New Creemore 100 Mile Store owners come from afar

The only things not from 100 miles of the Creemore 100 Mile Store are the new owners.
The store has sold to Linda de Winter and Christian Klockl-Greimel, who live in Switzerland.
They were in Creemore April 5 to close the deal before heading back home. They will be engaging with their newly acquired business from afar until they are able to relocate to the area. Store manager Neal Connolly will be staying on to take care of the business.
De Winter is Canadian, and regularly returns home to visit her parents in Midland. On one trip, while on the hunt for an investment opportunity, they drove through Creemore. They had heard about Creemore because of Miller’s Dairy milk but surprisingly, they had not heard of the beer.
Klockl-Greimel said as soon as they turned onto the main street he could see in de Winter’s eyes he had lost her. Once here, they saw a community they wanted to be a part of. De Winter said they had been thinking of investing in a café or something but when they saw that the store was for sale, their plans changed.
As for its founders, Jackie Durnford and Sandra Lackie, they plan to sit around, drink some wine and work on their screenplay (joking, not joking).
They will be sticking around to assist with the transition, for which the new owners say they are grateful.
“We don’t plan any changes,” said Klockl-Greimel, except for some website enhancements. “We like the concept as it is. The idea is just great.”
He and de Winter say the 100-mile concept represents everything they find frustrating about traditional grocery stores.
“The weird part is that products are cheaper even though they come from far away and it makes no sense,” said de Winter. “It’s important to support the local community and it adds to its charm.”
Creemore 100 Mile Store carries a variety of goods – including produce, meat, dry goods and prepared foods – sourced from small to medium sized area growers and producers.
“The nice thing is that you have a direct line to the farmer to get information about a product,” said Lackie.
Although the new owners will be working from afar they do plan to visit often and relocate to the village at some point in the future.
At home in Switzerland they both work in intralogistics.
Klockl-Greimel is a sales director for a company that optimizes and manages the logistical flow of goods of warehouses and distribution centres through automation.
De Winter is a draftsperson, designing and drawing things like mezzanines and mobile racking systems (in 2D and 3D) for effective storage in warehouses.