MEET THE MAKER: IT’S ALIVE!
Christina Sisson set out to make a yogurt that suited her personal tastes, but things just kept growing. The result is Fauna Yogurt, a company that is on the move.
Christina Sisson set out to make a yogurt that suited her personal tastes, but things just kept growing. The result is Fauna Yogurt, a company that is on the move.
christina Sisson says her path to making yogurt started as a reaction to mass- produced, over- processed yogurts laden with unnecessary ingredients and artificial sugars. But besides being no fan of things like carrageenan and Aspartame, she prefers yogurt that is a little on the tart side.
Things went so well that, last spring, Sisson decided to turn her passion for good yogurt into a business. And so the Fauna Yogurt Company was born. “Yogurt has microfauna in it, so the name is a play on being alive,” she says. “Making it is so interesting. I put the milk in and let it go. It’s like magic, the transformation.”
That magic takes place at a commercial kitchen in southeast Calgary. She generally creates five main flavours: plain ( her favourite), honey and lavender, Earl Grey tea, cinnamon- maple and cocoa. Each yogurt is packaged in a reusable, recyclable glass jar; Sisson charges a 25- cent deposit on each jar, which she refunds when the jar is returned. She then sterilizes and reuses the containers.
Born in California, Sisson, 24, grew up in Calgary and graduated from Strathcona- Tweedsmuir School. Last year, she finished an honours undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Calgary. She hasn’t given up on the idea of further schooling, acknowledging the time and effort she has already put into her education, but says she would have regretted not pursuing her yogurt business. “I knew if I didn’t try this, I’d always wonder if I could have done it,” she says. “I’m probably not going to have a straight path for a career. I think that’s just part of my nature. It’s better to embrace it than to fight it.” When she’s not making yogurt, she’s “a big DIY- er,” she says with a laugh. She loves to write, cook, sew and do yoga and archery. She’s also big into cosplay— dressing up as characters from favourite TV shows and movies. “I love Game of Thrones, especially Daenerys Targaryen,” she says.
Adventure looms large in her real life, too. In between her studies, she has travelled extensively: Laos, Cambodia, Thailand. After high school, she spent two months teaching English in Rwanda. And she credits a trip to India as some of the inspiration for her business. “India was incredibly inspiring for me. I tasted as many yogurts as I could and asked as many questions as I could,” she says. “I consider it the best compliment ever when someone from India says they like my plain yogurt.”
In the next few months, Sisson intends to work on more recipes and seasonally inspired flavours ( her Instagram feed recently included a picture of her apricot- almond creation) as well as the company’s marketing plan. She recently quit a waitressing gig to focus full- time on the business. She plans to be at many more farmers’ markets next year, and hopes to soon have her yogurts used in local restaurants.
“The next big goal is to make it sustainable and profitable,” she says. “I think it’s good now, but I want it to be even better.”