To serve and protect Inconceivable business concept just months ago, downtown retail outlet wants to be Winnipeg's one-stop PPE shop By: Temur Durrani  Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Tuesday, Sep. 8, 2020

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This article was published 07/09/2020 (1473 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Face masks and shields, gloves and gowns, sanitizers and sterilizing stations, foggers and sprayers.

Those are among the products for sale at Exchange PPE, which opens its Bannatyne Avenue doors Thursday.

“It’s not like what we’re doing is reinventing the wheel, by any means,” says Josh Giesbrecht, president of the Indigenous owned-and-operated company devoted entirely to selling personal protective equipment.

“But it’s a new economy and we’re definitely meeting a massive demand.”

Giesbrecht said he’s hoping the new boutique-style outlet at 171 Bannatyne will soon become the “Apple Store for affordable pandemic planning.”

He said he couldn’t conceive of a business entirely dedicated to sales of PPE as recently as three months ago.

“I know it isn’t the kind of enterprise that’ll last forever,” he said. “But it’s the kind of enterprise that’ll keep growing and changing as demand shifts throughout the pandemic — whether that be turning from sanitizers to foggers, or further beyond.”

Online sales and daily deliveries are expected to launch in a couple of weeks, he said, adding the company is also selling wholesale to small and medium-sized businesses across the province.

Before the pandemic, Giesbrecht worked in the legal cannabis industry, creating CBD products for sale in Akwesasne and Mohawk territories in Ontario.

It was the Winnipegger’s contacts in the hemp industry, he said, that allowed him to urgently begin a search for PPE supplies when those territories started mandating lockdowns.

“As the pandemic hit Canada in March, I very quickly saw the need for something like this,” he said. “Especially for remote Indigenous communities, as someone who’s from the Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation himself, I felt a sense of responsibility to see what I could do about this.”

Seeking permission to enter one Indigenous community at a time beginning in late May, Giesbrecht and his business partners began providing affordable PPE to several First Nations in Manitoba.

“As we now open ourselves up to the rest of the country, we’re still hoping to keep Indigenous communities as our major focus,” he said.

Noel Bernier, CEO of the company, said a large part of their business approach is to “educate the masses.”

“When customers walk through our doors, they aren’t just going to look at all these various different pandemic solutions we’re bringing them,” he said. “They’re also going to know about why they’re there in the first place.”

“The government can only tell you so much about how you can protect yourself best, and at the end of the day, we want you to walk out knowing more about these solutions than your knowledge walking in.”

temur.durrani@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @temurdur