foodsources
slick spread
Von Slick’ s butters bring rich flavour to everyday cooking— ready to spread.
By Laurie Hughes
In the world of food, sometimes a humble ingredient steals the spotlight. That’ s exactly what’ s happened with Von Slick’ s Finishing Butters, a Manitoba company redefining how home cooks add chef like flavour touch to their meals.
Born deep in Manitoba’ s heartland, Von Slick’ s story is as rich as the buttery tubes themselves: part culinary expertise, part entrepreneurial gusto, and all about elevating everyday food into something memorable.
Rob Sengotta and Landon Kroeker, the duo behind the brand, first crossed paths while working at Buffalo Point Resort in southeastern Manitoba. Rob, a French-trained chef with decades of kitchen experience across Europe and Canada, brought deep culinary knowledge. Landon’ s background in marketing gave him a knack for telling stories and connecting with people.
Their friendship matured into a business idea in 2020 when Rob casually suggested creating a packaged version of the compound butter he’ d long used in fine dining kitchens. To Rob, the concept was intuitive. Finishing butters are a staple in European kitchens, yet for most Canadian cooks, this chefs’ flavour weapon was largely unknown. This“ lightbulb idea” moment, Landon later recalled,“ just made so much sense,” even if they both knew the path ahead would be anything but simple.
Turning a chef’ s cooking technique into a retail product goes beyond recipe development. It posed a logistical puzzle. The partners spent countless long days and nights figuring out how to make compound butter accessible to home cooks and food lovers.
That included navigating the unfamiliar landscape of consumer-packaged goods, a category neither had worked in before. The breakthrough was in the packaging. Traditionally, compound butters are rolled and frozen in restaurants, but that wasn’ t suited to retail distribution. Inspired by an everyday glue stick, Rob proposed a push-tube format, which could protect the butter’ s shape,
Photography by Von Slick ' s, Steve Salnikowski, chronic creative
16 ciao! / feb / mar / two thousand twenty-six