Pete Fine Foods and Nova Scotia Annapolis Valley

wholesale operation: Known for his larger-than-life personality, Luckett is uncharacteristically bashful when asked how much the deal, which includes two Halifax-area Pete Fine Foods stores and one wholesale operation, is worth, according to CTV. But one can assume it leaves him in better shape than when he sold his small but successful fruit and vegetable stall in Nottingham, England, in the late 1970s to feed his appetite for adventure. In his 62 years, the self-made retail magnate has been a painter, a yogurt maker, a TV star and now the man who just sold his beloved grocery empire to Sobeys Capital Inc. to focus on his latest passion: wine-making in Nova Scotia Annapolis Valley. Well-travelled but penniless, Luckett wound up at the Canadian consulate office in Dallas, Texas, looking for a fresh start. "I had no money, I had no job offer, I had no relatives, none of the ingredients required to be an immigrant to Canada, but I had this old Scottish wool tweed suit," he says, sitting in his modest office at Luckett Vineyards in Wolfville, N.S. "I looked like James Bond ... I think I dazzled 'em." Three weeks later, the Englishman was on his way to Alberta. He was selling homemade yogurt when he read a story in Harrowsmith magazine about the Saint John City Market, one of the oldest farmers' market in Canada. He spent a couple of years out West before "itchy feet" propelled him to the Maritimes with hopes of owning a farm and living off the land. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.