Mary Ekman is one of the Pizzey sisters and owners of Manitoba Milling Co. Below you’ll learn more about Mary’s role within the company (a little bit of everything!). Mary lives in Minnesota with her husband and 2 girls.

Follow along on our Instagram stories on Wednesday, August 19, 2020 to get to know Mary a little better.

Tell us a little about yourself. What is your role with Manitoba Milling Co.?

Truly a little bit of everything, and I really like it that way. We’re a very small company so I end up doing everything from sales -> formulations ->hands on order fulfillment ->driving a forklift ->bookkeeping. Looking forward to the day when a few of the things like bookkeeping can be moved over to someone else much more skilled in such areas 

Did you always work for the family company?

I have worked for 3 other companies, all very large and all in the food industry. I really enjoyed my time at them (2 multi-national dairy companies and one cereal company) but I’d say I like working for Manitoba Milling Company much better, you simply don’t know what the day will bring 

What is your favorite memory from growing up on the Pizzey Family Flaxseed Farm?

Driving a tractor (or any farm machinery for that matter, we did it all), riding my bike wherever and whenever, and looking forward to our next batch of kittens. What I didn’t like was working in our bakery – which we also had onsite for a number of years, I was always much happier being outside, or working in our flax mill.

What is your favorite way to use Milled Flaxseed or Flax Milk?

I absolutely love our unsweetened flax milk in a bowl of hot oatmeal…. It’s so creamy and tastes wonderful. I love to put our milled flaxseed in yogurt (Chobani is my favorite), I also love baking with it. I replace oil in pancakes and muffins with our finely milled flaxseed.