CITY VIEW: Always in a pickle

Marty Strub's family has been in the pickle business since the 1920s and, since the family business was sold, he's been using his great-grandparents' recipe and methods to build his own venture.

MARTY STRUB knows one thing very well: pickles. His family name still lives on jars of kosher dills – a family business that dates back to its launch in a Hamilton backyard in the 1920s. Strub has lived in one square mile for most of his life. He grew up in Westdale with his parents and two brothers and raised his own three children there, too. Strub went to Westdale High School and earned a degree in religious studies from York University before serving as production manager at Strub’s Pickles until the business was sold in 2008. Marty now produces his own hand-packed line of pickles in Hamilton under the brand name Marty’s Pickles. He is father to three and grandfather to seven.

What sets your pickles apart?

First of all, it's an old proven recipe, and it's made with fresh ingredients and with care and with love in small batches. Most of our bottles are hand-packed, hand-sealed and hand-labelled.  

I make the brine and the pickles in barrels at a farm out in Norfolk County, with growers that we've been dealing with for over 50 years. When I started, my father would come out and help.

The cucumbers that I make for the original brine pickles in barrels are all Canadian cucumbers. The other two pickles that I make are made from fresh cucumbers, so they have to be made every two weeks. In the summer, they're coming from my local farmer. And the rest of the time, I go to the Ontario food terminal every other week to pick up 30 or 40 bushels of cucumbers to make my Chicago-style pickles, which have to be made with a fresh cucumber. They are not brined. They have a fresh pickle taste. It's just a different style.

Because we were making such a volume of pickles (at Strub’s Pickles), we were using more modern ways of making the product. The recipe changed over time, just to accommodate the larger batches. So when I started Marty's Pickles 10 years ago, I basically went back to the way my great-grandparents made the pickles, and I'm following that recipe. And that's what I'm striving to do, to be as pure and as fresh as possible, no preservatives.

I've been making pickles since I was 12 years old, I started working in the summers at the factory, which was on Mill Street in Dundas and I've been making pickles ever since. So it's really in my blood, and it's really the only thing I know how to do. But don't tell anybody.

How did Marty’s Pickles begin?

I've always made pickles just on the side, and gave them to friends and family. And I started doing that in Israel the year I was there. And I was like, basically making pickles on my back porch in barrels, and selling them to friends and family there. And I said to my wife, that if we ever end up back in Hamilton and I have nothing to do, I'm going to make pickles again, and that's what I did. 

What is the size of your operation? 

So the first year I started, I made 9,000 bottles, which sounds like a lot, but it's not very many. And now it’s 10 years later, and I'm making about 90,000 bottles. I'm the only full-time employee and my wife helps out a lot. I hire people as I need them to help pack or brine the pickles. Some of the people that I hire used to work for me 30 years ago. I just really service independent and chain stores (Lococos, Metro, Fortinos, Goodness Me!) in the Golden Horseshoe area and I sell online.

I've just grown organically. I started with one product, and now I have about eight or nine different products that I sell. But I'm not trying to sell to more stores. I'm just trying to sell to the stores that I have because I really can't grow that much more unless I start hiring people. I don't want to have big overhead. I've had 200 employees. That wasn’t always that much fun. This is much more fun.

What is the greatest satisfaction in the work you do?

What makes me happy about doing this is really the satisfaction when people call me or tell me, or write to me and say, ‘These are the best pickles. I love them. They taste like you used to make them. And keep going, keep doing it.’ And that's what makes me happy. I'm just happy satisfying people with the pickles.

What is the greatest challenge?

The greatest challenge now is I think that it's grown so much, and how do I accommodate that and still keep it like a one-person operation.

You have pickle-making recipes and videos on your website. Why do you teach people how to make pickles themselves?

Because ever since I've been in the pickle business, I always get phone calls, especially in the summer. People call up and say, “I made a batch of pickles and they don't taste right. What should I do? I said, Well, I don't know what you did, so I can't tell you what to do.” So I decided  to provide pickle recipes that are basic, homemade, classic pickles with vinegar. My main product, the original brine pickle, is a fermented product with cucumbers, salt water, garlic, dill, spices, into a barrel. They naturally ferment, just like wine ferments. The fermentation process creates lactic acid, and that's what gives it that sourness. The other pickles, like my Chicago style pickles, or my bread and butter pickles, they're made with vinegar, which stops the fermentation process. That gives you the sourness and the preservation. So it's two different styles of pickles. For the old canning style of pickling with vinegar, I'm giving the proper proportions to use with the salt and vinegar and water, and then they can spice it any which way they want. They can make it sweet, they can make it hot, they can make it garlicky, more dill. And that's what I wanted to be able to provide, because people are always asking, and people love to make pickles.

Tell us about the history of your family business in pickles.

My great grandparents came from the Ukraine in the 1920s along with my grandfather, my great uncle and great aunt. My grandfather was about 15 years old, and during the Depression, my great grandfather didn't have work, and he went into the local Jewish grocer on York Street, and the grocer said to him, ‘Do you know anybody that has pickles? I ran out of pickles.’ He says, ‘Well, my wife makes pickles. Do you want to try them?’ He said, ‘Sure.’ So he brought them in, and people liked them, and the grocer asked if we could make more. And that's how the business started. So they kept making pickles in their backyard on Mulberry Street downtown. And when my grandfather married, he bought the house next door, and they had barrels in both backyards. On Macaulay street they also had a pop factory called Strub’s Beverages, which they sold in the 1960s.

As a kid, I was tightening jars, coopering barrels, rolling barrels, standing barrels up, adding ingredients, making salt water. You know, as a 12 year old kid, my father had me making salt water with 100 pound bags of salt. Wow. It made me very strong and I would tighten 10,000 jars a day by hand.

From about 1955 to 1989 we were on Mill Street in Dundas in what is now Turkstra Lumber. Then we ran out of space and moved to Brantford. 

Strub’s Pickles grew and grew and grew. And you know, we were selling pickles basically all over North America. I was in charge of production and one of my brothers handled the finances and another was in charge of sales.

What led to selling the business in 2008?

The business grew large and quickly and then the financial crisis happened, and the banks went a little crazy. So we had to sell the business. And then three or four years later, the people who we sold it to went bankrupt. Whyte’s Foods, out of Quebec, bought the business, and they asked me to run it again. I came back from Israel to run it for about a year and then they moved all the production to Quebec (from the Strub’s facility in Brantford), and then subsequently, just a year and a bit ago, that company went bankrupt, too. Now the Strub’s brand and the Whyte’s brand were bought by another company that is having the product made in India and Germany.

You had to give up a dream to live in Israel and work as a tour guide in order to rescue the Strub’s brand out of bankruptcy and set up a new owner to carry on with it. What was that like?

I always dreamed about taking this two-year tour guide course in Israel and my wife Debbie and I got to live there for a year. In this program, you basically have to learn the history of the three major religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and a 3,000-year history of the land. And it's like getting a master's in history. It's very intense. I didn’t get to finish it but maybe that’s my next career.

Coming back to run the business was actually good closure for me. I did it for a year, and had hundreds of employees. And I realized, you know, I'd much rather be a much smaller producer.

Have you seen an effect of the buy Canada movement in response to the U.S. tariffs and sovereignty threats?

It’s a little early but I think it will be helpful. I think we all should be buying Canadian. We certainly shouldn't be buying from the United States if we don't have to.

Why did you return to Hamilton to launch Marty’s Pickles?

I still had my house in Hamilton, my parents are here, my daughter lives here. We weren’t going back to Israel because our first grandchild was coming. And this is where I've been my whole life. Hamilton's my city.

What was it like to grow up in Hamilton?

Growing up in west Hamilton, I think it was like growing up in any area in Hamilton in the late ’60s or early ’70s, everybody knew everybody in the neighborhood. I went to school with a lot of kids whose parents went to school with my parents.

How would you describe Hamilton as a place to live and work?

It's got everything that a big city has and it's also like a small city. It’s a nice, easy place to live.

What's the most Hamilton thing about you?

I don't know what makes one a Hamiltonian, but I certainly feel like one.

What neighbourhood do you live in, and what do you love about it?

I live in Westdale and every street and every house I have a connection to because I’ve been here almost all my life. I like that it has a little commercial area, and it backs onto the woods. 

What’s your ideal way to spend a lazy day in Hamilton?

Going for a walk in the woods at Churchill Park to Sassafras point and walking the Botanical Garden. That whole area is just fantastic. It’s minutes from my house. You can walk along the rail trail and in 10 minutes, you're on the escarpment. That's what's really amazing about Hamilton. Here you are in a relatively large metropolitan area, but within five or 10 minutes, either driving or riding your bike or walking, you're in a beautiful environment.

What’s your favourite meal in the city?

AA Pizza on Wheels. It's a kosher pizza and it’s very good. We share a commercial kitchen. He makes the pizzas there and sells them out of his garage.

What is your favourite artistic or cultural experience in Hamilton?

I have to say the Tiger Cats. And it’s nice that we have the (Hamilton) Philharmonic (Orchestra). 

To have that in Hamilton is fantastic. You go to plays. You go to music. There's always something going on, even now at the Westdale Theatre. 

What’s the one thing you brag about Hamilton to outsiders?

It really is the nature that’s here in a big city. You can't say enough about that. It's just fantastic. There’s ice skating on Coote’s Paradise. Or tobogganing or snowshoeing. There's everything here with all the water, plus all the waterfalls.

What is Hamilton’s best-kept secret?

I'd say Dundas is Hamilton's best kept secret.

Hamilton needs more of…?

Better publicity.

Hamilton needs less of…?

Potholes

Who inspires you?

I listen to a lot of podcasts because I'm driving a lot. So I would say Sam Harris. He is very well known. He is a huge following. He's very he's into meditation, but he's also a neuroscientist. He’s really a cultural icon.

What has been the greatest gift in your life?

My wife and kids and good health.