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2022 Holiday Gift Supporting Small Businesses

2022 Holiday Gift – Supporting Small Businesses in Ontario

At Discovered Intelligence the holiday season is an opportunity to celebrate our employees’ contributions to a successful year, by connecting with everyone over a big holiday dinner and surprising them with a fun holiday gift.

These gifts vary from year to year, but for the past few years we have put together a gift bag for our employees containing products from independent small businesses across Ontario, to make up a very tasty and warm gift bag. The last few years have been particularly challenging for small businesses, due to the many lockdowns and ‘shopping local’ is a great way to provide support.

holiday gift supporting small businesses in Ontario
Gift bag with products sourced from local Ontario businesses

Read on to find out more about the items in our employee holiday bag and the small businesses they were sourced from. We urge everyone to please not forget to continue to support small businesses in 2023!

Dried Cherries

  • Sourced from Cherry Lane, cherry farm in Vineland, Ontario
  • Since 1907, Cherry Lane has been providing tart cherries, tart cherry juice concentrate, and a variety of other fruit products to consumers. The members of the Smith family, who own and operate Cherry Lane, have always been proud to be Ontario fruit farmers.
  • cherrylane.net

Ontario Grown Nuts

  • Sourced from in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario
  • Peanuts were introduced to the Southwestern Ontario’s sandy soils of Norfolk County in 1979, by the Picard Family. You’ll find the best quality confections, freshly roasted peanuts – in many flavours and varieties and at each of their five locations in Ontario.
  • picardsontariogrownpeanuts.com

Apple Butter

  • Sourced from Wellesley Brand Apple Products, Wellesley, Ontario
  • Wellesley has been manufacturing Quality Apple Products using the finest ingredients & time-tested recipes for over 75 years. All products use Ontario grown, fresh quality apples and are naturally sweet, made without the use of added sugar or sweeteners.
  • wellappleproducts.com 

Chocolate Dipped Shortbread

  • Sourced from the Niagara Food Company, St Catharine’s, Ontario
  • Niagara Food Company has been creating home-style, gourmet meals and sweet treats since 2010.  We source local ingredients to create high quality, delicious food and snacks.
  • niagarafoodco.ca

Locally Made Chocolate

  • Sourced from CFX – Chocolate Factory Experience, St David’s, Ontario
  • Carefully crafted using artisanal chocolate panning and molding techniques at their in-house chocolate factory, CFX provides an incredible assortment of products that can delight even the most discriminating palate.
  • cfxniagara.ca

Handcrafted Gourmet Fudge

  • Sourced from Alexander’s Fudge, Smithville, Ontario
  • Alexander’s Fudge was started in Smithville, Ontario in 2013 by Chris Alexander. Made with real butter and cream, Alexander’s Fudge is simply the best you’ve ever had!
  • alexandersfudge.com

Butter Caramel Gourmet Sauce

  • Sourced from Moyers Farm, Beamsville, Ontario
  • The Moyer apple farm has been in the family since 1799. The company specializes in thoughtfully crafted caramel apples and gourmet sauces that look great and taste even better, so that you enjoy every bite.
  • moyersfarm.com

Interested in learning more about working at Discovered Intelligence? Good news, we’re hiring! Click here for more details.

2020 DI Holiday Gift: Focusing on our employees and small businesses

At Discovered Intelligence we are always excited to enter into the holiday season as an opportunity to celebrate our employees contributions to a successful year by connecting with everyone over a big holiday dinner and surprising them with fun, and cool, holiday gifts. Over the past years these holiday gifts have generally consisted of technology focused gifts sourced from major e-commerce sites like Amazon or BestBuy.

Well, after all of the challenges faced as a business and a society throughout 2020, we decided to take a little bit of a different approach to this seasons employee holiday gift by setting our focus on supporting small businesses and, our most important asset, our employees.

Locally sourced products from the Niagara Region of Ontario.
An extra week of vacation in 2021 for each employee.

As you can see from the pictures above, for this seasons holiday gift we carefully crafted a gift bag for each of our employees, sourcing products from various small businesses around the Niagara Region, just outside of Toronto, to make up a very tasty and warm (it’s Canada after all) gift bag. The gift bag was finished off with the one thing we felt each of our amazing employees could use most in 2021, more time to connect with family and friends, therefore each employee has received an additional week of vacation for 2021.

Read on to find out more about each item in our employee holiday bag and the small business they came from. We urge everyone to please not forget to continue to support small businesses in 2021!

Discovered Intelligence Hoodie
o  Sourced from A & E Custom Apparel in Vineland, Ontario
o  A & E is a local business that provides custom apparel and gifts to individuals and businesses. All work is done in-house. They provide embroidery, direct to garment printing, sublimation, heat vinyl and screen printing services.
o  https://www.aecustom.net/

Sour Cherry and Peach Jams
o  Sourced from Southridge Jam Co in Vineland, Ontario
o  The Southridge Jam Co. is a social enterprise in Niagara that provides individuals who have recently experienced homelessness the opportunity to develop job training and life skills. The jam is made by formerly homeless using locally grown fruit that is donated by farmers.
o  https://southridgejam.com/

Wildflower Honey
o  Sourced from Rosewood Estates Winery in Beamsville, Ontario
o  Having 88 years of family beekeeping experience, all honey is made locally using innovative and sustainable practices to maintain healthy and productive hives. Keeping our bees happy and healthy is their top priority.
o  https://www.rosewoodwine.com/

Dark Chocolate Cherries
o  Sourced from Cherry Lane farm in Vineland, Ontario
o  Since 1907, Cherry Lane has been providing tart cherries, tart cherry juice concentrate, and a variety of other fruit products to consumers. The members of the Smith family, who own and operate Cherry Lane, have always been proud to be Ontario fruit farmers.
o  https://cherrylane.net/

Parmesan & Rosemary Shortbreads
o  Sourced from Provisions Food Company in Beamsville, Ontario
o  In 2012, Lori McDonald decided to combine her background with her passion for the vineyards, orchards, and farms of the beautiful Niagara growing region of Canada. What began as Lori canning jams in her kitchen has grown into a talented and passionate team making Provisions Food Company products in their own production facility.
o  https://provisionsfoodcompany.com/

Maple Syrup and Kettle Corn
o  Sourced from White Meadows Farms in St Catharines, Ontario
o  Made from maple trees and locally-grown corn, White Meadows Farms has been around since 1937. They craft the very best maple syrup from the sap they collect from over 150 acres of sugar bush in Niagara. The popping corn is harvested from their own 2.5 acres worth of cobs.
o  https://whitemeadowsfarms.com/


Interesting in learning more about working at Discovered Intelligence? Good news, we’re hiring! Click here for more details.