Modern Business Profile - Vanilla Bite Bakery
/Images provided by Vanilla Bite Bakery.
With the “Elbows Up” movement rising higher each day, it’s crucially important to support Canadian businesses. Yes, Modern Mississauga Media focusses on, well, Mississauga based businesses but sometimes, you’ve gotta look further and do more.
And that’s what we’ve got here.
Located next door to Mississauga in Toronto and founded by dynamic duo Dannah Melad and Kevin Allan, we’re proud to share the story of this proudly Canadian business, Vanilla Bite Bakery.
(Maybe they’ll open a Mississauga location one day…)
1. What exactly does Vanilla Bite Bakery do?
We are an artisanal pastry shop that recently opened our first and only shop in downtown Toronto in September 2024. We’ve spent years networking with local suppliers for everything from our wholegrain flour, to chocolate, to maple syrup and foraged mushrooms. This has allowed us to create a menu of unique and distinctly Canadian cakes, cookies, croissants, tarts, and more.
2. How long have you been in business?
We’ve been operating online since January 2021 and we finally opened our storefront in September 2024.
3. You offer an extensive gluten-free selection; why is that an important part of your menu?
Kevin, one of our co-founders, has a lot of family members who are celiac. So, we originally started trying to make gluten-free desserts for his celiac father that are as good as regular cookies. They were quite well received by family members, so we decided to make them part of our business from day 1 and people kept asking for an ever-expanding list of gluten-free desserts.
4. What's been the largest hurdle to overcome?
Shortly after taking the keys the our storefront, we were told that we had to get this one really specific and expensive HVAC system for reasons beyond our control. This instantly strained our finances. But, what made this extremely challenging is the fact that we had to wait over a year for the unit to arrive while paying rent the entire time.
5. What's been the most rewarding aspect of your business?
We love the look of pleasure and intrigue on someone’s face when they try our product for the first time and we get to tell them all about how we’ve made something that amazing and unique.
6. What are your goals for the balance of 2025?
We want to continue pushing the boundaries of our pastry knowledge in our pursuit of making definitively Canadian pastries while growing our team and training pastry cooks on our unique techniques and recipes.
7. What's your favourite menu item and why?
Our favorite menu item changes everyday depending on our mood. But, our favorite cake is definitely our Maple Valley cake. It is the perfect embodiment of our ideals of introducing new Canadian ingredients in pastry. And, eating it takes you on a roller coaster of delicious flavours. It uses foraged candy cap mushrooms from Newfoundland, wholegrain flour, maple syrup, and walnuts from Ontario, and wine fermented from maple sap from Quebec.
