Pete Luckett

Pete Luckett is an entrepreneur and media personality who is known as a culinary fruit and vegetable expert.

Originally a native of Nottingham, England, Luckett emigrated to Canada in 1979, settling in Saint John, New Brunswick. In the early 1990s he moved from Saint John to Bedford, Nova Scotia and currently makes his home in Gaspereau, Nova Scotia.

Pete's Frootique

Luckett is widely known in the Maritimes for his Pete's Frootique specialty grocery stores. The first Pete's Frootique store opened in 1981 at the Saint John City Market. This was followed by a second store that opened on Mountain Road in Moncton. In 1992 the third Pete's Frootique store opened at the Sunnyside Mall in Bedford and in 2004 the fourth Pete's Frootique store opened on Dresden Row in downtown Halifax.

The Pete's Frootique stores are all different in scale. The Saint John City Market store retains its original look as an expansive fruit and vegetable stall. The Moncton store was located in an urban strip development in a former grocery store but has since closed. The Bedford store is the most expansive and up-scale as it houses the following operating divisions: a power juice bar, a gourmet fruit and gift basket shop, a European delicatessen, a gourmet butcher and fish shop, a British specialty food emporium named Best of Britain, plus a wine shop.

Luckett operates a farm in the Gaspereau River valley that supplies vegetables and fruit to his two stores in Bedford and Halifax, as well as commercial customers such as restaurants and caterers.

In 1999, Luckett made headlines when he won a court battle against the Government of Nova Scotia when he sought to keep his Bedford store open on Sunday. To circumvent Nova Scotia's Sunday shopping laws, Luckett registered sections of his Bedford store as separate businesses. He copied this approach at his Halifax store when it opened in 2004. In October 2006 the province's Sunday shopping restrictions were over-turned after both Sobeys and Atlantic Superstore copied Luckett's approach to several of their supermarkets, forcing the government to enact restrictions that were successfully contested in court.

Media personality

Luckett's TV career started while in Saint John as a frequent guest on the CBC television show "Midday".

Upon moving to Nova Scotia in the early 1990s, Luckett became a contributing guest to the Halifax CTV affiliate, ATV, where he hosted a bi-weekly segment on fruit and vegetables on the supperhour news show "Live at Five".

Luckett currently hosts the Food Network series "The Food Hunter" where he travels around the world.

Luckett writes a column for the "Halifax Chronicle-Herald". He also serves as a consultant for Chartwells, which delivers all food services at Acadia University, near his current home.

Luckett's catchphrase in his broadcast media appearances is "Toodlee-doo".

External links

* [http://www.petesfrootique.com Pete's Frootique]
* [http://www.peteluckett.com PeteLuckett.com]