking for after-school work. And they come and work after school for a few hours and so on. Oh yeah, everybody. It was just like a – it was really a family thing. And we all loved it. It was hard work. But it was all good.15
JANIS THIESSEN: Customers were attracted by the store’s small size, its meat counter, and its selection of German specialty items: “where else could Oma pick up baking ammonia for those peppermint cookies?”16 Betty Riediger explained:
BETTY RIEDIGER: I mean, where in the world would you buy baking ammonia? Because that’s not something that – and yet, quite a few of our Christmas cookies have that in them. And so, at Christmas, people would come in especially for the baking ammonia.17
JANIS THIESSEN: The store adapted their stock over the years to accommodate the arrival of new immigrant groups in Winnipeg’s North End, including Portuguese, Italian, Filipino, and Asian people: “Pigs’ ears and tails are now featured alongside the rouladen and wurst.”18 Customer Deb Fast was a Riediger’s Supermarket regular: “Six aisles, not an overwhelming number of choices and a great produce and meat department – they had the best choice of apples in the whole city!”19 Marlene Kruger Wiebe recalled a childhood of shopping with her father at the store, and the generosity of the Riedigers.
“When I was a child my dad, Bill Kruger, would drive from River Heights to North Kildonan to shop at Riediger’s Supermarket… At the store we would always get these amazing crispy buns with soft bread on the inside. They were shaped like huge almonds. One Saturday we were standing at the meat counter and dad was ordering ‘cold cuts’ from Nick Riediger. I saw the pork chops and my mouth watered. But dad said we would not be getting them today. I was crestfallen. When we got to the check-out the cashier handed us a package wrapped in butcher paper. It was marked ‘free.’ I was overjoyed. It was the pork chops! Mr. Riediger’s generosity to me, a little girl, that day will never be forgotten.”20
JANIS THIESSEN: Though a grocery store, Riediger’s Supermarket also sold some unusual non-grocery products from time to time, such as Polish-made Wawel china and, in the 1950s, even refrigerators.21 The latter were offered for sale by instalment: “Considering the low wages in the 1950s, a refrigerator would normally be unobtainable for many years by a young family just starting out in Canada.”22
In addition to importing German specialty products, the store relied on a combination of local suppliers and wholesalers. Beginning in the 1980s, Riediger’s was negatively impacted by a combination of increased government regulation of food suppliers and consolidation of grocery wholesalers, circumstances that affected all independent grocers.
KEN RIEDIGER: We used to get the guy from Beausejour Creamery. He would come and deliver butter. He had the best butter in the province, but then his business closed. And all of a sudden, it’s another less guy you see and now you’ve got to buy the butter that everybody else has. You know, too many regulations, always. Pretty soon there was nobody coming to the back door with their product. Just the vegetable man. Yeah, all those things changed, you know? All that, personal things. The candy man – like at Christmas time, we had this little Jewish fellow, Issy Weinshenker, and he made all the Mennonite candies in his basement in the North End there. And he would always deliver candies to the back door there. And then he would pass on and there’s another guy gone. I guess that’s just life.23
JANIS THIESSEN: Produce was provided seasonally by Evergreen Hutterite Colony in Somerset, Manitoba. Meat was supplied by Tony Foderaro, an independent butcher in Beausejour. Fish was obtained from Indigenous people in the North End: “For fifty years, we bought fish from them and one day, the conservation officer came in and gave us a $1300 fine and says you can’t do that anymore, it didn’t go through the [Freshwater] Fish Marketing Board.”24 Like many independent grocers in the province, Riediger’s wholesaler was Western Grocers until 1983 when “they wanted control over all the independents. They wanted to tell us what to advertise; they wanted to be able to look at our books. They wanted control over us. And everybody [the independent grocers in Manitoba] said, ‘Well, no.’ So, then everybody had to switch to Macdonalds Consolidated.”25
Riediger’s Supermarket provided credit and delivery to their customers, and made contributions to community organizations.26 They donated food to community picnics, to Rossbrook House, and to the Freight House Community Centre. They delivered discounted groceries to Knox Day Nursery’s lunch program. And they delivered milk to twenty-five local area schools.27 Deliveries to customers and charities in the 1950s were challenging, as the business did not have a delivery vehicle at the time. Betty Riediger explained:
BETTY RIEDIGER: When my husband when they first started there, they did all their delivering on bicycles… People would buy flour, came in ninety-eight-pound bags. Like almost a hundred pounds! And everybody did their own baking; we didn’t have bakeries around then. And he often talked about how he would have to deliver this ninety-eight-pound of flour on his bicycle over the Salter Bridge. And in the winter when it was icy – and my husband wasn’t big man, he was almost one of the smaller ones of the family – and he said what a struggle that was. The lengths he went to and they didn’t charge for delivery. Nowadays, I think most people charge already if you’re going to have it delivered. But in those days, they didn’t. You didn’t pay for delivery. Sometimes I really don’t know how they made it. But I always feel that somebody was looking after us. It was a very difficult start, and it was very difficult ending. But the years between were very good.28
JANIS THIESSEN: Those “very good years between” were supported by some very long-term employees: by the year 2000, Riediger’s produce manager had been employed there for forty-five years, and most of the other staff had worked there for twenty to twenty-five years.29 Though not a paid employee, Betty Riediger assisted with the store in various ways, as she was the wife of one of the owners. She and Nick Sr. and their children lived in the apartment above the store for many years, which made her unpaid assistance convenient. One of her uncompensated tasks was to launder the store’s aprons and cleaning cloths. “And I didn’t have an automatic washer or anything like that. But that was one of the chores, one of the jobs I did.”30 She also was expected to entertain family members and business associates with little to no notice. “It was treated like the family home. So, you don’t say anything because you want to have a nice peaceful family.”31
The store was a three-generation business; by the fourth generation, family members were encouraged to find other occupations. Founders Henry and Helena Riediger died in 1954 and 1946 respectively; their children ran the store until 1981 when the grandchildren took over. Ken Riediger’s children, part of the fourth generation of Riedigers, all worked at the store at some point:
KEN RIEDIGER: My boys would drive the truck. They would deliver and do cashiering. My daughter would cashier and they were good. I told them as soon as they were old enough to understand English, which was back in the ‘80s, I said, “You will not be doing this. Get an education because you’re not doing this. ‘Cause it’s too hard. I don’t want you to do this.” …As business didn’t get any bigger, when people would quit or retire, we would never replace them. My brother [Nick Jr.] and I, we would just work harder. And we’d work more, and we’d work harder, and that’s how it kept on going to the end. Because you couldn’t afford to hire anybody anymore. It was too tough a life.32
JANIS THIESSEN: Just as Ken Riediger encouraged his children to aspire to a better future, a similar process was happening with the store’s traditional clientele of fellow local Mennonites. Betty Riediger observed: “They used to live all around that area on Isabel Street. It was close to our church, and they liked that area. But as they became more affluent, they moved out into the suburbs. And there was big grocery stores and it was much easier to shop there. Once in a while, a lot of them went back, at least once a year, at Christmas… But you know, all this came to an end.”33 A 1988 article in the Mennonite Mirror comments on the family’s “hopes for expansion” of the store, but sales were in continuous decline for decades.34 Nick Jr. explained to a reporter, “I don’t think there was one year where our sales went up, for twenty years. But the cost of business never goes down. And the longer we stayed open, the deeper we were sinking. I couldn’t live with bankruptcy. I couldn’t live if I did that to our creditors.”35
Riediger’s Supermarket closed in 2012. The location was sold in 2013, and the building demolished the following year; a Tim Hortons franchise took its place.36 Ken Riediger was sanguine about the end of his family’s business.
KEN RIEDIGER: Nothing is forever, I know nothing is forever, everything dies. It was its time to die. Like ten years earlier I wanted to sell to Tim Hortons. I said, “Nick, this is the perfect place for Tim’s.” And then I phoned them up and they weren’t expanding at that time. And then in 2012, I told the real estate agent, “Phone Tim’s.” And that was… Yeah, that’s what we did. We sold it to them. There’s no Tim’s around there, nothing. And there’s 20,000 people coming over that bridge right in front of their store. Every day, 20,000 cars. Yeah, they knew it was a gold mine.37
JANIS THIESSEN: Betty Riediger was similarly philosophical about the closure of the store, viewing it as part of a larger history of food retailing in the province.
BETTY RIEDIGER: “So, nowadays those kinds of stores are obsolete. Totally! I mean, they have no place in this world anymore.”38
KENT DAVIES: You have been listening to Preserves: A Manitoba Food History Podcast, produced by myself, Kent Davies. Written and narrated by Janis Thiessen. Hosted by Janis Thiessen and myself. Our theme music is by Robert Kenning. Preserves is recorded at the University of Winnipeg Oral History Centre. You can check out the OHC and the work that we do at oralhistroycentre.ca. For more Manitoba Food History Project content, information and events, go to manitobafoodhistory.ca. We’re also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you have a Manitoba food story and you want to share it, contact us by clicking on the contact link on our website. Preserves is made possible from a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Thanks for listening.
SOURCES
1Christian Cassidy, “Old Market Square,” Winnipeg Downtown Places blog post (19 June 2019).
2Historian Susan V. Spellman claims incorrectly that the term “corner-grocery” is an “expression peculiar to” the United States. Susan V. Spellman, Cornering the Market: Independent Grocers and Innovation in American Small Business (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 6.
3Kimberley Moore, “A Fat Boy Swimming in Chili: Serving the ‘Mass Eaters’ of Winnipeg, 1890-1970,” in Manitoba Food History Atlas (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, forthcoming).
4Gordon Goldsborough, “Memorable Manitobans: David Anderson Ritchie (1858-1942),” Manitoba Historical Society.
5UFCW Local 832, “History”; Christian Cassidy, “ Safeway in Winnipeg Part 1 – Setting Up Shop,” West End Dumplings blog post (17 March 2010).
6Scott Price, “1978 Safeway Strike,” Manitoba Food History Project ArcGIS story map (8 March 2021).
7Karl Langelotz cites 1936 as the date, while Christian Cassidy and Holli Moncrieff cite 1937. Karl Langelotz, “A Winnipeg Landmark,” A Westgate Retrospective (2012): 18; Christian Cassidy, “ Last chance to shop Riediger’s,” West End Dumplings blog post (13 January 2012); Holli Moncrieff, “Family-run grocery store a staple in inner city,” Winnipeg Free Press (19 January 2000): 49.
8“ Nicholas Riediger obituary,” Winnipeg Free Press (15 January 2008). Other sources cite 1924 or 1926. Bob Hummelt, “Four decades later, Riediger’s store maintains a commitment to its community,” Mennonite Mirror (October 1988): 9; Melissa Martin, “End of an oasis,” Winnipeg Free Press (28 January 2012): A6.
9Archival description, “ Heinrich Riediger fonds,” Mennonite Heritage Centre Archives & Gallery, CA MHCA MHC17; Nicholas Riediger obituary. Melissa Martin cites 1936. Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6.
10Ken Riediger, interviewed by Sarah Story, 19 May 2016 in Winnipeg MB, digital audio recording, Independent Grocers collection, Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg MB, 00:07:21-00:08:54.
11Betty Riediger, interviewed by Janis Thiessen, 13 April 2016 in Winnipeg MB, digital audio recording, Independent Grocers collection, Oral History Centre Archive, University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg MB, 00:02:05-00:03:07.
12Hummelt, 9; Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6.
13Betty Riediger interview, 00:03:55-00:04:24.
14Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6; Cassidy, “Last chance”; Riediger’s Super Market Ltd., file summary (as of 25 January 2022), Companies Office, Government of Manitoba. The company’s directors when it dissolved in 2015 were Nick Riediger, Jr., Elizabeth Riediger, and Ken Riediger; company shareholders were Nick Jr. (40%), Nick Sr. (10%), Helen Kasdorf (10%), and Ken (40%).
15Betty Riediger interview, 00:05:06-00:06:11.
16Langelotz, 18.
17Betty Riediger interview, 01:23:15-01:23:34.
18Hummelt, 9.
19Langelotz, 18, quoting customer Deb Fast.
20Marlene Kruger Wiebe, 26 February 2020, comment posted on Nicholas Riediger obituary.
21Betty Riediger interview.
22Hummelt, 9.
23Ken Riediger interview, 01:20:18-01:21:31. Issy and Henry Weinshenker, of B. Weinshenker Sons Candy Company, ceased production in 1986. “ Isaac (Issy) Weinshenker obituary,” Winnipeg Free Press (31 December 2004).
24Ken Riediger interview, 01:25:10-01:25:38.
25Ken Riediger interview, 00:21:51-00:22:14. Macdonalds Consolidated traces its origins to founder Alexander Macdonald’s formation of A. Macdonald Co. in Winnipeg in the late 1870s. The business grew to be a major wholesaler of independent grocers throughout western Canada, becoming (with the exception of the parts of the business in British Columbia) the publicly-traded Macdonalds Consolidated in 1912. Western Grocers was formed in 1918, with the merger of A. Macdonald Company (the B.C. holdings that had not become part of Macdonalds Consolidated) and Riley-Ramsay Company; it was later renamed Westfair Foods and is owned by Loblaw. Christian Cassidy, “ Entrepreneur founded an empire,” Winnipeg Free Press (9 October 2016),
26Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6.
27Hummelt, 10; Moncrieff, 49; Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6.
28Betty Riediger interview, 01:27:00-01:28:55.
29Moncrieff, 49.
30Betty Riediger interview, 00:54:03-00:54:11.
31Betty Riediger interview, 00:55:18-00:55:28.
32Ken Riediger interview, 00:54:56-00:57:00.
33Betty Riediger interview, 00:06:30-00:07:29.
34Hummelt, 10.
35Martin, “End of an oasis,” A6.
36Cassidy, “Last chance”; “Tim Hortons brews up plan for West Alexander store,” Winnipeg Free Press (8 February 2013): A7.
37Ken Riediger interview, 00:44:16-00:45:22.
38Betty Riediger interview, 01:22:46-01:22:59.
Preserves is made possible by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and assistance from the Oral History Centre at the University of Winnipeg.