Proudly Local Business: Camrose’s The Sweeterie

 “We’re just thrilled that we can give everybody a little bit of joy through our baking.”

If you find yourself wandering the streets of downtown Camrose, you’re bound to follow your nose to this popular dessert haven: The Sweeterie. Once you step inside and find yourself enveloped in the heavenly scent of freshly baked goods and sweets, you’ll be glad you did.

But the Sweeterie isn't just any bakery. It has humble beginnings as the brainchild of visionary home baker, Tania Greenwald, who never imagined her hobby as a stay-at-home mom would one day turn into a downtown business. 

While on maternity leave in 2013, Tania started making cakes and cupcakes through trial and error at home. “I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but I got bored of that real fast,” jokes Tania. To keep herself busy, she continued to make cakes for family members and her daughter’s birthday every year. Tania’s talent didn’t go unnoticed. Soon, her family and friends started asking her to make cakes for their events, too.

That’s when Tania realized it was time to turn cake-making into a business, so in 2016, Cute & Classy Cakes was born. Tania began making cakes and cupcakes for locals year-round, and soon, her business became too much for her home kitchen to handle.  “We got busy enough to the point where we had to build a commercial kitchen on our acreage,” she says. 

But in early 2020, the onset of the pandemic forced Tania to change focus. “I suddenly went from supplying 40 wedding cakes right down to about eight,” she says. “All I could think was, ‘Oh my goodness, what are we going to do?’”

But Tania wasn’t going down without a fight. “I just started baking different things that weren’t usually my norm,” she says, and that’s when Cute & Classy Cakes became The Sweeterie.

The first few months of growing her business under a new name meant a gruelling schedule. Tania spent every night baking comfort food items, like doughnuts and cupcakes, that could be packaged individually in her commercial kitchen at home. The following morning, she and her husband would load up coolers for two hours and drive them into town, where she could sell her treats at a local flower shop.

“During those first few months of COVID, we were having over 100 people a day come to pick stuff up. That’s when her husband finally said, ‘We can’t do this anymore, we need our own space.’”

Tania and her husband decided to set up shop on their own. “We put an offer in on an older building and constructed it during the closures of COVID,” she says. In August of 202, when the renovations were complete, and the COVID restrictions started to lift, The Sweeterie had its grand opening. “We’ve been going strong in that space ever since.”

Tania’s favourite part of being a business owner has been watching people’s excitement when they walk through the doors. “My tagline is, ‘Sprinkle a little joy into your day,’ and that falls to me as a person as well,” she says. “I built this business based on the strong community here. Helping the community, whether it be with our baking or with fundraisers, is the best part of what we do.”

The Sweeterie continues to make a name for itself in Camrose, and Tania isn’t planning on slowing down anytime soon. “It would be great to be able to expand our candy section, have a nice café and a space for birthday parties and classes,” she says. “I have this goal to get into a space on main street where we can do what we’re doing now but five times as big.” 

While expansion is on the horizon, Tania reminds herself every day of where she started and how far she’s come. “It’s insane that we employ five full-time and four part-time team members when I thought I was only going to have me and my daughter working here,” she says. “That’s pretty cool for somebody who thought they were only going to do $100 a day in sales.” 

Whether you're a regular visitor or a curious passerby, this bakery is a place where every bite tells a story of passion, perseverance, and the magic of a small-town community. “We love our community, and our community loves us,” says Tania. “We’re just thrilled that we can give everybody a little bit of joy through our baking.”