Bick’s Pickles was coincidentally the result of a
“pickle” itself, an unfavourable situation that ended up reaping lucrative
results.
Back in 1939, Bick’s founder George Bick and his family, including sons
Walter and Thomas, were looking to escape Nazi persecution in Europe. Posing as Christian farmers, the family
left Amsterdam and successfully resettled in Canada on a farm north of Toronto, ready to begin cultivating
cucumbers for Rose Brand pickles.
A hot summer in 1944 left the Bick family with an
abundance of cucumbers, more than Rose Brand could accept. Deciding to pickle them instead of putting them
back into the soil turned out to be the best decision of George, Thomas and Walter's lives. What was simply a
strategy to avoid waste resulted in a food enterprise of continued success and
popularity.
Sixty-seven years later, Walter, the man who
reportedly made it a priority to visit every Bick’s retailer — and interestingly enough didn’t care
for the taste of pickles, with the exception of kosher dills — has recently passed away at the age of 94. The
pickles he started with his father, on the other hand, are ever present, in a sandwich or as a snack
staple.
So next time you take a bite of a pickle, keep in
mind its long-rooted history —figuratively speaking.•