Ontario Built

For Laura Erasmus, Moose Cookies is about much more than baking a great cookie. It’s a family business built around creativity, quality, and the simple joy of sharing something made with care. Based in Trenton, Ontario, Moose Cookies creates handcrafted stuffed cookies with fillings inspired by favourite desserts, nostalgic flavours and memories from Laura’s life and travels. Each cookie is made with carefully selected ingredients, including real vanilla beans, premium European chocolate and nuts roasted in-house. But behind every cookie is a story—and at the centre of that story is family. Laura is the owner and baker behind Moose Cookies, but the business name itself belongs to someone very special. “Moose” is the nickname of Laura’s son, making the name a personal reflection of the family behind the business. He is the inspiration behind the brand, and naming the business after him was Laura’s way of keeping family at the heart of everything she was building. Even the Moose Cookies ...

For Shaun Benoliel, Bubbis Cookies started with something surprisingly simple: a search for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. Not the biggest cookie. Not the trendiest cookie. Not one loaded with unusual flavours just for the sake of being different. Shaun was looking for the cookie he remembered from childhood — the kind his grandmother, Gloria, affectionately known as “Bubbi,” used to make. “I could never find it in Toronto,” Shaun explains. “Everything here felt thick, cakey, overly sugary, or chasing the flavour of the week. I wasn’t after novelty. I wanted the quintessential cookie, the one I’d actually want to eat.” So, rather than settling, Shaun decided to make it himself. What began as a personal search quickly turned into a serious project. Shaun spent six months testing hundreds of variations, experimenting with cook times, ingredient ratios and different combinations until he finally arrived at a cookie he felt lived up to the one he had been chasing. But Shaun wasn’t simp...

  For Tom Mercante, food has always been about more than what is on the plate. It is about family, tradition, hospitality and bringing people together. As the founder, owner and Executive Chef of Mercasa Little Italy Eatery & Catering in Brantford, Ontario, Tom has turned that belief into a business that continues to grow while staying firmly rooted in the values that inspired it. Mercasa is an Italian eatery, bakery and full-service catering company offering everything from Roman-style pizza and fresh pasta to its signature eight-layer lasagna, chicken cutlets, arancini, antipasto boards and house-made desserts. The business also caters weddings, corporate functions, family celebrations, community events and gatherings of hundreds of people. But the story behind Mercasa goes much deeper than its menu. The name Mercasa is a combination of Tom’s family name, Mercante , and the Italian word casa , meaning home. That meaning is at the heart of the business. Tom’s family comes fr...