19-05-2025
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Pickle your fancy? From Pamela Anderson to Harry Styles, and from Jimmy John's and Zabar's, to Hobbs Pickles and Amo Ago, these celebrities and businesses have a thing for preserved cukes
A woman sheepishly approaches the counter at Hobbs Pickles in Vancouver's Granville Island Public Market.
'I just finished the container of honey mustard pickles and need to buy another one to take home,' she says.
Half an hour earlier the customer had bought two plastic containers of pickles, and while walking through the market – which is full of food stalls, from fresh fruit to savoury pies and chocolates – she had inadvertently finished one and needed to replenish her supply.
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Owner Chris Hobson hears things like this all the time.
Kosher Dill Chips are just one of the many varieties made by Hobbs Pickles in Vancouver. Photo: Handout
'People ask us, 'Am I going to be OK if I eat the whole container?' And we say, 'We're not doctors, but a lot of people do eat the whole container and they'll bring the empty one back to us.''
Hobson adds that one pickle fiend is the English singer-songwriter
Harry Styles , who bought the shop's entire stock of sweet pickles one day last December.
When Hobson launched the business in 2017, all the pickles were snapped up in two days.
'I thought, 'This is something that no one else is doing,' and we had this ability to connect with so many different people. A lot of food groups don't have the same kind of history that pickles do,' he explains.
