It’s been 20 years since Maureen Obrigewitch and her husband, Al, started Souptacular from their kitchen. Now, their soup mixes have gone from the aisles of the farmers’ markets to grocery store shelves.
“Save-On-Foods was doing a local program back in 2013, and we were one of the first products to go in there,” says Obrigewitch. “That really kind of just changed our direction.”
Obrigewitch started Souptacular after having her third son, and was looking for a creative outlet. She’s loved healthy cooking ever since her mom taught her at a young age, and her husband was finishing up his culinary degree at NAIT. They started layering beans, peas and lentils until one day Al asked her, “Why wouldn’t you add something to them so that you could just cook it and eat it?” And it was like a lightbulb went on.
“There was no turning back,” says Obrigewitch. “Then we started adding our own seasoning mixtures and creating our own blends with just herbs and spices.”
Souptacular sells nine different soup mixes with flavours like peas and barley, tandoori hot pot and Moroccan spice. All you have to do is pour the blend into hot water and each pack makes about eight to 10 cups of soup. Customers can customize their soups by adding extra ingredients like meat, but Souptacular’s goal is to provide ease.
“We’ve kept our soups honestly quite simple and we did that purposely, mostly for kids,” says Obrigewitch. “People can buy them and just keep it simple and have a quick meal, or they can add anything they want to it.”
Shop Souptacular online at souptacular.com or at stores like Save-On-Foods, Safeway, Sobeys, the Italian Centre and H&W Produce.
This article appears in the March 2022 issue of Edify
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