Both Icelandic, Haukur Hauksson (Hawk) and Adalbjorg Sigurthorsdottir (Adele) moved to St. John\u2019s, Newfoundland in 2013 and decided to bring a part of home to Canada.<\/p>\n
Hawk had learned to be a baker in Iceland, as well as took courses to be a pastry chef in Denmark. Following, he worked in Norway for a year where he learned how to make even more Scandanavian treats and eventually opened a bakery with his father in Iceland which multiplied into three bakeries over the course of 18 years. His wife, Adele, was always working in the office helping with the administrative side of the business like payroll, accounting, ordering, etc. Today their bakery, Volcano Bakery<\/a> is located in St. John\u2019s and brings unique and delicious sweet treats to the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n Volcano Bakery, whose name was inspired by the eruptions of Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull\u00a0in 2010, stands out among the crowd. The bakery bakes their goods fresh every day. Their bread is sugar free with no preservatives, which is common to Iceland, and the Scandinavian pastries are different than anything you\u2019ll find in Newfoundland.<\/p>\n Starting a business in Canada however is much different than in Iceland. Adele explained that the biggest challenge for them was understanding all the permits they needed from the city. The pair depended on the help from the YMCA Business Planning Program<\/a> to help get their business off the ground and the financial support from Futurpreneur Canada. \u201cWe needed the financing for our start-up to help us make Hawks dream come true,\u201d Adele shared. \u201cHe wanted this from the day we moved to St. John\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n Since opening, Adele and Hawk saw a busy August and September with several customers coming in to look at their delicious offerings. Over Christmas they also have a lot of new customers coming in and thinking about them for the holiday season. They\u2019re both really happy at the progress they\u2019ve seen in their business and had to hire even more staff then they originally thought to keep up with the demand.<\/p>\n The couple hopes to work to get their products sold in stores. They\u2019re currently struggling with this process but hope that eventually people won\u2019t just be able to get their products in their bakery, but also in other retailers in Newfoundland.<\/p>\n