This sister duo left salary jobs to start their gourmet dessert business
Made in Vancouver is a collaboration between Vancity and Daily Hive. Together, we’re turning the spotlight onto local businesses, organizations, and individuals who are helping to create a healthy local economy.
While there are some unfortunate stories about small business here in Vancouver due to the global pandemic, there many inspiring ones as well.
While the food and beverage industry was struggling, so were other industries as well. And in 2020, a couple of sisters had to make a career pivot and they jumped head first into the food industry.
Creating handmade, gourmet desserts, packaged beautifully for the ideal gift or pick me up, these two sisters started Trove Desserts.
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As part of our Made in Vancouver series spotlighting local businesses, we talked to Karli Stol about pivoting careers and starting owning a brand new business.
Vancity has been supporting local businesses like Trove Desserts with programs including Load Up on Local – where Vancity enviro™ Visa* cardholders get rewarded with 1.5x the rewards points at select businesses. To learn more, visit vancity.com/local
“My sister and I were both impacted from COVID. I was in Cruise Logistics, and she was in in-person sales,” Stol told Daily Hive when speaking about the inspiration behind the idea for this business.
“We both needed to quickly pivot our careers and wanted to start building something for ourselves,” Stol continued.
“We’ve both been baking since we were kids. Sisterly competition has helped us to continuously push our skill set, so we thought something in the bakery space would be ideal. We noticed a few companies out there creating charcuterie style boxes/boards but were gravely disappointed with the quality of desserts. Our mission with Trove is to provide high quality, handmade desserts in a beautiful box or board to create a memorable and delicious dessert experience!” she added.
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Starting a business with anyone demands a solid relationship, one that fosters creativity but also pushes the other to be better. A sisterhood business partnership seems like a great plan, and they’ve been navigating how to operate in these difficult times brilliantly.
“We currently rent commercial kitchen space from The Pie Shoppe, so we don’t have a full time store front yet,” said Stol. “Our customers can order desserts directly online with pick and delivery options available.”
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These curated and selected boxes of goodies come with many incredible treats.
The Teacher Mug & Dessert Mug is an adorable idea, and any of their Signature Boxes, with various goodies and maybe a bottle of lemonade or wine, is the perfect gift for anyone in your life.
“Our boxes are the perfect gift to send to your family and friends, especially during these difficult times when we can’t have our typical celebrations,” said Stol.
And these times have been difficult, and these sisters have felt the challenges.
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“For us, we started our business during COVID, so we had to overcome the complexity of starting a business, along with the ongoing complexity of navigating constantly changing rules,” said Stol.
It might be true that starting in hard times has prepared them better than anything else could have. Now, they’ll be ready for anything, time tested like any great entrepreneur with a passion for what they do.
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As for the most popular items in the box? Stol told us about the amazing homemade Nanaimo desserts they offer at Trove Desserts.
“Our Nanaimo bars have been a real success,” she told us. “We make them in several different flavours — original, raspberry, and espresso — and they have been a hit with our customers so far,” she added.
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