Friends of Feadies

Author: FEAD

Our podcast is aimed at supporting the development and growth of women-owned food and beverage processing businesses in the Canadian prairies. Our guests include industry experts as well as food and beverage entrepreneurs to provide knowledge, real world examples and inspiration. Check out our other programs and join our member base for free at www.fead.ca
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Language: en

Genres: Business, Entrepreneurship

Contact email: Get it

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Episode 50: Building a Business Twice: Starting Over Without Starting From Scratch with Sviatlana Martynenka
Episode 61
Friday, 25 September, 2026

In Episode 50 of Friends of FEADies, Lindsay Toth sits down with Sviatlana Martynenka, co-founder of SirGora, to talk about building a business not once, but twice. Sviatlana's entrepreneurial journey began in Ukraine, where she turned a passion for cheesemaking into a thriving creamery. Starting with just three litres of milk a week on her kitchen counter, she eventually grew the business to process 1,000 litres weekly and produce more than 20 varieties of artisan cheese. Then came a completely new chapter: moving to Canada and building again. Sviatlana shares what it was like to go from an established entrepreneur to navigating a new country and market, what knowledge and experience came with her, and what she still had to learn from scratch. She also takes us behind the creation of SirGora and its distinctive cheese-infused chocolate truffles, combining her deep expertise in cheesemaking with an entirely new product and market. Together, we talk about resilience, reinvention, introducing consumers to something they've never tried before, and why starting over doesn't mean starting from zero. It's a conversation about the experience you carry with you, the courage to build again, and finding new possibilities in an unexpected next chapter.