This Commerce Life · Phil Chang / Kenny Vannucci

From Deloitte Partner to Canada's Only Horseradish Producer | Marc Whitmore

April 7, 2026·59 min·4 clips

A former Deloitte partner bought a horseradish company that had been shut down for a year, with no customers or suppliers.

1. This Commerce Life hosts Phil and Kenny speak with Marc Whitmore, CEO of Dennis's Horseradish, about his path from senior Deloitte partner to operating Canada's only Canadian-owned, Canadian-grown horseradish business. 2. Marc describes considering entrepreneurship since age 12, entering corporate life like most of his peers, and arriving at a deliberate exit from Deloitte around age 50 with three explicit reasons: modelling entrepreneurship for his children, contributing to Canada's economic productivity, and pursuing something he had always wanted to do. 3. The episode's thesis is that the buy-Canadian moment has turned an otherwise obscure food business into a strategic position — and that Marc's supply chain decisions now give him a monopoly on Canadian provenance claims. 4. Marc spent 30-plus years at Deloitte, including as global head of Deloitte Private, which serves private businesses and family companies — a role he says opened his eyes to why private business, not large corporations, drives 50-60% of GDP in every country he visited. 5. He and a business partner ran a structured search process using investment criteria, talked to every banker, accountant, and lawyer they could find, and found nothing — leading to his observation that deal flow requires being in places where deals actually happen, not in professional services offices. 6. He found Dennis's Horseradish listed for sale on MLS.ca by a real estate agent sister-in-law who knew he was looking, after the previous owners had let the business go idle for roughly a year. 7. Dennis's is a 65-year-old brand started by a man named Dennis, later built by the Hansen family, then sold to the Writers who eventually listed it in 2020; Marc bought equipment, recipes, and a brand name, but no active customers, suppliers, or distributors. 8. The deal closed in April 2020, weeks into COVID lockdowns; Marc simultaneously needed to find and renovate a building, navigate supply chains, and learn manufacturing, while being shorted on nine of the ten components that go into a jar of horseradish. 9. The first 50 to 100 retail stores were recovered through brand recognition among former buyers; Marc describes the business as now in approximately 1,000 stores across four countries and growing at 25% but not yet profitable. 10. Marc explains that keeping horseradish hot through a six-month retail shelf life is the product's primary technical challenge — the heat dissipates, and he has tried roughly 15 formulation changes, eventually stabilizing it by adding canola oil and educating retailers to refrigerate backup stock. 11. He describes the grocery shelf space constraint bluntly: grocery stores are full, and new products require displacing something that already sells — he tried introducing cranberry and maple horseradish variants and faced the same question every time: what will Sobeys remove to make room. 12. Marc exited the mustard category after concluding he could not differentiate Dennis's against 50 shelf-stable competitors, and declined to enter barbecue sauce or hot sauce for the same reason. 13. Korea is now Dennis's largest customer; Marc recently returned from a two-week trip to Korea and Japan, and sees Australia, Taiwan, and China as additional growth opportunities. 14. When US tariff changes in 2025 caused FedEx, DHL, and UPS to hold every cross-border Canada-US shipment even for CUSMA-compliant goods, Marc cancelled all US customers except two and redirected effort to Asia. 15. He contrasts the friction of a simple Canada-US shipment — returned to sender repeatedly — with a 3,200-case shipment to Korea in January that cleared without issue. 16. Canada now has only one horseradish farm, Marc's, after the other two Canadian farms shut down; this gives Dennis's the only claim to 100% Canadian root, Canadian ownership, and Canadian manufacturing in the market. 17. Marc says Loblaw and Sobeys recently jettisoned American-owned horseradish products in favour of Dennis's, a direct consequence of the buy-Canadian sentiment and his ability to back the claim with supply chain reality. 18. The episode is a wide-ranging conversation moving between entrepreneurship philosophy, food export strategy, manufacturing specifics, and tariff policy, with the hosts occasionally interjecting with retail-buyer context. 19. People curious about buying an existing small food business, pivoting from corporate to founder, or navigating Canada-US trade friction will find Marc's story directly relevant. 20. Listeners expecting a tightly structured startup narrative or detailed financial breakdown will find the conversation conversational and episodic rather than structured.

As heard by us

A niche founder story that becomes a clear case for Canadian-made food.

It starts off sounding like a novelty story, but it settles into something sturdier: a case for why a small Canadian food business can matter. The episode keeps coming back to exports, identity, and what Canada should be known for, and that gives it a clear center of gravity.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a weirdly compelling Canadian founder story about horseradish, exports, and a blunt case for making more than raw material.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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