West Kelowna's Little Creek Salad dressing celebrating 30 years

Iconic business turning 30

It's not every day an iconic Okanagan business turns 30 years old.

Back in July 1995, Donna Denison just wanted a way to stay home with her children on their West Kelowna farm, so she came up with the idea of bottling and selling her salad dressing.

"I used the recipe for years. I was a child of the 60s, ate organic, healthy food. So I'd always made this dressing in a jar. And I just thought, you know what, I'm going to bottle this."

Denison says at first her Little Creek salad dressing found fans wherever it was available.

"The timing was really great for me."

Denison came along at a time when there was a shift towards healthy eating and she got a boost from her neighbours, local businesses and a certain well-known local chef.

"Rod Butters—who had Fresco's then—he had a big wine event and invited all these people, and he gave everybody a bottle of my Little Creek dressing. I was so grateful for that, because, you know, a chef like that to actually love the dressing was such a boost for me," said Denison.

The dressing also has ties to the Okanagan wine industry. "I really like the wine bottle shape," she said, explaining she teamed up with a local winemaker to use the same bottles, bottling equipment and label maker.

"My dad would sit for hours and label for me," Denison said. "The wine industry was an inspiration for sure."

Deb Helbig, general manager of Little Creek Salad Dressing, says the business was on the verge of expanding into the United States before Donald Trump started his trade war and they decided to shift gears.

"We had a very busy first three months of the year, and I think that is due to retailers trying to build more displays of Canadian products, so bumping up their orders, trying to make more product available," Helbig said.

Little Creek Salad Dressing can be found across B.C. and is slowly expanding into Ontario and Quebec.

"We're getting comments on our Facebook page every day about, 'are you from Canada?' And you know, just everybody is really happy to support local people, local businesses right now. So it's wonderful," says Helbig.

The official birthday for the business is on July 28, 2025 — 30 years to that day that Dennison sold her first box of dressing. She hasn't made up her mind about a celebration just yet but she loves showing people around her property and telling stories about her first love—her family.