'Helping new entrepreneurs': Gather Local Market lets potential food businesses test out product

Tassanee Nithisaasin is passionate about making authentic Thai food and is getting the opportunity to do that at Gather Local Market at River Landing. (Carla Shynkaruk / CTV News)

With seven months under their belt, Gather Local Market at River Landing continues to try new ideas to move their concept forward. The latest addition is helping small businesses get off the ground.

Making authentic Thai food is something Tassanee Nithisaasin is passionate about.

“Thai food is quite different from where I come from so I would like to introduce the authentic flavour to people of Saskatoon,” she told CTV News.

She moved here from Thailand two years ago and after friends told her she should try selling her food, she came across a new opportunity at Gather Local Market.

“It's really important in helping new entrepreneurs to start their business,” she said.

Gather Market opened in May after years of delays, now they’re focused on honing their product to best meet the needs of the community.

 “We built a kitchen that's now available for the community. Very exciting to be now presenting and having people serving in the space. To go from concept to execution in such a short amount of time is very exciting,” Interim CEO Adrea Propp said.

Entrepreneurs wanting to start up a food business can give it a try in their test collective kitchen. Funding for the space and start up for the business is ATB Wealth.

“Getting the lease, commercial kitchen and the hefty investment at the beginning is challenging so this is a very good opportunity for me to test out my idea,” Nithisaasin said.

Gather Local Market has been working to make the market as viable as possible for the long-term and that includes having to scale back from a six day a week to a five day a week operation for the winter.

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This was a contentious issue with the previous tenant – The Saskatoon Farmer’s Market, but the city is committed to making Gather Market a success, according to Propp.

“Obviously they're never happy to see changes they talked about that have been discussed in the past, but they are understanding, and they do want to see this project thrive and succeed.”

The summer was busy, according to Propp, and they’re working to continue that momentum. They’re working at getting people down to market square to gather with more ideas up their sleeve like offering an option for patrons to buy grocery store items by expanding the Sask. Made Market booth.

As for Nithisaasin, she’s opened in the space twice already and says customers are happy.

“It's wonderful. They say they never had food like this tasty before,” she said.

Thanks to the opportunity she’s been given here, she’s looking to the future when she can get a permanent space of her own.

Businesses can visit the Gather Local website for information on the collective kitchen project.