Mandi Lunan, Food Business Coach

Hi there, I’m Mandi Lunan and I bring over a decade of real life experience as a small culinary business owner to my food business education and advisory services.

I approach clients and my education curriculum with a practical, no nonsense, hands-on approach, tailor made to meet todays food, beverage and agricultural business needs and challenges. Most importantly I use plain language, real experiences and am not boring.

Get in touch today and see what she can do for you

My food business services include webinar and workshop teaching for small groups and organizations, 1:1 advisory for businesses that are growing, mature or just starting, food + beverage community programming and public relations / crisis management.

I have something for everyone in the independent culinary business community, no matter what stage or size. Scroll past the pics below to read the story of my entrepreneurial ups and downs.

2024 UPDATE: Outside of 1-2 day speaking engagements, I cannot accept any new bookings until December 2024.

I have been an entrepreneur since 2003, and I am the Founder and sole employee of Mandi Lunan Food Business Coach.

I have worked with diverse food and beverage based clients in all stages of the business life cycle in North and Central America since 2016.

At the age of 23 I founded Eastern Ontario's very first vegan bakery - Auntie Loo's Treats - thanks to incubating and a micro loan from the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. At my peak I brokered distribution deals before the age of 30 with grocery giants Whole Foods, Farmboy and Aramark, and even dabbled in the local wedding industry. After a poorly executed scale up and a devastating bicycle accident I suffered a professional burnout and closed the bakery.  

After that lonely experience I realized my purpose and began my mission. I went through what I did so that as my attendee or client you won’t have to.

I am renowned for my discretion, empathy, positive attitude, and creativity. My clients have described me as a “Business Fairy Godmother and Pollinator”, a “Human Rolodex of the best people in the industry” and one was even heard to comment, “My only regret is not hiring her sooner.”

I relocated from Ottawa to the South Kootenays region of British Columbia in the fall of 2020 with my longtime partner Chris Wattie, my books, and an obscene amount of lipstick I’ll never be able to wear all of in my lifetime. I was ready for some quiet and a less stressful lifestyle. I love it here and am particularly proud of the new work I have been doing advising folks in agriculture.

In my spare time I enjoy reading medieval history or Sci Fi novels, paddling with Dragon Boat Team the Kootenay Robusters, performing as my old west alter ego “Payday Pearl” with can can group the Boomtown Garter Girls, and finding new and delicious places in the Kootenays.

Ms. Lunan acknowledges and appreciates that the land on which she lives, works and plays is the converging, traditional and unceded territory of the Syilx, Secwepemc, Sinixt and Ktunaxa Peoples as well as the Métis Peoples. In offering this land acknowledgment, she affirms Indigenous sovereignty, history and experiences.