Alberta entrepreneurs turn a passion for coffee and the outdoors into a thriving business
Jamie Parker and Mike Wenzlawe were sitting around a campfire during an elk-hunting trip in 2014 near Willmore Wilderness Park in Northern Alberta when the idea to start a coffee company was sparked. The idea came to Parker, inspired by the pair’s work as wildland firefighters. “We learned to roast coffee in a cast iron pan on the fireline,” he explains. They wanted to embody that same connection to the outdoors in a business. “Our cause and our goal is to unite Canadians to pursue outdoor experiences,” says Wenzlawe. “Coffee is a conduit and a vessel that we use to do that.”
Once they finished working the subsequent firefighting season, in September 2015, Wenzlawe and Parker’s next step was to get their hands on some green coffee beans so they could start roasting. They drove from Calgary to Vancouver to pick up their first order of beans from a warehouse. “We thought we were going to have this big, important meeting with bean providers,” Wenzlawe recalls. “We showed up in suits at a warehouse to pick up this coffee and were greeted by a 300-pound man in a back brace carrying 160-pound sacks of green beans over his shoulder. I remember him asking: ‘Where’s your truck?’ We pointed to Jamie’s Toyota Matrix hatchback. We almost blew out [the car’s] suspension on the way home.”
They set up shop in Wenzlawe’s mother’s garage, using countertop roasters to fine-tune the bold, smooth flavour profile they were seeking. By November 2015, they were selling bags of roasted coffee beans on an e-commerce site under the name Calgary Heritage Roasting Co. Hitting the winter market circuit shortly afterwards, Parker and Wenzlawe struggled to keep up with demand. “The countertop roasters that we used only made 100 grams of coffee at a time,” Parker explains. “We’d be roasting for three days straight, go into a market, sell out on the first day, go home and roast until three in the morning making new product for the next day.”
Wenzlawe and Parker put all the early proceeds of their business back into the operation, upgrading to a larger roaster at the beginning of 2016, and then moving from Wenzlawe’s mother’s garage into a commercial kitchen by April 2016. The following year, the two realized they needed to expand from direct-to-consumer selling. “We realized that we couldn’t survive just selling on e-commerce,” says Parker.
They were hesitant, at first, to sell in grocery stores, worried about being perceived as “sell-outs” for being in chain retailers, but participating in the District Ventures business accelerator program made them think otherwise. “Our mentors were like: ‘This is ridiculous. You need to get your product out there so people know what you’re selling,’” Parker recalls. Their first grocery partner was Community Natural Foods, with just three stores in Alberta. Then they landed on 24 Co-op shelves in Calgary later in 2017.
After partnering with a new distributor who brought their coffee to buyers outside of Alberta, Parker and Wenzlawe found themselves with a branding challenge. “There was a huge amount of resistance for our product in other provinces, like B.C. and Ontario,” Wenzlawe recalls. “They couldn’t get behind the name.” That prompted them to change their name to Canadian Heritage Roasting Co. in 2018, and lean into retro Canadiana branding. The move led to more grocers getting on board—50 Sobeys stores in Alberta, as part of its local program and 11 Choices Market stores in British Columbia. In June 2019, the duo opened a flagship store in Southeast Calgary with a café and in-house roasting operations. Then COVID hit. “We had to lay off all of our staff overnight,” Parker says. “Mike and I had to run the entire business, just the two of us for three months straight, 24-7.”
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The austerity measures helped the duo survive the crisis. Then, in 2021, they launched an instant coffee called Flash Fuel, which would eventually land in MEC stores across Canada. “We saw a big opportunity in the marketplace to have an instant coffee that is designed well, tastes great and is organic,” Parker explains.
In 2022, Canadian Heritage Roasting Co. launched in 13 Real Canadian Superstores in Alberta, as part of Loblaw’s local program. Then, in November 2024, they made their first major out-of-Alberta debut in 23 Fortinos grocery stores in Ontario. Canadian Heritage Roasting Co. is now available in 1,600 stores across Canada.
Throughout their journey, Wenzlawe and Parker have always prioritized giving back with philanthropic initiatives including roasts to raise funds for wildfire relief.
“It’s really heartwarming to see what we’ve become,” says Wenzlawe. “It’s cool to know that we’ve had cause and effect and lasting change. We can do good for the community, for Canada and the environment.”
