As a child, Michelle Whitehead used to hate tagging along with her dad, Ted Cabaj, as he would take her out to harvest berries and mushrooms. Now an adult with her own family and a blossoming business, it’s been “a real 360 in circumstance.”
“I was scared of spiders,” admits Michelle, as she recalls the time she spent outdoors with her dad. But over the years, things started to change.
On Nov. 6, Michelle and her husband Eric Whitehead appeared on the well-known CBC show Dragon’s Den, clinching a deal with Arlene Dickinson, and creating even more hype around their wild mushroom business, Untamed Feast.
Michelle was raised in St. Paul, and after living on Vancouver Island, the Whiteheads have recently moved back to Alberta, now residing in St. Albert. Michelle’s sister, Karol Cabaj-Martin, and mom, Lorraine Cabaj, still live in the St. Paul area.
With November typically being the busiest time of the year for Untamed Feast, the recent Dragon’s Den appearance has made for an even busier few weeks, says Whitehead.
“We happen to be smack dab in the middle of our busiest few weeks of every year,” she says. “Add our appearance on the Dragon's Den on top of that, and honestly, we’re slammed just filling on-line orders and servicing new retail clients.”
It’s been exciting for the Whiteheads, having only gone full-time with their business in 2012. Michelle says she was the one who decided the company was ready to make a run on Dragon’s Den.
“I was confident that our unique product and story coupled with a conservative valuation would make our pitch successful,” says Michelle. She admits she was nervous about exposing herself and the company on national television, but Michelle and Eric were happy with the outcome.
“Arlene was who we were hoping for, so it worked out great,” says Michelle.
Since it’s inception in 2005, Untamed Feast has been growing “steadily.” And what started as a fun side business has been creating quite a bit of attention lately.
Both Michelle and Eric were taught how to harvest wild mushrooms as children. Eric learnt from his Ukrainian grandmother. When the couple began their venture eight years ago, they discovered a lifestyle that “inspired their vision of re-introducing the everyday consumer to that which nature effortlessly provides,” according to a company biography.
Michelle and Eric developed a line of 10 gourmet wild mushroom products, now available in over 100 retail outlets and restaurants. Untamed Feast only deals with mushrooms that cannot be farmed and have to be picked from the forest.
“The mushrooms are all hand-harvested and come from rich forest soil,” says the biography.
And despite the company’s success, the Whiteheads still do pretty much everything “from forest to fork,” says Michelle. There is nothing nine-to-five about the business.
“One day I might be in a mosquito net, inches above a charred forest floor with tons of weight on my back, and the next I might be in a dress selling Untamed Feast products at the Vancouver Convention Centre,” she explains.
Recent food trends have seen people wanting organic and locally grown foods. Untamed Feast would like to be a leader in a new “everything wild” trend.
“We are doing this by reviving traditional uses and inspiring new uses of the things naturally provided around us,” says Michelle. Untamed Feast is also working with Royal Roads University in Edmonton to promote the development of non-timber forests products to stimulate economy in rural areas.
And the Whiteheads have also started a website, Wild Trader, with Michelle’s younger brother, Matthew Cabaj. The website is essentially an E-bay for anything wild from floral greens to medicinal teas, says Michelle.
Videos on how the wild mushrooms are harvested are available at http://untamedfeast.com/.
