In a struggling economy, a feel-good story is always great to hear.

Coming up with an idea and turning it into real-life success, has not come without challenges. Jacqueline Day, Founder, Real Treat, has weathered many storms but her recent nominee for 'Mompreneur of the Year Award' has had her reflect on her journey of how far she has come in a relatively short period of time.

Her business Real Treat makes unapologetically delicious organic cookies without compromising ingredients or taste. Over the past 3 1/2 years, Day has taken her business from dream to reality and her future looks amazingly bright with product hitting shelves across Canada and a new line being launched. 

Helping Real Treat's success was Day's opportunity to be a cohort of former Dragons' Den, Arlene Dickinson's, District Ventures where she along with 11 other companies were mentored and exposed to knowledge, connections and education that led her to sign a major distribution agreement. "At the end of the six months I had the opportunity to introduce my business to a room full of investors, influencers, distributors, and retailers from across the country and from that Real Treat, received six distribution offers and I ended up signing with the largest national distributor in North America of natural and organic foods. We first started distributing with them in the spring in just Ontario and Quebec and now we have expanded to across the whole country with Western Canada just coming on board in the last six weeks. We just smashed our record for production to smithereens last Sunday thanks to this distribution partnership, and in four days we made 25,000 cookies."

Being nominated for the award is incredibly touching, shares Day, who says being an entrepreneur is incredibly hard and requires a certain level of grit to make it through. "You've got to dig deep and just keep moving forward. Yes there are obstacles, yes there are challenges, there are always paths...over, under, through just find them and keep going. That has been my motto for the past three years. It is nice to have an opportunity, thanks to the nomination, to really look back at the past three years and think about what has been achieved for this little cookie company."

Real Treat is the only Cochrane business in the running and one of a handful representing Alberta. Day needs to beat out her competition by securing as many online votes as she can to advance to the finalist stage of the awards, which would be an incredible opportunity. " To be nominated was a great honour, to be a finalist would be remarkable, to win would be outstanding. Winning this would mean $30,000 for my business, a lot of national media coverage, and professional/coaching services that would be made available to me...and having the title and the publicity would be great for Real Treat. I would love to have an opportunity to speak about Cochrane on a national base too and talk about some of the things that are happening in our rural communities in Canada."

To vote for Day and Real Treat go HERE. You can cast your daily vote until 11:59 pm on December 10 and finalists will be announced January 12, 2018.

Real Treat employs three local community members and you go learn all about the company here.

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Cochrane Business Selected for 'District Ventures'