Photo: Vernon Museum A view of Bulman's Limited in 1950 - the version that followed the 1928 fire. The company was located adjacent to the CPR rail line, or on modern-day 37th Avenue. The Okanagan bears many badges of honour regarding its natural beauty and culture, and its abundant produce is a particularly strong point of pride – one that Vernon has certainly lived up to.
But in 1926, one man took action to prevent a serious issue shaping up alongside this source of profit: the needless food waste it created and often promptly discarded. That man was Thomas Bulman, hailing from Winnipeg, Manitoba. Originally operating near Kelowna, his canning and dehydrating company, Bulman’s Limited, moved to Vernon in 1926 to make use of surplus crops otherwise left to rot.
Bulman’s Ltd. achieved wide-spread success over its 50-year reign and quickly kindled affection among locals. Ads for its dehydrated produce claimed that here, at last, was where “Quality and Quantity are Partners” and offered to deliver three pounds of Fancy Dehydrated Apples to your doorstep for $1.
Bulman’s set its sights to international doorsteps as well: in the '30s and '40s, crates of these apples were bound for India, countless pounds of jam stock made their way to Britain, and heaps of dried onions and carrots arrived in Northern Japan to the delight of hungry fishing fleets. One secret to the company’s success was its determination to stand on the cutting edge of technology. Thomas Bulman pushe.