After cementing relationships with suppliers of biodegradable plastics and ethically sourced sugar, the founders of Nova Scotia’s Pavia Gallery Espresso Bar & Café are now celebrating an EY Entrepreneur of The Year award.
Victoria Foulger, Pavia CEO and co-founder, was presented with the hospitality and tourism award for the Atlantic region last month.
“Pavia has won many awards but this turns the spotlight on Victoria’s leadership,” said her partner in business and in life, co-founder Christopher Webb.
That leadership includes making decisions that prioritize ethical concerns that are important to the founders and increasingly important to consumers — concerns such as sustainability and ethical sourcing.
Pavia is known for operating atmospheric Italian cafes and adjoining art galleries that showcase local and international talent. Pavia has four locations — Herring Cove Road, the Nova Scotia Art Gallery, and on the ground and top floors of the Halifax Central Library.
The cafes aim to be authentically Italian, serving imported Florentine espresso and a range of Italian pastries alongside fare such as paninis and soups.
What is less well known is that Foulger and Webb also strive to run an ethical business. Webb said that one of the reasons Foulger won the EY award was Pavia’s emphasis on buying locally and sustainably.
Pavia uses locally sourced and fair trade products wherever possible. They have recently begun receiving sugar from La Siembra Co-operative, a.k.a. Camino, in Ottawa.
All plastic products used in Pavia’s to-go orders will soon be biodegradable, supplied by Toronto-based Green Shift.
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Webb said that Pavia buys 5,000 eggs each month from Coldspring Farms in the Annapolis Valley. The eggs are free range and organic. Meat comes from Meadowbrook farms, where the size of their order is responsible for 1.5 full-time jobs.
“We want to be a conduit for people in downtown Halifax to invest in our rural farms,” Webb said. “At times, it’s been difficult because of that. When we were growing, it was easy to think of cutting our egg prices — we could have saved $15,000 a year.”
He and Foulger have also created their own gardens and are working toward becoming a zero-waste food business.
Supporting local charities is another priority. The company donates around $24,000 a year to Halifax causes. Employees have swum in the ocean in January for the YWCA and run the Blue Nose Marathon for the IWK Foundation.
Webb, who is also a visual artist, and Foulger, a British-born nurse, began Pavia at their Herring Cove location in 2011, naming the café for Webb’s Italian grandmother, Maddalena Pavia.
Webb said the café and gallery seemed a natural progression for him and Foulger who, after they were introduced by friends, discovered a shared passion for Italy and began running art and cultural tours to the country.
The tours began in 2008 and the couple still take16 people a year to Italy for a celebration of “food, wine, art and wine.” Next year’s excursion will be to Umbria and Tuscany.
An Italian-themed café and an art gallery were perhaps not obvious choices for Herring Cove, but Webb said they felt they could make it work if “the difference was worth the distance.” That philosophy still applies. “If people are going to walk past all the other cafes on Spring Garden Road, Pavia has to be worth it,” he said.
Many clearly do find the distance worth it. Pavia now employs 35 people, both in the day-to-day businesses and in catering events.