Kate Pepler from the Tare Shop was feeling overwhelmed with the doom and gloom narrative of our earth’s health and decided to do something about it. In this episode, we learn how Kate’s lifelong relationship with the water and a move to a coastal town influenced how she sees the world. We discover how Kate’s passions including sailing and environmental education and community building led her to entrepreneurship, we chat about why Kate decided to open a package-free store and cafe,  how shopping habits are shifting, why reducing plastic pollution is so important to her, how we can influence the world around us by choosing to support and shop mindfully, and how the interest in reducing waste, and a strong community focus had led to the Tare Shops success.

If you want to learn more about Kate, package free living and shop her carefully curated collection of low waste goods, visit thetareshop.com. Looking to learn more about zero-waste? And the steps you can take to reduce plastic in your life? There are a lot of tips and resources in Kate’s blog. If you want to follow along with Kate on her mission to make package-free living accessible on Instagram at @thetareshop

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:29] Jennifer: It’s summer in Bedford, Nova Scotia, and Kate Peppler is teaching sailing as she has been for the last few summers. Having grown up with a love for water and the outdoors. Kate felt like she was in her element and it looked like her future would include spending summers on Canada’s east coast teaching and then sailing south for the winters. But after graduating from university with a degree in sustainability, environmental science and Marine biology. Kate was feeling depressed and overwhelmed by the state of the world.

[00:04:03] Kate: It felt like I spent five years studying all the ways that we just destroying the planet without much like positive focus or here’s what has been done. Here’s what is happening. So after graduating, I started a website called our positive planet, which was really just for like my mental health. The whole purpose behind it was to share environmental success stories to inspire action. When I just get bombarded with the doom and gloom, I kind of just want to bury my head in the sand and ignore it all, or turn on Netflix and not take anything else new in But when I read about other folks doing inspiring things, that’s what really inspires me. So by sharing positive environmental success stories, I was trying to help like drag myself out of that doom and gloom slump. So I, through that, I started reading about these zero waste stores popping up all over and kind of got inspired to try to reduce my own waste.

[00:04:53] Jennifer: And with that, Kate began to look at ways to reduce her own waste, beginning to feel excited about the opportunity to create change. In Halifax where she lived, she was struggling to do so. There was no retail outlet that made plastic free living easy or accessible. And in the off season from sailing, Kate would run around to a variety of shops for a variety of things, without packaging realizing that this isn’t realistic for most people with full-time jobs or families to care for. And through setting some personal challenges for herself when it came to tracking and reducing waste. And blogging about her environmental wins and challenges, Kate began to realize that there was a gap to be filled in her community. And she set out to create a one-stop shop for bulk, grocery and personal care, all package free. And in the years, since The Tare Shop has opened. They’ve expanded, created a strong community following and Kate has continued teaching. Something she loves to do. Although now she teaches individuals, schools, and companies, how to make more sustainable choices.

[00:06:00] Kate: I grew up on Toronto island, which is a small community. There’s about 250 people who live there. It’s a largely car-free community, just a 10 minute ferry ride from downtown Toronto. So I grew up spending a lot of time in nature. The school goes up to grade six on the island, and then you have to go into the city. Until my last year, I think there was no playground or play structures. It was like a field and trees and we played outside. We built forts. We toboggan down a hill.

I grew up sailing, doing canoe trips and loved swimming. I live like a couple of minutes from the beach on the island. And I remember as a kid, seeing a ton of garbage on the beaches always and not really piecing together why that might be or where it comes from. I remember there’s always like the plastic tampon applicators. Oh, there’s like a lot of women on boats with periods. Cause this is like on the water that came from the water. Not understanding that big disconnect that garbage in the water largely comes from land, not from boats. So I think I, yeah, I’ve always been loved being outside and being in nature. And I think we can’t even say any more that we need to protect the environment for future generations. We need to protect it for our generation. Like we are directly seeing impacts of climate change and pasta pollution today. Like this isn’t a future problem. It’s a definitely a future problem, but it’s also a very much a right now problem.

[00:07:28] Jennifer: Do you think that growing up on an island, even though, like you said, you’re only 10 minutes away from downtown Toronto. but you think that really I’m trying to think of what the difference would be between someone who has the opportunity to grow up climbing trees and going out and swimming within a two minute walk from someone that lives in like an urban center. I’m wondering if you think that was an influence on your life.

[00:07:49] Kate: I definitely think so, but also like everybody’s different. I might have friends who grew up on the island who don’t feel that same deep connection that I do or like alternatively, there could be kids who grew up in very like urban environments who do also feel the deep connection. So I think it was partly, we like live growing up on Toronto island, but also like my parents. We went on camping trips as a kid and Northern Ontario. I feel like I’ve always been exposed to nature in a very special way.

[00:08:18] Jennifer: Was there a moment in your life where you ever said that you wanted to create change, come wondering how you got to here. Like really you’re an advocate for change. I was wondering if you know, when that fire started inside of you.

[00:08:33] Kate: I’ve never thought of it that I can’t think of like a, a pivotal moment. In my life where I was like, I need to, to be a change maker if or create change. Growing up again on the island. Like it’s a very, it was very close community. So we knew all of our neighbors. So I feel like I’ve always had a deep sense of community that I’ve loved. I was running the sailing school for six years. So through that, like built a big community around the sailing school. Like I grew the participation from like, A very small number to like a very, very large number and the time that I was there. So again, like coming back to that like community and like fostering that community minded spirit I think is really important to me. And I think via The Tare Shop have again, created another community of people who want to shop differently and want to shop smart.

[00:09:26] Jennifer: So, how did you come up with the actual idea for the business and then how did you move it forward and actually create a business from your idea?

[00:09:32] Kate: The idea for The Tare Shop came about just by reading about other package, free stores, popping up all over, knowing that I wanted one in Halifax. And in university, I remember like being in like an environmental course or sustainability course and just seeing. Tim Horton’s cups and almost every single students that like disposable cups and like, people will just do what is easy for them. So it’s just easiest for them to grab a to-go cup. They’re just always going to grab that to go. So thinking it would be cool to have a zero waste cafe that just doesn’t have disposable coffee cups. And I had kind of forgotten about that for a couple of years until the idea? for The Tare Shop started in my brain and thought that would be a really cool way to tie a coffee shop into a grocery store so that it’s not just a place where people go. It can then again, become a, like a community space, host events Makes it a little bit more of an experience than, than just going grocery shopping.

And then I was home one January visiting my family, and we were all lying on my bed, hanging out, discussing The Tare Shop. It was like very, very early, early days and dreaming up what the name could be. And I forgot who said it, but maybe my mom or my sister said Tare, Tare Shop, The Tare Shop?

Tare is the deduction of the container weight which ties again into that bulk shopping. And then to start it, I spent a year or two thinking about the business plan. Writing. Putting it down. Cause I was like, I can’t do this. I don’t know how to run a business. That’s a really important step. A, any lender is going to need to see your business plan to make sure you know what you’re doing, but it’s really also. Was really helpful to think out all the different aspects and make you do your research and your homework.

So writing the business plan, coming up with cashflow projections, which was really hard because there’s no market research or data on what people spend at a bulk store. So I ended up using social media. As I’m like a huge tool to do that research. So ask people, like, what do you spend on groceries a week? What do you spend at the bulk store? How often do you go? And use that data to help inform my cashflow projections? And then I was trying to find a property by myself. Eventually was like, I don’t know how to talk to commercial property people or big building owners. So ended up finding an amazing woman, Linda who helped me find both locations for, for The Tare Shop. Was a huge advocate and helping me understand what, what were my rights and what I was allowed to ask for.

[00:12:05] Jennifer: And if anyone hasn’t been to a store like yours, could you explain how that works and what the experience is like of going to like a zero waste store? I think a lot of people don’t have access to those yet in their communities. Lots of room for you to expand.

[00:12:19] Kate: So every store is going to be different. Company or business will have their own way of doing things. So I can speak to what The Tare Shop is like. So you walk in, you bring your own containers but if you don’t have any, we also sell repurpose containers for 50 cents. Just there’s already, we don’t sell new containers because there’s already so many containers in the waste stream already.

So folks can donate their containers to us and we’ll wash them and sanitize them. The 50 cents just to help recoup some of that labor for sanitizing and, and managing all that. So then you bring your containers up to the counter and this staff will weigh all of your containers. And we’ve. And we’ve found that to be a really important piece, that some other stores, you weigh your own containers, but we really like weighing the customer’s containers. Cause again, it is a lot of people’s first times doing this, or maybe COVID happen. And they haven’t been in, in a couple of years, so they forget how things work.

When people come in, we have that opportunity to check in, see how they’re doing, see how their day’s going and offer up that piece of education. So have they been here before? Do you need a refresher on how it works? And then once the containers are all weighed, we have filling stations. And that was the thing that came out of COVID that will stick around forever for us. Before we didn’t have a designated place where you did your filling people kind of just like perched up on the countertops or on the coffee tables. So now we actually have different stations where you can put all of your containers.

Bring the jar of almonds and chocolate caramels to your station. And do the filling there instead of trying to juggle glass jars above the ground. And then the beauty and one of my favorite reasons to shop package free is that if you only need a teaspoon of something for a recipe, you can literally just buy a teaspoon. This was probably Thanksgiving Canadian Thanksgiving. So late October mid-October I dunno. But we had just been open and a dad came in who was visiting their kid and was cooking the Thanksgiving meal and the kid didn’t have any of the right spices. So the dad came in and bought like, exactly. The number of teaspoons of each spice that he needed to make their family tradition meal. And that was so cool because I think that really just like highlights, you don’t need to buy a huge quantity if you just need a little bit. And then, Yeah. So once you fill up all of your containers, you bring them back And the staff deducts the container weight from the total, since the name Tare.

[00:14:51] Jennifer: And when you began to stock your shelves, when you’ve opened your store on your, began to stock your shelves, and you began to look into conventional goods that are available through wholesale, did you find anything surprising?

[00:15:03] Kate: What has surprised me pleasantly is the number of local suppliers who are willing to work with us and trade containers back and forth so that we don’t have their products packaged. That’s been a really happy happy surprise and like so grateful for all of our suppliers. There hasn’t been anything that’s been like too shocking or two surprise. But one thing that I did, that was pretty interesting for bringing in products. When we opened the first store we used, I think it was literally like 40 products that we stocked. And these were things that I again use the social media to, to ask people what they wanted us to sell and pick the most important ones or the most common ones.

And then we’ve brought products in and we’ve grown our offerings based on customer requests. So. The only products that haven’t moved or haven’t sold well, are the ones that I brought in that nobody had asked for. So that way we know what we are selling people want, and it won’t go to waste.

[00:16:03] Jennifer: And I assume that your background in sustainability does give you an unique advantage here, but has it in, let me try that again, but has it influenced how you make purchasing decisions when you are shopping for your store?

[00:16:16] Kate: I think being really. Like cautious, like, especially with any of the lifestyle products, making sure that I’m research thing, researching them to make sure that the company is one that we align with them, want to work with and even just like down to values and avoiding greenwashing. Which is unfortunately very, very common now is being eco and natural and sustainable is very trendy.

Making sure that the companies are doing what they’re saying they are doing.

[00:16:50] Jennifer: Yeah. As someone who owns a distribution company, myself too, one of the things that is always top of mind for us, uh, and it’s really the, the impacts of shipping.

And packaging. And it’s something that I think that most people don’t consider, like they’ll go into a store, they’ll think, oh, it’s local, because they’re only thinking about how they’re getting that from the shelf into their own home.

But they’re not necessarily thinking about how it got here in the first place. What are the costs associated? What are the costs associated with creating something like a traditional. Retail store in terms of environmental impact, like what else are you considering that we’re not thinking about.

[00:17:33] Kate: That’s such a great question. Cause even when I was living, like I still live low waste, but I used to have like the trash jar that I like recorded my waste in. Cause I think that’s a great tool to understand the type of waste you’re creating.

But even then, like that’s not the whole picture. You don’t see the waste that the store had, the packing material that it came to them and you don’t see all of the upstream waste as well. So I think the upstream waste is a huge piece that we don’t see. And all of those, like yeah. Upstream costs. So the emissions that that product took to get from where it was manufactured, the materials, the, where it was manufactured to getting it to the distributor, to get it to the retail store.

So all of those emission costs all of the social costs. So was the product did. Employer who made the product, pay their employees fairly with fair wages? How were they workers treated? So those are all, and I, you can’t talk about.

environmental issues without talking about social issues. They’re so intertwined.

So those are also all hidden costs and like with things like fast fashion the material is so, or the product is so cheap because all of those other costs are being captured in the product. They aren’t paying their workers fairly. They aren’t regarding any environmental impact, most likely. So those costs just aren’t being captured in those products.

[00:18:55] Jennifer: And so you’ve achieved B Corp certification. Congratulations. As a small business owner.

Exactly. Uh, as a small business owner, who’s been going on that journey for some time. Now I cannot imagine how difficult that was for you. Congrats.

But I’d like to talk about what certifications like that mean to you.

So if you’re sourcing products at wholesale, are you looking for certain certifications? And what does that tell you about the products that are certified? I was just wondering how important certifications are to you as someone who is in retail.

[00:19:31] Kate: Yeah, definitely. If we are deciding between two companies, One is B Corp certified, and one is not we’ll pick the B Corp certified as the consumer or somebody purchasing. It just takes away that research that you might want to do before looking into a product, because you know that the company has been through a rigorous process to get certified, you know, that they are doing what they’re saying, they’re doing, they’re putting their money where their mouth is, or whatever that saying is And they’re yeah, they’re committed to, as like B Corp slogan, they’re committed to using business as a force of good.

So obviously companies need to be making money to be successful, but at least like my definition of success is so much more deeper than that because I th I think a lot about impact and like the impact that my company has. So, Yeah, for like certifications, like B Corp are so good because they are helping to spread awareness and this movement of using business to create change and be a force for good is catching on and just gaining in popularity, which is so important.

And yeah, I forget where I was going with that.

[00:20:36] Jennifer: One thing that I love to add to this conversation, or one thing that I love to ask. Whenever this comes up is how do you think that impact business is resonating with consumers? Do you think that consumer behavior is shifting at the same pace that business owners are starting to think about

[00:20:50] Kate: impact?

A couple of things. I think that the business owners who are on top of it and aware of these trends and thinking this way, they are probably moving a bit quicker than the consumers, but I think the consumers are catching up. And already, like, I feel like in the last couple of years Consumers are getting smarter and more aware of the impacts that products have that businesses have and are starting to demand different and demand better and demand more transparency from the places that they shop at. So I think that businesses who aren’t thinking, and that’s not saying everybody has to be B Corp certified but people, businesses who aren’t. Being transparent and dark. Aren’t being forthright about what the impact that their businesses have. I think they will lose customers and they will lose some of their customer base because of that, for sure.

[00:21:50] Jennifer: So you started the shop with feedback from people on social media, giving you input into what to stock your shelves, which, which I love, but what was the moment that you realized that this could work or that people would actually be interested in supporting a business idea like this?

[00:22:05] Kate: When we announced the business on social media, it was such a scary thing because once you put it out there, you can’t take it back.

You can not do it, but you can’t. You can’t take it away. And like right away within the first couple of weeks, I was flooded with messages and emails. Emails and then messages from social media of people saying that they were so excited to shop this way. And they were so excited for The Tare Shop to open.

Cause they’d been trying to reduce their waste and it just hasn’t been possible or accessible to them. So right away that was like a pretty good, like, okay, we’re good. This is gonna work. And then you run all the numbers that you. I can guess and can make up educated guesses for your cashflow projections.

And almost right away, my numbers, the sales were way better than I ever expected them to be. More people were excited to be shopping this way. A lot of people in the direct community shopped because it was just closer than, than driving or walking to, to the bigger stores farther away. So that was another like, okay, like we’ve got this, this is going to work.

And another thing that I wasn’t expecting at all, but pretty much from even before we opened. Every week we would get messages. When are you opening up a tear shop in this community, this city, this town this province. So all over the country, I’ve had requests for Terra shops. So that was another really cool thing that I didn’t expect, but so many people would be so into this idea and wanted a tear shop in their community.

[00:23:37] Jennifer: And so I was looking around within your social media, I’m looking at your community and this, this real community feel that you have built with your followers. And one of the things that I. Really makes your store special to the people that love you really is that you do a lot of other things about X in order to be accessible.

Can we talk about your accessibility initiatives within your shop? Cause I think that they’re, they’re really exciting and interesting to talk about

[00:24:07] Kate: Yeah. So that was the I think, yeah, we would never open up a tear shop in a building, like even just base level building that wasn’t accessible. Folks with physical disabilities or mobility aids already have such a hard time navigating.

Really, especially really old cities like health facts. So being aware, just reducing that one barrier and then in our store making sure that it’s accessible for folks all walks of lives, making sure that it’s an inclusive, inviting, welcoming non-judgment space. And we have accessibility policies on our website. Like ensuring that our social media is accessible. So anytime we post a video with speech or text we include captions any time that we post a photo, we have an image description and our hashtags use camel case, which just means that the first letter of each hashtag is re within the hashtag is capitalized. Making sure that we eat like, even as simple as like having kids toys in the space, so that it’s a bit easier for a parent with young kids to come and shop, they can plot their kids down in front of the toy bin or books the kids can play while the parents do their shop. And that’s been such a special thing us.

[00:25:23] Jennifer: I love the scent free thing too. Cause I’m a scent. We’re a scent free family.

[00:25:27] Kate: Yeah. Yeah. Even like, there’s so many things that you, as somebody, without any barriers or accessibility needs that you might not even think about. So like all of the cleaning products that we use are scent free and we do sell scented products, but they’re all closed, so they don’t smell In the space.

And then like lights and sounds. We’re always happy to turn the music off or pause the music. Dim, the lights they’re all on dimmers if somebody needs to. So we don’t have like designated times, like I know Walmart might, or some other big stores might have designated times. But we’re happy to do that at all.

At any point of the day

[00:26:04] Jennifer: In your journey in specifically throughout the pandemic, have you encountered any other really big challenges?

[00:26:13] Kate: Not including COVID.

[00:26:15] Jennifer: I think there, I think COVID has just maybe amplified.

So our challenges as

[00:26:20] Kate: Yeah, definitely. Like even from the beginning, like I was 24 when I noticed the business, if my math is and memory are correct. And like I looked pretty young, so just even getting people to take me seriously and where the chair shop was such a new concept. There was no store in the province, like the chair shop Getting lenders to believe in what I was doing.

I had one lender who told me that my paraphrasing business plan was stupid. I would need plastic bags and disposable coffee cups to, to be successful. So, yeah, even just like getting people bought in on this idea has well, the community’s been very supportive getting some of the people in suits with the money to take me seriously.

But yeah, that COVID, yeah, it’s just amplified. Every challenge. And while we’ve been fortunate enough not to have any like labor issues and getting incredible folks on our team the labor shortages have affected some of our suppliers. So some of our suppliers locally, even, and who are able to do deliveries every day are now down to a couple of times a week managing like all the, yeah, the labor shortages, how they affect suppliers and leads, lead times being so unpredicted.

The w worst one was we placed an order, usually a weekly time, like four weeks, we still hadn’t heard. And it had all been paid for upfront. And then all of those little delays like that just really affect your cashflow. So it makes it harder to make that next purchase because your cashflow has been tied up for a while.

[00:27:54] Jennifer: And when we saw people hoarding toilet paper and, and, uh, when we saw people lie selling their groceries and wearing gloves every time they opened doors, I’m sure that that shift in like collective mindset really effected you and probably rattled you quite a bit. How did you feel when that happened?

Like what was going through your mind when COVID hit? And we were all, all of a sudden, so worried about things like sanitation, what was that?

[00:28:24] Kate: Oh, my gosh, it was so scary. I wish I kept like a journal or a diary even just to see how like, cause I feel like a trauma response is you don’t really remember. So I remember being terrified. But I don’t necessarily remember the feelings too deeply.

But yeah, it was so scary. I was in Toronto for a conference and got back like the Saturday night at like midnight before the world shut down. And just even. Yeah, asking staff to work. I wasn’t comfortable with staff working. They weren’t comfortable working, so laid everybody off. And I went back to working on the floor zero hours a week to working on the floor six days a week by myself.

Doing all the shopping for people. So people would come in and they’d stand in like one spot and I would do all the filling for them. Again, it was just all so unknown. And I remember wearing like gloves instead of a mask. Cause I thought that we just thought that was the safer thing. Didn’t realize how aerosol like transmittable by air.

It was and. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was really, really intense. And I would go grocery shopping. Typically, what did the grocery shopping for my household? Cause I was already out in the community and would come home and just like sod. It was so intense to be everybody also just got, we lost that, that community feel and that co like shared experiences.

Everybody was so tunnel vision and focused on themselves. Even like walking out on the street. Like nobody was saying hi to anybody else. Everybody was like looking down, looking away. So absorbed in like their own safety and their own wellbeing. There was one walk, my partner and I went on like April 20, 20, so peak, scary, scary times.

We were like, okay, we’re both like very low, very sad today. Let’s get out. Move our body get some fresh air and it just made it so much worse. Cause there was like police ticketing, people like walk cutting through the commons, which is a big field in Halifax. Like people are reading ticketed for being outside.

Everybody was like, so like wrapped up and, and, and yeah, not social and not friendly anymore. So that?

was a big mind shift and, and, and emotional mental thing to get over.

[00:30:50] Jennifer: Do you feel like a lot of customers of yours kind of rejected the idea of bulk or refill at that time?

[00:30:56] Kate: I think a lot of people did.

And. Like rightfully so it was a scary time. But it was pretty early on in the pandemic that there was a report issued by hundreds of, or over 125. I think it was like doctors and scientists and health professionals who said that using reusables was safe as long as they were clean, which for food health, safety, anyways, they should be clean.

So, and we like my waist to also definitely increase through dependent. But there was a lot of our regular customers. We probably lost for a bit there, but a lot who were so grateful to be able to like at least keep this part of normalcy and keep this way of reducing waste alive in their lives.

And also nice to like go somewhere where they felt very safe. A lot of the feedback that we got was this was like one of the only stores they felt safe going into. Cause it was just me and them. And I also definitely became like an emotional, like dumping ground for people who, some people come in and be like, I haven’t talked to another adult in like a week, like here’s my life.

Which was a lot, but, but nice to connect with customers as well.

[00:32:04] Jennifer: And now that COVID is kind of alleviating at least in terms of the way that we are all interacting with the world. Again, I know that. The zero waste living or low waste living took a huge hit through all of this. Like everybody, I was ordering my groceries. They were coming in plastic bags. It was eating my heart.

Every time, every time I had to wear a disposable mask, as opposed to a cloth mask, I throwing out it’s, it’s eating me inside. Are you seeing a shift now of people go. You know, extra in the direction of zero waste or being more mindful of waste after living through this like massive waste stream of the last two years.

Like, how is this shifting as someone who’s really on ground level

[00:32:46] Kate: here?

Yeah. I think people are even the people who might not have been very aware. Now aware, cause you can even see in the number of like garbage bags that you’re throwing out that waste all of our wastes have increased. So I think the people who were already trying are definitely committed to doing this and, and trying to live with less impact.

And I think I, yeah, I trying to stay optimistic, but I think. This has shifted things and we see have seen the impacts and know that we, that we need better for, for our world today than we have been doing.

[00:33:26] Jennifer: And when you’re speaking to your customers about taking steps or taking action in order to live a more sustainable life. What is your like top tip? What is the number one thing you tell people to do when they are coming to you as an expert and asking you what they can do to live more sustainably?

[00:33:45] Kate: The first tip, I always tell folks is to use up what you already have. So it’s way more wasteful to go to your pantry or your bathroom or your cleaning closet And throw out everything in there and replace it all. It’s a huge waste of resources. It’s a huge waste of money. So use up what you have and then as your bottle of cleaning, spray runs out refill that.

So we have. Like all purpose, cleaner concentrate. So refill things as you run out, instead of going and replacing it all and even like the plastic mop that you have is more sustainable than going out and buying like a, all bamboo one. So using what you already have is the most sustainable option.

And then the next thing I would say is be kind to yourself Yeah, this is all about like building habits and changing your mindset and that stuff doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time, it takes practice. And if you cave and buy a coffee in a disposable cup, like it’s not the end of the world remember to bring your mug next time or be being aware yeah, not beating yourself up if getting to a bulk shop isn’t accessible to you.

That’s okay. There’s other things that you can do to lessen your.

[00:34:57] Jennifer: And what about a small business owner? What is something that they can do to lessen their impact? Like what would you suggest to someone like me or someone who owns a business in your

[00:35:07] Kate: That’s a great one. I think being really. Like doing your research.

The number of business owners that have asked me about the compostable coffee cups, they’re not actually compostable in the majority of municipalities. They go to the landfill and just something compostable in the landfill isn’t necessarily better than something. Not like a garbage piece of garbage in the landfill.

So in the amount of business owners I’ve had, who asked me and I’m like, I hate to tell it to you. That’s not compostable. And they’ve spent more money per cup or whatever the product is on this like green sustainable compostable, PLA, uh, cup than they normally would have. So they’ve wasted a lot of money.

So yeah. Do your research. It takes a little bit of time, but at least in HRM, there’s waste educators who are always really be happy to chat And answer questions. So tap into the resources in your community and do your research before buying like a green product.

[00:36:06] Jennifer: And I think B Corp was a really big eye-opener for me, at least in terms. That kind of stuff. Of course, like really evaluating our business, which we already thought we were doing great. You know, we already had been so mindful of all these decisions, but going through the B Corp process has really opened our eyes to making those small changes.

But one thing as an outsider, And at first and B Corp, when I wasn’t involved at all. And I had never really heard about it before. I did know that sustainability was a big part of B Corp and I knew it was about protecting the earth. But what I did not know was that B Corp has such a community focus. And I was wondering since you’ve gone through B Corp and gone through the certification, how have you chose to.

What’s the word, how can we say this? How are you benefiting your community? I’m wondering what your community action oriented events are.

[00:37:09] Kate: Yeah.

[00:37:09] Jennifer: Are you serving your community?

[00:37:11] Kate: yeah, I love that. Yeah. One thing I think a lot of people don’t realize is that B Corp, isn’t just like in a focus on environmental. It’s also all about social And then community impact as well.

So I was inspired by 1% for the planet. But instead of doing 1%. Two different environmental organization. I wanted the, to give to directly to the community, so different organizations in the community, but also we’ve given to like go fund me campaigns and things like that. So very like direct community oriented organizations.

So one each quarter we donate 1% of our sales to a different community organization. And those are nominated by the community, voted on with the staff. And so that’s like one piece, we run events, we host other makers and creators for popups. We don’t charge people for that. It’s just a way to like bring people into the space.

And especially after COVID regained some of that community feel to the space. And yeah, like offering up our space, offering up our platform to community members, being, sharing things, amplifying voices is really important.

[00:38:17] Jennifer: And what about our children or the children in your community, the adults of the future. How do you think that the work that you’ve done is impacting them? Like, what do you think about the future of Halifax or the future of all of us as we explore zero.

[00:38:34] Kate: I think kids are so smart. And yeah, educating the kids is a huge piece of this. I think that’s how, like the recycling initiatives started. They went into schools and educated all of the kids and the kids went home and taught the parents how to, how to recycle.

So yeah, making sure that we are educating the kids and, and not necessarily like not sugar coating things. But doing it in a way that inspires them to create change or to change up habits or to encourage their parents to change up habits or guardians instead of like scaring them. Cause I definitely got scared in university.

And whereas I think if I had been aspired, it would have been like, I would have emotionally felt different for sure. So educating kids in a way that inspires them. So I love going into schools and giving talks and, and talking to youth groups, I’ve done a ton of those, especially pre COVID.

[00:39:30] Jennifer: I’m wondering if you’ve heard. I’ve seen a couple memes lately and I haven’t explored it at all, but, like grocery shopping in the 1950s and how different it was for now. Have you seen these memes?

[00:39:42] Kate: I don’t. I think I’ve seen like one, but one thing that I didn’t expect when we open, I kind of expected like young woman to be our primary target market. But what I didn’t expect was like 60 plus year olds to come in and being like, this is how we used to shop. This is amazing that we can shop this way again. So, yeah, we like plastic is a new invention. It hasn’t been around forever. And all shopping used to be packaged or plastic free.

I think the more locations that we have, the more impact that we can have, and the more common this becomes this way of shopping way of thinking just becomes more like mainstream and, and easier for folks.

[00:40:22] Jennifer: And do you think we’re going to get there?

[00:40:24] Kate: Yes, I do.

[00:40:26] Jennifer: If you want to learn more about Kate, package- free living and how to shop her carefully curated collection of low waste goods. Visit thetareshop.com. Looking to learn more about zero waste and the steps you can take to reduce plastic in your life. There are a lot of tips and resources on the Tare Shop’s blog. If you want to follow along with Kate on her mission to make package free living accessible. You can do so on Instagram @thetareshop

In today’s episode, we chat with Brianna Brown and Kristy O’Leary from Decade Impact. We learn what led each of them to work with purpose-based business, We learn why our actions in the next decade are so critical to the future of our planet, we hear all about what Bcorp is, why businesses become benefit corporations, why green blushing can be as big of an issue as greenwashing, and what to look out for if you are a consumer looking to create impact. By supporting brands committed to social, environmental, and economic change.

If you want to learn more about Kristy, Brianna and how they are helping brands create a better world with Decade impact visit https://www.decadeimpact.com/Looking to learn more about how they can support your impact business with future-focused design thinking, or interested in the Getting to 80 program that uses the Bcorp framework? You can connect with them on Instagram at decadeimpactLook for Brianna and Kristy on Linked In where they are actively contributing to the conversation surrounding how brands can create impact.

Links from this episode

• Decade Impact website
• The Occupy Movement
• Project Drawdown
• All We Can Save by Dr. Katharine K Wilkinson
• Linkedin Kristy O’Leary
• Linkedin Brianna Brown
• Getting to 80 Program

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Chua: Our actions in the next decade will determine the future of life on this planet. This is true for all of us, whether we’re business owners or not, but for people in the impact space, it’s a particularly interesting time as companies and corporations are being called to create a new economy, capable of solving our most complex problems. And creating impact beyond profit. The world is in chaos. There’s mass disruption, economic free fall. Division. And on the heels of all of that climate change, we have no choice, but to seize this moment and create a new world.

I’ve been working with Kristy and Brianna from decade impact for my own business. We’ve been working on purpose design and B Corp readiness. My conversations with them always leave me both nervous. We all should be nervous. But also incredibly inspired.

Because they believe that every company can leave the world better than they found it. Every person deserves to feel the delight of change-making and that absolutely anything is possible. They’re experts in B Corp, we’ll get into what that is in just a bit, and the United Nations, sustainable development goals, which is something you may want to look up if you’re interested in this work.

Kristy and Brianna originally met on Skype. This was in the pre-ZOOM days. And in this post COVID world, video chats are becoming more of a thing. Decade conducts most of their business online now. But at that point, it was harder to form real connections with people you’ve met only virtually. Kristy was hosting a workshop and Brianna was an attendee. But after this workshop, the two formed a bond that would lead them to start decade impact less than two years later.

Brianna had recently graduated from business school with a degree in political science and economics. And she had studied the language of business and had come to understand how those in business think. But Brianna became more and more interested in the social and environmental issues. But the social sector, those trying to make a difference. They were not using the language of business when talking to business. So Brianna saw an opportunity to help break that communication barrier down. But really, Brianna says, she saw how broken the world was and was looking for a way to respond meaningfully.

Brianna Brown: And I don’t know what little voice came into my head, but something came into my head. That business was the best way to solve social and environmental challenges, which seems a little bit counter-intuitive. But when you start to dig down into what the problems are and where the solutions. Business really becomes that place.

Jennifer Chua: So she started out working with social purpose startups, was introduced to B-Corp, 1% for the planet. Moved on to a traditional consulting firm role. And it was during this time that she had that Skype with Kristy. See Kristy was already in it. She was doing the work that Brianna was interested in. Consulting with businesses on social and environmental interests. But this meeting for Brianna was kind of like an aha moment.

Brianna Brown: so I was really grateful too, to find somebody, first of all, who I could just point my finger at and be like, I want that. And then that she was, she took a chance on me and brought me into that circle.

Jennifer Chua: Kristy’s career has been really non-linear. Topsy turvy is the word she uses, but she’s always been interested in business. Having grown up with entrepreneur parents. No, she didn’t go to business school. She has a fine arts degree with a focus on multimedia. But growing up in her family’s businesses, she learned a lot about how small business really operates. She followed her gut and took opportunities to work on projects in a variety of industries, social license campaigning, supply chain, whatever interested her at the time. But when Kristy ended up in advertising, she realized how a business could use messaging to create change.

And she started asking herself, how do you sell things that are better? How do we get people to change their behaviors through art and creativity and campaigning? And she was attracting the kind of companies that she wanted to work with. Those creating a net benefit. And here she was following her gut again, because she didn’t really have a way to screen those companies at the time.

Kristy O’Leary: You know, there are a lot of gut checks.  And so I tend to be pretty stubborn. And so I just stubbornly kept focusing in this space and, and the market shifted and now we’re here.

There weren’t a lot of people to look to that were doing this. And when I, I stepped forward and said like, I’m gonna do impact consulting. I didn’t really have a blueprint for how to do that. And so I used the B Corp certification as that blueprint. I found B Corp and around 2011, 20 12 and thought, Okay. this is answering a lot of my questions.

Jennifer Chua: Why is all of this personally so important to you? Like why is environmental responsibility or social impact, diversity equity, inclusion, any of those? Was there an event that you can remember any moment in your life that has shaped how you see the world this way?

Brianna Brown: I always have such a hard time answering that question. Because I don’t think it was a single event for me. And I always think of that question. Why do you think that way? Why do you think that way? And I, my immediate responses, how can I not think that way? So I’m so stuck in this moment of this is how I see the world. And this is, for a while, how I have seen the world that I find it hard to conceptualize how you could not want to make a bigger purpose through your company than profit. I think that there’s, nothing wrong with making profit if it’s good profit. But there’s it’s a little bit boring to just be in pursuit of profit when there’s so many other things you can do, there’s so much other creativity. So I always try to draw back. I’m like, what are the moments? And I think one of the things that I’ve been thinking about recently, and I don’t know how defining this was, but I mentioned that. Undergrad was in political science and economics. And again like we’re in this time where we’re an unprecedented change.

And so we always think that it’s a very unique and singular moment. But when I was starting at a university, , it was during the occupy movement. And I was studying economics and learning about all of this stuff about how the economy works from this ivory tower of how it works. I was in school in Montreal, so there was a lot of activity on the streets there related to occupy and also all of these other social issues. The economic frameworks that I was being taught just don’t work. And I know that this is a very academic response to your question that this is very theoretical response.

And I’m sure Kristy is laughing, cause that’s just who I am. But that just ignited this huge curiosity in, in, well, what does work and how do we make it work? And if this is broken, how do we fix it? And so I think that there is like an intellectual curiosity behind it. I know that another big driver for me is, I grew up in the outdoors. I grew up in the mountains. I grew up in the forests. So there is that, that gutteral sense when we’re closer to nature, like we want to protect it. But it’s more of a how can we not for me then why do I have this weird focus on impact?

Kristy O’Leary: I think the biggest defining moment for me, I was in either a political science or an economics class. Maybe it was 98, but I was kind of like in my early university and a professor, an old curmudgeon, I believe his name was Elliot Tupper. And he asked us if we understood what the GDP was and we’re like all these kind of younguns and Yeah. we get it. He’s like, no, you don’t know anything. Which I, I kinda love, I feel like that’s why we go to university is to have like old learned people, tell us how it is.

And he said, no, none of, you know what it is, you know, who contributes the most to the GDP. It is a white man in his, in his mid fifties who is going through a divorce. Who just got a buy out from his company and has terminal cancer. That is the person that contributes the most to the GDP. And, I had a moment. I was like, 20 or 21, my father had cancer. Our family business was getting run out of town by Walmart. It was one of those like vertigo moments, like kind of earth shaking, thinking, all the suffering that this time in my family, all the suffering we’re going through and our business is failing. And all these things that were happening were stimulus. This was considered like we’re increasing the GDP. And that was that was a big, like, fuck this. Like, I don’t want to be a part of that system, but then I had no idea how to not be in the system.

And then the other defining moment, I was really lucky after I went to art school, I got to go to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and talk to centenarians hundred year old folks about climate change. I want a residency to spend a couple of years there. Talking to folks about they’re creating an oral history of climate change and all of the conversations. It was just like, it just kept feeling like a broken record all these hundred year old or 90 year old ladies telling me, cause it was always ladies that wanted to talk you know, what are you going to do? This is real and we’re in trouble and I’m too old to do anything, but you’re young and you can do something. And that was a big defining moment, was having all of those conversations and then releasing that work and nobody paying any attention. And I just thought all these voices are lost. There’s all these. The writing is on the wall. It’s 2006 and the writing is on the wall and why isn’t anyone doing anything?

The environment is changing, but I think my, my kind of passion for environmental action really began through those conversations. Like I was interested in it because I wanted to do that project, but that was just one of those, those kind of realizations that nobody’s gonna, nobody’s gonna do this for us. We have to do it for ourselves. And again, not knowing how to do that, but the GDP and talking to a bunch of old dames about the way the world used to be and the way it can be in the future, where those were the moments. I think for me.

Jennifer Chua: Your business is called decade impact, presumably because we’re focusing on the change that we can create within the next decade. I’d like to talk a little bit more about what impact consulting is and why we should care all of us about creating impact.

Brianna Brown: You’re bang on with why we named ourselves decade impact. I’m glad that you were able to pick up on that. We started the business very late 2019, really launched in 2020 January 1st, or maybe January 3rd, which was the first Monday of the year launched decade impact. And a lot of the, the thinking behind that was exactly what you said. What change can we create in this decade? This is the decade that matters. This is Like many decades will be to come, hopefully. The last decade that we have to really turn the ship around and hopefully we turn it or enough around that, the 2030s are also, we can turn the ship around. We can turn the ship around and we can turn the ship around. But it also pairs with a lot of the sustainability frameworks that were coming out. The United nations, sustainable development goals, are 17 global goals that the signatories the United nations countries signed onto as these are imperative development initiatives. We need to get right by the year 2030. We have the climate crisis and I can talk about the climate crisis for a long time, but I’m just going to say. We need to turn the ship around and there’s a lot of commitments to both 2050, but more and more to 2030. What do we need to do by 2030 to make sure that we are as close to possible on track to a 1.5 degree world and making sure that we’re definitely under two degree temperature rise in line with the climate science.

So there’s these global imperatives. And then there’s also the business imperatives of at least progressive businesses. And I don’t mean progressive in just a, a social or environmental stage, but, but great companies for a century or more, do make 10 year plans and do make these 10 year declarations of what they want to accomplish. So it kind of fit in from both a corporate and science and development lens. We started january, 2020. We did not know what was going to happen. The climate crisis by the end of 2019 was like the word. Well, it, climate emergency was the word of the year. At the end of 2019 Gretta was everybody’s icon. We saw all of this momentum and then we started thinking that this momentum was just going to continue.

Kristy O’Leary: Brianna, you cracked me up. You’re awesome. And you are so academic in your responses that I’m, I’m always impressed. I just think like we are in the most important decade in human history. And if we don’t change our ways, we’re in serious, serious trouble. The old lady said it, they all said it like the, the, the writing’s on the wall and we’re in very deep shit if we don’t change our ways. And that’s just how it is. And looking at that, and the reality of we have tons of work to do. I think it’s actually really exciting and empowering. I don’t look at it like all is lost. I love an underdog story, and I think we’re all kind of underdogs Right. now. And so the idea that we can all have this montage and be these kinds of superheroes and like dorky accountants, not all accountants are dorky. Some of you are, I’m a dork too. But we’re the ones that can really change the world. And so you don’t need a Cape, you need, a credit card and a business. Those are ways to make a lot of change. And as Brianna said, we have always had lofty ideas. We did not envision a global pandemic coming our way.

Brianna Brown: That was not in our business.

Kristy O’Leary: It wasn’t in our business plan, but our business is perfect for a pandemic. And I know that it’s been really hard on so many folks, and I’m thankful every day that, that the pandemic created the opportunity for us to work hard enough to thrive because it didn’t happen by accident. It happened because we worked really hard. But this kind of shock to the system, I think is exactly what we needed. And it has created this build back better movement. Now how impact consulting plays into that? I think, we’re perfectly positioned because now we know that we can change the world really quickly. We can turn the global economy off and turn it back on in a matter of weeks. And so what are we going to turn on? How are we going to, where are we going to focus our energy? And I think that this all bets are off existence we have, like reality we live in, is the perfect foundation for, for the work we do. Because we are very future-focused and we’re not thinking about like, let’s make some incremental change. We’re focused on how do we become regenerative businesses. And so, although the pandemic has been really painful it’s also extremely motivating and has created this, this foundation for folks to really change the way they think about their agency and what they’re capable of achieving.

Sometimes as, as business people, we have to do things sometimes that we don’t love to do. That’s a part of the, the, our lives. But if we can just change the way people look at their businesses, it’s not only a process that can help help us thrive as a community and work to save the environment and, and fight social injustice. I think the results we deliver, we deliver a personal experience that folks are having. They’re not just thinking about their business, I think. and Jen, as, as being someone that has worked with us in the past, I like to think that the work goes home. It’s one of those things. People are really happy to take home because it’s helping to reframe a lot of the, the things, the questions, the decisions we make every single day.

Brianna Brown: And impact consulting. There’s a few different dimensions to it. I think it’s most similar to strategy consulting. So, management consulting and strategy consulting and setting a strategy then going out and implementing it. But it’s focused on the social and environmental change that you can create as a business. What decade does is we help firms define, measure, manage, and communicate their impact. The defined piece, I think, is the critical foundation to this work. What are you in business to do? And we sometimes define this as corporate imagination which is Kristy-O-Learyism corporate imagination of creating that space to be a little bit more expansive and creative and giving ourselves permission to say the stuff that we wouldn’t naturally say about business. Because we compartmentalize in our own minds about what business can and should do.

That limits us as entrepreneurs. That limits us as an economy, that limits us as a society. When we can open up our minds about what a business can and should be. We’re getting ourselves more in touch with who we are as individuals. Kristy and I are not going in and saying, you should do this new thing that is completely unrelated to your business that you’ve never thought about before. We’re often giving the space for those little ideas that an entrepreneur or founder or leader has had in the back of their head. And maybe maybe had another internal voice saying, well no. Business, doesn’t do that. Or you’re not going to succeed in the market with that. That’s not where you should go.

And we create the space to say, well, how might we, what would that look like if we were able to go out there and do that. Ignite this This, collective response, all of our stakeholders getting on board and saying, this is where I want to go to. That’s where we start to see these like lasting legacy businesses. The example everyone goes to, and it’s a great example is Patagonia. That’s why people like Patagonia. Because they put that vision out there and they go after it and they’re authentic towards it. So that’s that defined piece and that’s the foundational piece. And then we help firms measure and manage their impact.

So they’re not just talking about what they’d like to do. We’re saying, well, what can you do to get a roadmap together, to go out there? We use a few different tools to get to that point. The B Corp assessment is the dominant tool that we’re using as this way of linking all aspects of your operations with social and environmental consideration.

I heard. B court being described as ESG plus purpose. I don’t know who originally coined that, but I’m going to give the credit to Carla Heim at the BDC, the senior advisor of social entrepreneurship, and really leader of the B Corp movement here in Canada. That’s the first time I heard that term is ESG, which is environmental, social, and governance plus purpose.

So metrics, and then the purpose of, of going a little bit broader. And then finally after we measure and manage, we’re looking at well, how do we make this matter going to communication? And I love that Kristy talked about her communication background at the beginning because it kind of goes full circle we’re not starting with communication. We’re not starting with spinning a better story. We’re starting with being a better company, but once you’ve done that work shout it loud.

Jennifer Chua: Can you chat a little bit about how you talk about green blushing? Cause I think this is tied in a lot.

Kristy O’Leary: Everybody’s familiar with greenwashing presenting yourself as an environmentally or socially progressive company and just not doing the work. And I think less often folks are familiar with the concept of green blushing and green blushing. It’s happening all the time. It’s all around us. To me, I think it’s a really insidious problem. We really, really need companies to step forward and communicate what they’re doing. And so green blushers are those folks that are doing the work. They’re not communicating it because they haven’t achieved. Perfect. You know, hot tip, perfect. Doesn’t exist. It’s not real. Perfect. As a showstopper, as we say. And so really green blushing is the challenge. I think getting over green blushing is a huge challenge for social purpose companies. Getting past yourself and past perfection and communicating what you’re doing.

I think actually the antidote to, to green blushing is this idea that I’ve been thinking about a lot. I’m talking with folks a lot about becoming a documentary brand. Rather than you do a campaign, you have a tagline, these kind of disconnected pieces. If you look at a brand like Brianna had mentioned Patagonia they are, they are not green blushing. They are talking, they’re telling every, every one of those stakeholders, what they’re up to how they’re doing it and when they fail. We because we really need to communicate those failures. Or those course corrections rather than failures.

In my mind, I envision a perfect world as a world full of documentary brands that are focused on that tenure, the long game, rather than looking for these tiny little sustainability wins that they can slap on a truck and go to town. This is a totally different mindset. This is integrating impact into the business, communicating all elements of, of what a company is doing. And then really being in there for the long haul. I, I often mentioned game of Thrones. People waited 10 years to see the finale. Our society. We are storytellers. We are, we are we are mainlining stories all the time. That brings us as humans, joy it’s in our DNA. Those green blushers just need to become those documentary brands, communicate those small pieces of progress, those little wins and always in line with that grand vision of a really audacious goal that that companies are trying to achieve.

Jennifer Chua: Conscious consumerism is a term that’s become very popular in this space. And to me, conscious consumerism is about buying from businesses that share my values and that are here to support the change that I’d like to see in the world, for example. But I’d love to hear your thoughts on conscious consumerism. Like is it possible and how do we identify what brands we can trust?

Kristy O’Leary: I’m going to say conscious consumerism is possible. I do it. Brianna does it. You do it. And really it’s just being more intentional and more mindful and kind of developing your own impact strategy as an individual. What are my values? Do I wanna buy from BIPOC businesses? Do I wanna buy from businesses that are really leaning in on environment? Like you define your own, what matters to you? And then shop based on those criteria, green blushers are causing a problem for conscious consumers, because if consumers don’t know what you’re up to, then they can’t support you. And so I think that the green blushing challenge it’s not just a challenge for those companies, it’s a huge challenge for consumers that really want to take action and just don’t know how. So I think looking for the B Corp logo, looking for a 1% logo, organic, non GMO, there’s all kinds of certifications.

I’ve been very pleased to see Uber and Lyft step forward in Texas saying they’re going to cover the legal costs for any of their drivers. I was really excited to see Bumble give a ton of money to planned parenthood. And then actually Tinder went even further with their commitment to supporting women’s reproductive rights in their approach. These are the kind of vignettes we see in the news that I think people should be really paying attention to.

Brianna Brown: One of the things I’d like to add on, on green blushing before also talking a little bit more about conscious consumerism is Kristy and I went to a talk a couple of months ago by Dr. Katherine Wilkinson, who was one of the editors of project drawdown the most amazing resource for mapping and solutions to the climate crisis. Really encourage your listeners to look at drawdown as well as her new initiative. All we can save, which is highlighting women and BIPOC leaders of the climate crisis and, and highlighting those voices. So just a really amazing leader. And she talked about this concept of raising the bar and setting the pace of what it means to be a pace setter. And I think that’s really, really critical in, in this conversation about putting your voice out there and taking a stance. When Lyft is putting their voice out there and saying this is an unjust law. We’re going to take a stand. They create that space for, this is what you need to do to be in this space.

And then Uber will come along and say, I’m going to compete with you on this. And I’m going to compete with you on this and they’re like competing on, on the best commitments, which is where I want to see competition. I want to see people raising that bar and raising that bar and saying, oh, you’re doing this well, we’ll look how much I’m giving back to community and look how much I’m giving back to community.

You know, Lyft and Uber are not perfect companies. But on this topic, they’re looking at how do they raise the bar? And I’m sure that the people who are making that decision had a little bit of uncertainty from a business perspective, what would this do as a business when they make this huge, very quote unquote political? Cause I don’t think it should be political to allow women a choice. But this very political decision that makes you scared as a business owner, but that is following values and doing the right thing. It feels risky as a business, but it’s not. It’s risky to not follow those values and to not do the right thing.

Kristy O’Leary: And I think for all businesses, anybody listening to the podcast, if you’re about to step forward with some messaging and you feel confident and you are sleeping easy. You’re probably not going far enough. If you’re not sweating a little bit over your commitments and the stand you’re about to take, then you probably haven’t tried hard enough. Growth is uncomfortable. One thing that I feel is clear when we’re dealing with our clients and our participants in our programs is that discomfort is just, it’s the name of the game. And, that’s that space that, that uncomfortable space provides all kinds of opportunity for growth and innovation.

Brianna Brown: It’s also uncomfortable to not change. Like it feels more immediately uncomfortable to, to change and put yourself out there. I, I kind of think about the image of the ostrich with the head in the sand, that might feel safe while your head is in the sand, but that is a very uncomfortable and vulnerable position to be. And when you take your head out, you’re going to see that it’s an uncomfortable space. It kind of goes back to another word that Kristy brought up earlier, agency. And we can be uncomfortable and have agency and direction about where we’re going and really exercise that choice. Or we can be uncomfortable and not have agency. We’re kind of at a place now where it’s an uncomfortable world, but we can lean into that discomfort and shape a better world. And that’s something that really inspires me and gets me going, because we have the amazing honor to be working with clients all the time who are stepping into that hopeful future. So I very much live in a bubble where I see solutions all the time. And so solutions are outthere. Sometimes they’re not super obvious, but solutions, are everywhere. Once you start looking.

Kristy O’Leary: it’s, where’s Waldo. It’s just, where’s Waldo. Like once you know what he looks like and you see that little hat you’re going to find Waldo. And so now I feel like that’s what, that’s one of the outcomes of the work we do is. It’s like, we give them like the, like the Rosetta stone of impact and they can start to see it in all its forms and how it’s showing up and they can connect the dots. They can see through the matrix, like there’s this richness that they get to have a richer experience as business owners, as consumers. I, and I just think it’s all really exciting. I think that the, the truth is the world’s going to get more uncomfortable. Do you want to be a leaf in the river? Do you want to be the river? Like there’s these choices we have to make. And I hope everybody gets excited about leaving it better than they found it, and we don’t need everybody to change. We just need that 10% of people. That are going to change. That are going to drive policy change and really lead. We don’t need everybody to agree with us, which is incredible.

Jennifer Chua: All of us at some point have come across the B Corp logo on a brand’s packaging or on a website and as conscious business owners, maybe we’ve heard about B Corp within our entrepreneurship communities, but as consumers, I find that I still get asked a lot. When I’m speaking about B Corp certification, what B Corp is or what it stands for. What is B Corp exactly? Because I think a lot of people still don’t understand

Brianna Brown: B Corp is a certification that applies to the business. So there’s a lot of certifications, maybe organic or fair trade or non-GMO that are for a specific product or production process. That’s looking at just how one ingredient or one product is made. B Corp is similar to that, but it’s looking at the entire way your business operates. It’s an assessment that looks at your governance, how you’re set up, your workers, how you protect the health of your employees and your team, how you contribute to your community, your environment, and your customers. So it’s looking holistically at all operations at all parts of, of your business. How are you considering people and planet?

So that’s sort of like what the assessment does. The tagline, which I think is really, really true is using business as a force for good. So it’s looking at all of these different ways that we can use our business as a force for good. And I think that that is part of the reason why it’s a little bit confusing is because organic looks at one thing, fair trade looks at one thing. B Corp, because it’s looking at all of these different things. It can be hard to say what exactly it means for you. Cause there’s different paths to the summit. There’s different ways to be an impactful company.

Sometimes it’s through workers, sometimes it’s through community. Sometimes through environment, B Corps asks you questions on every single element of that. And then you have to obtain 80 points. It’s a scored assessment. So 80 points is the, the bar you have to meet to become a B Corp. A traditional company might score around 40 points in the assessment, a company that has a CSR corporate social responsibility might be around 60 points. So 80 is a, is a really high bar, but it’s hard to see that it’s hard to communicate that. So I understand when there’s a little bit of uncertainty about what it means because it’s holistic and it’s looking at, at the entire business.

Kristy O’Leary: I kind of get excited when folks don’t know anything about B Corp, because you get to share like the best kept secret. Guess what? There’s a way that you, as a consumer. Can really reclaim your citizenship through how you spend. I think that’s one of those, one of those opportunities to tell a great story to kind of start to change their, their understanding or their personal narrative about how they buy. Cause like really so many folks, I hear it all the time. They’re like, oh, corporations are evil. I had this conversation just about a week ago. All of a sudden someone said something about capitalism. And then there was this pile on about how companies are bad and that’s all there is to it. And I was like, whoa, but what if they do good things? And it just ignited this whole conversation I got to share with a bunch of really intelligent folks that like, there is a better way. And so when people don’t know about it, don’t be discouraged. Just feel like you get to be that person that opened their mind to this movement.

Brianna Brown: I also like to add the companies might be evil. Companies might be good. Companies are our vehicle, but companies are made out of people. And those people behind them have values people behind them are people like you, Jen and Kristy and myself and all of the listeners. We’re all people behind those companies. And when we can allow companies, which is some of the work we do, we allow companies to get closer in touch with their humanity. What can our businesses achieve?

Jennifer Chua: If you do stumble across a business that has a B Corp logo, you can be somewhat sure, really, that this company is committed to, Jedi principles. They are committed to treating their communities well, they’re giving back, they’re maybe making better decisions in terms of environmental impacts. I’m wondering how stringent the certification is. Like how difficult is it for brands to go through that process? How do we know that this is legit? Like how difficult is this for the brand to actually get that certification and put it there on their product?

Brianna Brown: the B Corp movement is poweredourby a questionnaire called the B impact assessment. There have been well over a hundred thousand users of that tool. There are 4,000 certified B Corp’s. Of all the people taking this assessment. 3 to 4% become B Corp certified. Now not every single person who opens up the assessment ultimately is seeking certification, but that is a pretty significant piece. Another stat , that we heard about more recently is once you go through the assessment, you say, I’ve, self-assessed myself. I have above 80 points. I’m going to submit this, of all the submissions, 2/3, get their points knocked down when the third party is looking for that verification and are not above 80 points at that time. And I found that shocking when we heard that, because all of the companies that we’re working with when they submit they’re kind of prepared and they’re getting certified at the end because we’ve done really deep work with them. So I found that shocking, but even after people submit the difference between their self assessment and that third-party assessment, only about a third of those are actually going through to certification. So I think that those two numbers there, that 3% number, three to 4% ultimately getting certified. And then that only a third after you submit for certification, this is a big deal. And I also want to say there’s immense value to going through that assessment, even if you’re not at the point where you’re ultimately going to be able to certify, because you can’t like when you go through those questions, when you get to places that are a little uncomfortable, maybe you’re in the worker section. You’re like our workers practice actually aren’t that great. It forces you to ask those questions and you could just say, no, you could just be like, oh, I don’t have that. I don’t have that. But most people say, Hmm, kind of want to improve? What would it look like to improve.

It’s really valuable if you’re at a place where you’re ready to certify when you have all of those practices in place, but it’s also valuable as a roadmap to start to make that first step towards being a better company. And maybe in, maybe you’re going to be ready to certify today. Maybe you’re going to be ready to certify in 10 years, but either way there’s these opportunities you can do to build better practices into your business progress over perfection. We don’t need everybody to be a B Corp. We do need more people thinking about how they can be better businesses.

Jennifer Chua: so in the next decade, do you think that we’re going to find registered B Corp’s on every shelf in every home? Like, do you think that this movement has that kind of momentum?

Kristy O’Leary: absolutely,

Brianna Brown: I bet you already have some on your shelf,

Kristy O’Leary: for sure. Every everybody, but honestly, so many people do and they don’t know it. I think that when a consumer encounters that B corp symbol, that logo they can rest assured that a company has gone through an extremely uncomfortable process. And even though that company is not perfect because nobody is, no company is, they’ve asked themselves really challenging questions. And so you may not know the details as a consumer, but you could rest assured that they have gone through the most rigorous business certification in the world. At least from an environmental and social perspective from that ESG plus purpose perspective. And so I hope if consumers want to dig in and really understand how the assessment works, there’s lots of resources to do that. But life is busy. You have to go grocery shopping, you have an aging parent. There’s a, you know, that little thing called a pandemic, there’s a lot going on. And so I think that the B Corp logo is a way to make it really easy for consumers. Okay. They ask the questions they’re trying harder. And just that act of awareness is as revolutionary for companies. So I know a lot of B Corp’s wouldn’t communicate what they do as revolutionary necessarily, but that going through that process of voluntarily going through that process is revolutionary

Jennifer Chua: Maybe you do own a business, but maybe you don’t and you still want to support companies that have this vision for the future that is placing people in planet over profit. So what is the best way that either group can affect change?

Brianna Brown: When you don’t own a business, I’ve always been curious about the multiple identities we hold. So we hold an identity as a citizen where we can go out and vote and we can call our elected officials to account. There is a vote coming up. We’re not gonna, we won’t talk about it too much, but going out and voting for your values, that’s something you can do as a citizen. As a consumer, we talked about conscious consumerism and looking for those logos and also asking questions. When you’re in the position to ask questions of your grocery store or at the farmer’s market or where you are about, where did this come from? You might have an identity as an investor where you’re looking at where your investments are, where your money is what bank you bank with. You might be having an identity. As a worker asking your employer, what they’re doing driving change from within. Change doesn’t come overnight. Change comes because somebody has been asked that one extra time what are you doing for community? What are you doing for environment?

In all of those identities being asked that question, and then for some of us, we have an identity as a business owner where we have this opportunity to, to build all of these practices into our business. But I think it’s just helpful to think of ourselves with all of our different conflicting identities, maybe we’re in a parents group or community group where we’re talking with our like-minded parents about what we’re thinking about and all of these conversations, they seem really small and they are small. But they build into something really big when we have all of these people talking and asking questions and sharing what they’re interested in and sharing what their values are.

Kristy O’Leary: For consumers, I think build your personal screening, build your economic screen. How can you exercise your values when every time you, you spend money and make it easy, make yourself a cheat sheet, right. And actually stick to it. And it’s really hard because sometimes I want to buy jeans that I know aren’t waterless or this or that. You know what I mean? We all have to make, make our own decisions, but just kind of have a talk with yourself and decide what you want to invest in every time you spend a dollar. and I think from a company perspective, I really think open up the B Corp assessment. It’s a big task, but just approach it one question at a time and start asking yourself those questions.

And inevitably, every entrepreneur opens it and they’re like, oh no, we don’t know. Okay. Oh, no, we don’t do that. And just turn every know into a how and a why. Well, why would we do this? Why does it make sense for our business? And then how would we implement it? And how can that take shape in our business? And I think that act of asking yourself voluntarily asking yourself these challenging questions. It may not feel like you’re Rocky running up those stairs, but that’s kind of what you’re doing. Put on a montage, get some, some power ballads in the background and start thinking about what your superpower is going to be.

Brianna Brown: Also think about decade. Not the company, the concept. Or you can think about the company. Who do you want to be in 2030? Who do you want to be in 10 years? Who do you want to be in 2050? Who do you want to be in 30 years? Really just sit in that space of what might my business look like in 10 years? And what do I want it to look like? Get a little bit uncomfortable about the darkness, but also spend a lot of time just, just dreaming about how good might we be. How could we contribute to something bigger than ourselves? How can we think about people? How can we think about planet? And I think just bringing those questions and who do we want to be in 10 years? 10 years is a great timeframe because we’re freed from the everyday constraints that are telling us. No, no, no. We get to just sit in that space and say, what could we be and give yourself that space. That’s what entrepreneurs are always missing is time and space, but carve out a couple hours, carve out one hour and just think about who do I want to be in 2030? Share with your team. Share with your team, what you thought about. And you’re going to find people who are stoked about that vision and want to help you get there.

Jennifer Chua: Or your friends, family, or members of your social circle as well, because maybe they have some ideas and had to do something with you. Has working in this space, have you come across anything that’s been really surprising? Like, has there been a piece of knowledge that you’ve learned from working with someone or an experience that has been really surprising or has changed how you see the world in some way?

Brianna Brown: almost every day Kristy will sometimes bring up a great Disney quote. It’s kind of fun to do the impossible. And when you start talking with people about those big questions that I just mentioned, you’re starting to get into impossible territory. And then people will say stuff all the time that are just like, I want to do this. I want to go after this. I’m going to solve like the housing crisis or I’m going to solve food insecurity issues in my, in my little area. And then they start doing it. And although I’ve been working in this space for a while, and although that’s exactly the result that I want to happen and I know can happen, it surprises and delights me every single time.

And I know we talked about a lot of dark things in this podcast. Or we started getting into a lot of the uncertainty and, and discomfort. But you can see with Kristy and I were so excited, we just get, we get to see people start to do the impossible and go after it and see what happens. And that, that delights me every single time.

Kristy O’Leary: I am really excited when I think about the future. I think we have a lot of work to do. Yeah, I think we have a lot of work to do. I also think that we can find that kind of blissful productivity. And we have an opportunity right now, to really all of us to feel this deep purpose. Because it’s not just one issue. It’s not just about the environment. It’s everything all at once. Everything is coming down at once. And so we really sit at the precipice of building a new economy and, and adjusted inclusive society. And so I understand that the reality of making that happen is, is, is a lot of work.

Brianna Brown: We believe every business can leave the world better than they found it. Every person deserves to feel the delight of change-making and absolutely anything is possible.

Kristy O’Leary: And I think that’s it. We have to all accept, or the two and a half percent of people that we need to change the world have to accept that this is on us and not be angry and not be upset with those that aren’t walking that path. Right? Like, don’t be divisive. Folks are too busy. Their mom has cancer. They have stuff going on. They don’t have the emotional capacity to do this work. We do. And there’s lots of other people that are, and, and I just think it’s incredibly exciting. Again, I always bring it back to like the montage. It’s kind of fun and Disney, it’s kind of fun to do the impossible. So I don’t know what the future holds. I know what I’m going to do. I know what Brianna and I are doing, and I hope that other entrepreneurs and consumers in their own way, join us either by working with us by building that personal screening as a consumer. Yeah, I think that the future is exactly what we decide it’s going to be

Jennifer Chua: So I’ve worked with you with my business, hip mommies, and gone through the getting to 80 program. So if anyone who’s listening to this episode right now wants to hear more about my experience. I invite you to reach out to me and I will give you kind of the inside scoop. If you are a business and you are interested in exploring B Corp, how can decade impact, how can the two of you best support a business owner who is looking for that next step?

Kristy O’Leary: I think it all starts with an initial conversation. We talked to almost every person that does our program before the program starts. Our getting to 80 program, which is a cohort program, which we have cohorts launching on the 28th of September and the 5th of October for Canadian companies this year. It all starts with that conversation because every case is so different. Every business is you are all unique snowflakes. And every business is different and really understand what your needs are and, and what your capacity is and where you’re at in that journey. Are you gonna, are you going to jump off the cliff with us or you want to stick your toes in the water? And once we understand what you’re ready to do, then we can build an approach. We can help you build an approach. I think we’re always happy to talk to folks regardless of where they are in their journey, it takes all kinds.

Brianna Brown: And there’s two main ways that we work with companies with lots of flexibility in each one, we have the getting to 80 program, which is really designed for small businesses. It’s a B Corp readiness and purpose exploration program, six sessions that you’re doing together with other small business owners. So you’re in a cohort with other small business owners going through the nuts and bolts of the B Corp assessment, as well as making it meaningful to you. The other way that we work with businesses is one-on-one. So doing deep dives into your business what we like doing is team-based workshops. So we’re creating Eureka moments as a team, creating the momentum within your company, creating this shared literacy. Where you’re going and how you can get there. There’s many paths to the summit. So we’re very flexible with that approach.

Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Kristy, Brianna, and how they’re helping brands create a better world with Decade impact. Visit decadeimpact.com. Looking to learn more about how they can support your impact business with future focused design thinking. Or if you’re interested in the getting to 80 program that uses the B Corp framework, you can connect with them on Instagram @decadeimpact. Look for Brianna and Kristy on LinkedIn, where they’re actively contributing to the conversation surrounding how brands can do better.

Highlights from episodes 1-10 & Live More Sustainably or Socially Responsible With Tips You Can Take Now.

In today’s episode, we’re going to do something a little different and revisit the last ten episodes, The first 10 episodes of the podcast, focusing on the highlights. The moments where I learned really eye-opening from each guest, but we’ve also included some moments that you, the listeners have commented on were really inspiring. So if you missed an episode or you are just discovering this project? This is a great way to get an overview of what we’ve learned so far and see which episodes you may want to go back to and listen to. I also share some of the actionable tips from the episodes to help make thoughtful choices as a consumer.

if you want to live a more sustainable life, if you want to use your business or buying power to give back, or if you just want to learn about really, really great brands doing really, really interesting things. This is the place to be.

Featuring

• Rebecca Saha from Tiny Toy Co.
• Maran Stern Kubista from My Kindness Calendar
• Kimberlee West from Kids Swag
• Jennifer Myers Chua from Hip Mommies
• April Mackinnon from Anointment
• Lisa Nguyen from Baubles + Soles
• Megan Takeda-Tully from Suppli
• Melita Cyril from Q for Quinn
• Emma Rohmann from Green at Home
• Sheena Russell from Made With Local

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Myers Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to Cost of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 11.

On today’s episode, we’re going to do something a little different and revisit the last 10 episodes.  The first 10 episodes of the podcast, focusing on the highlights. These are the moments where I learned something really eye-opening from each guest, but we’ve also included some moments that you, the listeners have commented were really inspiring.  So if you missed an episode or if you’re just discovering this project, this is a great way to get an overview of what we’ve learned so far and see which episodes you may want to go back to and listen.  I’ll also be sharing some of the actionable tips we learned from each episode.  To help make thoughtful choices as a consumer. And if you want to live a more sustainable life, or if you want to use your business or buying power to give back.  Or if you just want to learn about really, really, really great brands doing some really, really, really interesting things. This is the place to be.

 In the very first episode, episode one, we meet Rebecca Saha. She’s a kindergarten teacher and the founder of Tiny Toy Co.  With her business, Rebecca repurposes tiny plastic toys that would otherwise go into landfill into educational kits.

 And part of Rebecca’s mission is to encourage children to do things differently and become a different kind of consumer.  And through her upcycled educational kits and her hands-on educational workshops. Rebecca is taking her background in early childhood education and her commitment to sustainability and doing just that.

In this episode, Rebecca had a lot to share about good intentions, why we need to be mindful as consumers about what we are buying.  And were items like those drive-thru toys will actually go if we donate them. But one thing that Rebecca touched on that really stood out to me. Was about upcyclers.  The businesses that use found or donated materials.  And repurpose those into other goods. And if we can see the benefits of a circular economy, that’s one thing. But in order for this to really work.  We need to purchase these upcycled goods, even if at a higher cost, because donating our unwanted materials isn’t enough.

 Rebecca Saha: There’s this presumption that the way to help these businesses, that the way to help the movement. It is to contribute your, your junk, contribute your stuff. And while that’s important, too, the best way that you can help them movement is to buy the end product until we shop differently. Nothing’s going to change  if you give me your bags and bags of toy junk, and you feel great about the fact that it’s going to be reused instead of going to landfill. That’s amazing. But if you follow that by heading to the toy store or the dollar store  one or the takeout lane and refilling it up, refilling your playroom with the same junk, with the same stuff at the same volume, then then you haven’t interrupted the cycle, you’ve perpetuated the cycle.  And so I think what’s really important for for the movement, the reuse movement, the upcycling movement to succeed is for people to support it  financially at the at the other end.  people need to purchase things differently  as well as contributing to the, to the intake of the circular businesses.

 Jennifer Myers Chua: When working on this episode, I think I was most astonished to learn that McDonald’s gives out 1.5 billion toys in their happy meals each year. And if you’re choosing the book alternative, which is what we’ve done in the past, Note that, that plastic wrapping on the books that contributes to hundreds of tons of plastic a year as  well it’s just a lot of waste.

 And if you want to take action, now, here are some tips from this episode.

1. Be mindful of what tiny breakable plastics you bring into your home. Noting that most can not be recycled.
2. Consider eco-friendly alternatives to loot bags or get the upcycled ones like tiny toy Co.’s ReLoot bag.
3. Look for upcycled alternatives to things that you need for your home. There are some clever and sustainable solutions out there. It may take a little more digging. But you can get things even like countertops made from old chopsticks. 

Maran Stern Kubista was also looking for an alternative to tiny plastic toys or sugary treats. And we meet her in episode two.

Maran wanted to give her children that advent calendar experience without all of the treats. And taking inspiration for moments in her life when she experienced kindness. Maran developed a countdown style calendar focused on giving back.

Her brand is called My Kindness Calendar and her acts of kindness are meaningful, beautiful, even, and you never know the impact that something’s going to make on someone short-term or long-term, it’s powerful. Maran is growing the brand into one that supports children year round with mindfulness activities that cultivate kindness.  And because she says kids are awesome open, and these kinds of activities are particularly important after all they’ve been through over the last couple of years in this pandemic.

Maran Stern-Kubista: “I am always. Aware of the potential of kids. I’m never surprised to see kids doing amazing things because I think that’s the default. Like I think the default is you’re awesome. And you’re amazing. Now, like we, as society and  in our culture, like we just need to enable that. We need to create opportunity for kids to be amazing because they’re so creative and like they’re so intrinsically, there’s so much good there, that it just needs to be fostered and released, and everyone is going to develop into the people they’re meant to be. But when we can do our part of, giving them opportunity and encouraging them when they do positive things and helping them understand when things are challenging. And when different choices could be made in challenging moments, like that’s just. Enabling them to, live through their potential. So I’m for sure hopeful and talk about resilience, what kids are going through right now. There’s no doubt that it’s having a humongous cost on everybody’s mental health, like parents and kids.  This is the story of life, right? People go through things that they should never have to go through that are super challenging. And that can be really deflating and it can be very upsetting and it can also be, a chance. I choose to see difficult moments as an opportunity to really build resilience.”

Jennifer Myers Chua: This episode had me considering my own traditions, particularly surrounding the holidays.  And Maran pointed out how early children understand the concept of receiving gifts. And then that expectation of gifts at certain occasions.  Giving to others and creating special opportunities for kindness. That is something that is more meaningful to me, but how have I been modelling this to my child? And how can we build more meaningful traditions around giving. It’s worth a thought.

Want to take action now? It sounds simple, but the easiest thing you can do to spread kindness is to be kind.  Want to brighten someone’s day today. Here’s a tip. Maran says that one of the most popular of her kindness activities and the one that she sees shared most on social media is baking cookies and bringing them to a friend.

In episode three, we chat with Kimberlee West, who is someone that I have followed for a long time. Since the early days of her business Kids Swag. I’m endlessly impressed by Kimberlee and her shop. It’s a purpose-driven e-commerce brand and she’s built Kids Swag around the idea of mindful representation.  With her business, she’s made a big impact in the lives of BIPOC children who don’t generally see themselves represented in the toy aisle.  And out of all of the episodes featured here, I think this is the one where we learn most about the founder. Kimberlee digs deep into her past. Events that have shaped how she sees the world this way.  And we get a really good understanding of her. Why. Why she is on a mission to help raise confident kids that appreciate difference.

Kimberlee West: “I don’t think people recognize or understand the psychological impact of not seeing yourself. One of the things that I did as I delve more into Kids Swag was reading a lot more and I came across a study and it was saying by the age of three, and it happens earlier, but age three is quite pivotal by the age of three, your child is really understanding their world based off of race. So they’re categorizing people and giving them certain characteristics and traits. So this, basically, this is the beginning of stereotyping at age three. And so you can imagine if in that period of time, they haven’t seen themselves, they’re also characterizing themselves as being something that’s less than, or not really part of the world that they’re in.”

“If it is a child that’s white and they’re seeing themselves, then it makes it that much harder for them to, even as they get older for them to acknowledge or understand the pain, that probably someone that doesn’t look like them has experienced their whole life because in their world, it will be a feeling of like, why does race matter? It’s not really a construct. Why can’t we all be the same? They’ve had the luxury of being able to identify as just being themselves more so than being white.”

 Jennifer Myers Chua: This episode had so many light bulb moments and so many things that. I haven’t considered as a white woman or a white business owner or a mother, even though I’m raising a multi-racial child. And Kimberlee has a really special gift when it comes to marketing and how she engages her community, her customers are instant ambassadors for her brand. I just adore Kimberlee’s approach.

And I really appreciate the stories that she told in this episode. It’s, it’s really worth the listen. And if you want to take action, now, here are some tips from this episode. 

1. All of us, have the opportunity to teach our children to be open and celebrate differences. A great way to start fill your home library with books, featuring a variety of voices and stories from people all over the world.
2. Want to see representation in the toy aisle? Speak up large brands are beginning to take notice and make changes based on consumer demand.
3. If you’re a creator or a curator, you need to be mindful of bias in product design and shop curation too.

In episode four, I spoke a bit about Hip Mommies and how we came to be and why we’ve made some of the choices that we have. In the past seven years, we’ve taken our distribution business into a brand new direction.  Putting the planet and our communities first, when making decisions. It’s been a long road, filled with a lot of learnings and our business just turned 17.  And I share a number of things that we learned along the way.  Particularly in the last seven years since I’ve been involved. And I won’t go into the recap here, but if you’re interested in rebuilding a business, or family business dynamics or value-based business, or even the world of product based business or the baby products industry. It’s all in this episode. 

But to leave you with one thing, do your research.  Make sure what you were buying is tested, safe, authentic, all of that. And if you don’t have the time. Shop with a reputable seller. Who does that work for you? Sustainability, safety. It’s all very expensive. So if a deal sounds too good to be true. It just might be.

April McKinnon from Anointment is who we meet in episode five. She’s been making handmade personal care products in the Maritimes for over 12 years.  She bought her business, a farmer’s market soap company. And she had some really interesting insights to share about that. About buying a business and if it was a good investment over just starting a business on her own. And over the years, April has made a lot of changes and some mistakes. And she’s now the owner of a thriving, natural skincare brand. Which is available across Canada and in some larger natural retailers, like whole foods.

April’s a former environmental engineer and her homestead and Apiary are on this incredibly beautiful marshland in the east coast of Canada. So she also had a lot to share about how she’s inspired by that unique landscape. And how her business really interacts with the natural world. She also very bravely shared that her time spent in the NICU with her daughter with critical illness was the inspiration to give back and that the PPE and the waste created during that stay was something that had really stuck with her and helped create the values that this business is based on. But what got me about this episode was that April talks about the value chain. About how she sources her ingredients, why she chooses the partner she does  and what that means to us as conscious consumers, when we are deciding between two potential purchases.

April MacKinnon: “I’m a huge proponent of relationship-based business. Shea butter is a great example. I work with a with a supplier that purchases directly from a women’s co-op in Ghana. And so you can see from their videos and from their newsletters what’s happening in the village where the Shea butter is produced. The fact that the women there have been able to send their children to school because this is the income that they are making from selling the Shea butter. And so. I really like that for the social responsibility aspect. For someone starting out. You really have to define your, define your ethics, define your values within your business and don’t deviate. So spending time thinking about those things is really important. I think, there are some companies who for whom success is measured by bottom line and to other companies for whom success is measured in their work-life balance and other people for whom success is measured by something else completely. So knowing that is often enough to drive how you decide to purchase.”

Jennifer Myers Chua: Want to take action now? Here are some tips from this episode.

1. Number one. Look online before you buy. Sites like EWG allow you to look in the potential safety risks of personal care products. Now these databases are not perfect. But they can give you some insight into what ingredients are in the products you’re using. Look at the ingredients though, not the verified label, because those are paid opportunities. So just be mindful of that.
2. Passionate about a particular cause? April’s brand supports women through pregnancy postpartum through a number of ways. It’s possible to shop with a brand who have great products and values that align with yours.
3. If you’re in business or looking to start a business, it’s tempting to make something for everyone.  But April points out that it’s best to define your ethics, define your values within your business. And don’t deviate. And over the years, April’s offering has gotten smaller and more focused.  She suggests niching down, niching down and niching down again.

In episode six, we chatted with Lisa Ngyuen from Baubles + Soles. Lisa’s toddler shoes are made of this innovative material of sea salt and soy that are a hundred percent recyclable. And with interchangeable, baubles, really cute hearts and animals and things like that.  You can give the shoe a completely new look with just a twist. Additional features like water resistance, make bubbles and souls incredibly multipurpose and makes them.  Really the top choice of anyone looking to buy less shoes for their little one.

 In this episode, Lisa also gave us a bit of insight into building her business and making it onto shark tank. And she also chats about her heart and souls fund giving back program, which was inspired by her childhood as a refugee. And then time spent in Southeast Asia doing pro bono legal work for stateless peoples. What I found interesting about this conversation.  Was Lisa’s insight into domestic manufacturing.  Lower carbon footprint, less shipping. Greater chance that the workers are being paid fairly. And less chance of environmental catastrophes. Our laws are just stricter here in north America. But often time businesses go overseas right away, because they don’t think there is another option or that it can be cost effective to manufacture close to home.

Lisa Nguyen: “I was doing this research when we were preparing for Shark Tank and one of the things that a CEO that I was working with at the time she pointed out, listen, your effective margins is actually better than if you had manufactured it overseas. And here she is talking about the turnaround time for this product, the time that it, so you have to pay for these products, but then it sits at sea for a month before it gets to, to America. And also like we have the ability to maybe place a lower MOQ minimum order quantity when it’s made here domestically, because it doesn’t have to go so far. When you manufacture off shore, you have to plan out your inventory 6 to 12 months in advance, and then you order accordingly and then your cash goes out, as, as you’re waiting for it to come in. So in actual fact, your margins, like the margins is actually higher than you realize because of the amount of time that it takes and how much money you have sitting in inventory. And then you have to sell out of the inventory. For us here. We have the flexibility of a lower MOQ minimum order quantity and so then our effective margin is actually I think if not lower than the same as if we had chosen to make it. Off shore. If you think about the cost of goods sold and there maybe you add marketing, because  people feel good about that. And, and people feel like quality is there because it is made here. So then that’s actually a little bit of marketing funds that’s already built into the product.”

Jennifer Myers Chua: Less than 0.1% of shoes purchased in north America are made in north America. And the majority of shoes sold north America are not recyclable. Many shoe brands that claim recyclability are really just. Taking shoes back and redistributing them. Meaning they’re donated to populations overseas. So that’s a lot of international travel for just one pair of shoes.  Top tips from this episode. 

1. look for multi-purpose shoes for your little one. Toddlers and preschoolers may go through two sizes and six or more pairs of shoes per size in a year.
2. Another thing to look for with kids shoes, machine washable, some shoes are made with plastics and glues that don’t hold up well in the washing machine. And kid’s shoes get dirty.

 In episode seven, we met with Megan Takeda-Tully from Suppli.  episode was fascinating and really eyeopening.  We talked about how much takeout waste is actually created, how that waste is managed and what the environmental and health effects are from our obsession with convenience. And I think out of all of the last 10 episodes, this is the one that effect my habits in my personal life the most. And if you haven’t already listened to this one, it’s worth it. Because if you get takeout at all, it’s, it’s worth a listen.

 The plastic waste from takeout. It’s extreme. Because even before the pandemic. In Canada alone, we were already throwing out 3 million tons of plastic waste. And only 9% of that is actually recycled. The majority of our takeout containers are still made of styrofoam and black plastic. Both of which are not recyclable in most parts of the country. So it ends up in landfills. Along with billions of plastic utensils and about 29,000 tons of plastic food waste ends up in our natural environment. We find it in forests, washed up on beaches, stuff like that. So Megan is taking on a really huge issue.

Who is responsible? Is it on us as the consumer? The restaurants were choosing the styrofoam. Or should our municipalities get involved? Giving subsidies for alternatives?

 Megan Takeda-Tully:  “a lot of people assume that because restaurants are using single use containers that. They don’t care about the environment and that that’s not a priority for them. The reality is, is that the restaurant business is so cost sensitive. It’s such a low margin business.  Despite wanting to do what they can for the environment, sometimes even the more environmentally friendly single use option. They’re too expensive for some of these restaurants. Right. And if it’s between like surviving or not, then they kind of have to survive. But if there’s an alternative that works with them as Suppli aims to do and really partner and understand what their pain points are and try and solve those in a way that’s cost-effective for them and really that we have buy-in from them on the model. I think  there’s a lot to be gained there.”

“One of the other surprising pieces of of kind of building Suppli and everything that I hadn’t really counted on is is how much individuals care about this and want it to succeed?  I think that now we’re building much more community and it’s not just, zero wasters, it’s, it’s a community that supports each other to  help build this momentum. And I think that’s awesome. And it’s so, so refreshing and energizing and. That’s something that I really hadn’t anticipated,  the willingness of our consumer base to give feedback and help us build this. Because that was my intention from the beginning. It’s a service and product service that is built from the grassroots up. And I think that’s the way to form these sorts of initiatives. And I think that sets you up well for building something that really tackles the issues that people are, are seeing.”  

Jennifer Myers Chua: Top tips from this episode.

1. If you’re in Toronto, please sign up for Suppli. Megan is on a very important mission, and this is an easy and affordable way to make big impact.  If not seek out restaurants that are using reusable containers or that will pack your food into a container that you’ve brought.
2. Avoid takeout containers. If you can. The forever chemicals that keep these waterproof are leaching into our waterways and bloodstreams and causing a lot of problems.
3. Make noise. Tell your local restaurants that you want an alternative call your city councillor because this is really an area that we need to take. Action.

Melita from Q for Quinn is our guest in episode eight. After an impressive career in the financial world.  Melita followed her father’s footsteps into the world of entrepreneurship. Creating organic cotton basics like socks for children.  Initially, she was concerned about toxins and dyes that were causing her son to have eczema. But now the focus of the business is more than that. Melita’s factories are OEKO-TEX certified. And she uses GOTScertified cotton.  In this episode, we learn what all of that means and why it’s so important. And Melita also touches on her giveback program as well, where she donates meals to children in the developing world. And in this episode, we talk all about organics, fast fashion. What’s really in our clothes, who’s making them and Melita explains externalities, which is a concept in economics. That explains how we determine the true cost of a product.

Melita Cyril:  “And this is exactly the challenge I find, being a business owner, Trying to create the best possible product. But it ends up being at a much higher cost than, an alternative. I wouldn’t even say competition because it’s not the same product. It’s more of an alternative, right. I have an undergraduate degree in economics and I won’t get into. Too much of the jargon. But I, I will try to explain this. You might understand the concept of  this demand and supply curve intersecting in order to get to the free market price of, of something it’s called lean equilibrium. What happens if the demand curve or the supply curve is not accurate? It does not truly take into account. As far as the supply curve is concerned, the true cost of something. For the demand curve. You’ve got to look at it from a benefit perspective. So if the demand curve does not take into account, the true benefit of something. Or the supply curve does not take into account the true cost of something. You get the wrong price by society.”

“There is something called Externalities, which occurs when the full true cost or benefit of a market is not reflected in the market economics of it. So what that leads to is a wrong price. From a negative externalities perspective is the wrong price and overproduction.”

“And this is exactly the problem with fast fashion. It’s the same problem that we have with pollution. It’s the same concept. So with the supply curve for fashion in generalizing the market a little bit, I should just say for socks, if the cost doesn’t incorporate the social cost of the workers who have to produce were exposed to these pesticides and chemicals. If it doesn’t take into account the environmental costs off these pesticides and chemicals, then you’re going to get a lower price for the wrong price. And if you’re looking to source that that takes into account all of this, the sourcing price is going to be higher. And, and so that, that is exactly why if we pay attention to all this, we have to source at a higher cost and the price ends up being higher for a consumer. By buying a product, you are making sure you are paying the true cost of the product and not a lower cost where somebody else or even your own children end up paying the price for it.”

Jennifer Myers Chua: Want to take action now? Here are some tips from this episode.

1. Look for GOTS certified organic cotton, especially if buying for anyone with skin issues or eczema.
2. If you’re choosing fast fashion because of the price. Consider things like cost per use, durable items can be used many more times. Are often available to be resold or passed on.
3. Consider the costs when you’re looking to make a purchase. You can reach out to brands and ask about their worker policies or how things are made.

Number nine. Emma Rhomann is a toxics expert. She helps people make greener, healthier choices in their homes. And because she’s been studying things like water systems and chemicals for decades. I wanted to ask her questions about all of the goods that we’re buying and bringing into our homes. Now this episode goes into all of the things that we never consider about what is in the goods that we are buying. But we also get into who is regulating what makes it onto the shelves. How that’s really a system that’s failing us at this moment. And how all of this affects us and our health in the longterm.

Emma Rohmann: “essentially environmental health or environmental medicine looks at the impact external factors have on our health. When it comes to consumer goods, we can think of them impacting our space. Everything that we are putting on our skin  has the potential to be absorbed. What we put in our air we breathe in and what’s in our food and our drink we ingest. So There’s three pathways and a lot of the kind of conversation around toxics got pushed to the side because most conventional practitioners would say, oh, well, the dose makes the poison. We don’t . Need to be concerned because there’s such small amounts and our bodies have detoxification systems. They’re not going to cause a health impact. Where environmental health comes into play, environmental medicine. we’re not just looking at isolated exposures to things. There are toxins, literally everywhere. At this point. It’s not about going toxin-free, we can’t, but it’s lowering the exposure as much as possible and supporting our body systems so that they can better handle what they can’t control. So when we think of the way that our environment affects our health, it is varied. And that’s what makes it such a challenging field of study because every body handles things differently, but essentially you can consider your body’s systems like a barrel. It’s a contained volume. And when we are exposed to certain toxins or stressors, this adds to our toxic load.  If your body systems cannot process these toxins and stressors fast enough at the rate that they’re coming in, they end up overflowing into our bloodstream into our bodies. Some of them get reabsorbed into our fat and it can cause cellular damage. It can cause hormone, disruption hormone disruption is one of the main things that I talk about because it is so widespread. We know that some toxins are contributing to cancer, asthma, and allergies. It’s vast.  But that’s the crux of how the environment affects us.”

 Jennifer Myers Chua: Top tips.

1. Emma suggests asking questions, reaching out to the manufacturer or the shop and ask about the ingredients. The manufacturers that have safety top of mind. They’re expecting this, they have the information available and they’re happy to help. 
2. Be mindful when shopping online, what you think you’re ordering might not be what shows up at your door. Counterfeits are rampant, especially online and counterfeiters cut corners to keep costs down. Skipping things like safety, fair wages and using cheaper and maybe toxic ingredients.
3. If you’re overwhelmed and you don’t know where to start. If you look at the show notes on thecostofgoodssold.com. You can link to Emma’s podcast and to her blog, where she gives actionable tips to make all of this less overwhelming.

Born and raised in one of my favourite places in the world. Prince Edward Island. I’ve been wanting to meet Sheena Russell for ages. And I finally get to in episode 10.  Her popular snack food brand Made With Local is everywhere in Canadian grocery stores. Her bars are delicious, nutritious, and Sheena is like the model of someone who has taken social entrepreneurship. Seriously.  Her innovative business model creates impact in so many ways. It influences how she sources ingredients. Who she partners with and who makes and packages the bars.

 Now I loved how Sheena claims her business. Doesn’t have this traditional founder story with this aha moment. Instead she remained open and all of these experiences, these opportunities have kind of fallen into her lap. It’s been serendipitous.  Like fate, and it’s a great story.

Our conversation led to a moment where Sheena had to shift her mindset. I’ve had a similar shift with my own business. And this mindset is about big box or big grocery.  It’s tempting as a small business to make all of your sales to small businesses and independence and support that. But if you’re really, truly. But if you’re truly looking to make an impact. Mass retail might be the place to go.  Because every time that Sheena sells a pallet of goods to Costco, She supporting that many more Canadian farmers. And the workers in her social impact bakery. Every dollar spent with the big box is a dollar that’s going directly back into our community.

Sheena Russell:  “our bars are all handmade in partnership with social enterprise bakeries that help to train and employ folks who are living with some type of disability or barrier to the mainstream workforce. They’re actually producing these products right. And it creates  this beautiful ripple effect out into  their lives, their families, their communities. So with that, like those two things married, which is the, what it’s made of and the, how it’s made produces this product that has this like very quantifiable, very real social impact that, that goes out in all directions.  I value this and our thousands and thousands of Canadian customers value this, because  they want to nourish their bodies with foods that align with their personal values and their viewpoints in the world. And they have this sense that food, because of all of these things, the food is going to nourish you in a different kind of way than, some other kind of like mass produced bars that are made with kind of meh ingredients it’s a different experience I believe. And that’s what I want people to feel. Like I want people to have this feeling when they’re eating one of our Made With Local real food bars or that it is experience that connects them to their community.”

Jennifer Myers Chua: Want to take action now? Here are some tips from this episode.

1. Number one.  Shopping for snacks. You want to avoid things like unpronounceable ingredients and Palm oil. Palm oil is terrible. It’s not healthy for you or the planet. And the industry has contributed to things like the extinction of a number of species.  Mass deforestation. And it’s found in a lot of snack bars. So look out for that.
2. If you’re looking to build a social enterprise business, or a values driven company. Scaling up, isn’t selling out. It’s increasing the size of your impact. So maybe give Costco a chance.
3. If you want to make sure you’re supporting a company that really is creating impact. Look for B Corp certification it’s rigorous and B Corp’s have a legal requirement to the planet and people before profit.  

If you joined us through the first 10 episodes of Cost of Goods Sold. I just like to thank you so much for listening. And helping to amplify the voices of these brands that are really truly making a difference. And if you have the opportunity to share one of these episodes with a friend or a family member of yours that you think could really learn something from this, we would be forever grateful. And I know the brand owners would be. As well. You can access all episodes of the Cost Of Goods Sold podcast on apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Also you can visit thecostofgoodssold.com, where we have show notes and transcripts from each episode. And all of the links and social media profiles of all of the brands featured so if you want to connect with them you can find the links on our website.

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Sheena Russel from Made with Local, the popular CPG brand from the Maritimes. We explore how she’s created clean and simple snack food bars with social impact baked in, we learn how her childhood on a family farm in rural PEI influenced how Sheena sources ingredients, How she’s partnered with social enterprise bakeries, to have her bars handmade by those facing barriers to employment, and why she shifted her mindset to partner with big-box retail, in order to create even more meaningful impact within her community and support more local producers.

If you want to Learn more about Sheena and her nourishing, delicious treats with Social Impact, Baked-In visit https://www.madewithlocal.com/ Looking to try made with local yourself? Find the Real Food Bars and Granola Bar Mix in 1500 grocery stores across Canada. You can follow along with Sheena on her mission to employ & train Canadians experiencing barriers to the mainstream workforce and help build stronger communities on Facebook or Instagram.

Links from this episode

• The Flower Cart Group | Work With Purpose – New Minas
• Cosman and Whidden Honey – Pure Nova Scotia Honey 
• Terra Beata Cranberry Farm
• https://emkaofoods.com/
• About B Corps

Episode Transcript

Jennifer Chua: Hello everyone and welcome. You’re listening to Cost of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 10.

In today’s episode, we chat with Sheena Russell from Made With Local.  We explore how she’s created clean and simple snack food bars with social impact baked in. We learn how her childhood on a family farm in rural PEI, influenced how Sheena sources ingredients. How she’s partnered with social enterprise bakeries to have her bars handmade by those facing barriers to employment.  And why she shifted her mindset to partner with big-box retail in order to create an even more meaningful impact within her community.

They’re a staple of packed lunches everywhere they’re found in almost every book bag.  But granola bars have gotten a bad rap in the last couple of years for being full of sugar and Palm oil, preservatives GMOs.  And containing a long list of unpronounceable ingredients. They’re terrible in terms of eco-friendliness, they’re maybe not as healthy as we once thought they were. And conscious consumers have been seeking out alternatives to the heavily processed snack bars. Because no one, myself included, can dispute the convenience and practicality of ready-to-go snacks.

I was delighted to stumble across Made With Local. Hailing from the Maritimes this humble snack brand bar is found in retailers nationwide.  Not only do they make nourishing bars with real ingredients, sourced from local farmers, but each bar has also social impact baked in. Made With Local’s truly innovative business model provides meaningful and exciting work for people who are experiencing barriers to mainstream employment. And their peanut butter Blondie bar it’s to die for. I had the chance to meet with Sheena Russell, the founder and CEO of Made With Local. She’s passionate about supporting small farmers, incredibly bright and speaking with her you’d think you’re catching up with an old friend.

Sheena’s based in the Halifax area, but she was born and raised in rural  Prince Edward island. And moved to Nova Scotia for university, which is where she stayed. And grew Made With Local, from a booth at the Halifax Seaport farmer’s market to being one of the east coast’s, most recognized brands.  Sheena’s upbringing is important to note. Her time spent on her family farm, surrounded by other farmers and producers. And growing up with her very large extended family, you can see how her childhood has influenced the values of the company.

Sheena Russell: I was born and raised in PEI and I was born and raised in a rural community, on a family farm. I’m surrounded by tons of cousins. My mom is one of 13 kids and pretty much all of them live within like a, a few kilometre radius of the farm. Really beautiful and kind of like old-fashioned childhood, honestly, like I think back to the way that we did things like that would have been literally like the nineties and it could have easily been like the fifties or sixties, like, so a really beautiful nourishing, rural childhood. I was raised by parents who were incredibly generous and inclusive and growing up in a big family that like just my immediate family, we’ve got  four kids in my immediate family. So a family of six and then plus a very large extended family, there’s a lot of sharing and a lot of collaboration that happens in that kind of space.

Jennifer Chua: Even back in elementary school, Sheena had what she called an activist sort of energy. She had founded a little environmental group called the green angels and recruited classmates to come with her and pick up litter. She was intensely interested in sustainability, even though she didn’t have the words to describe that at the time.

Sheena Russell:  And I used to like, yeah, be very, very intense to kid about sustainability. Didn’t know that was the word at the time, but like littering and picking up litter and, saving the whales and all the little things, all the things that like a young child perceives to be the biggest, environmental and social issues of, of their time. I was a very passionate kid in, in that space. Yeah, it’s kind of baked in to my, my perception of the world, I guess.

Jennifer Chua: In her late teens, Sheena embarked on what she felt was an absolute epic life, adventure, and moved to Halifax to attend Dalhousie university for environmental science.  It was a huge, huge deal because she was the first of her really large family to travel off island to do post-secondary education. This led to a very cushy, very predictable, but sought after government job, which gave Sheena this space to be bored and get excited about doing something that was more in line with her passion. Which was beautiful nourishing food. And which was sharing the stories of local farmers and food producers. She sat with her boredom and she let her imagination run wild.

But it never really crossed her mind to start a company or be an entrepreneur. Not until Sheena was already in the thick of it.  And when I asked her to share her origin story, Sheena says that she wishes that there was some sort of epic aha moment. But in reality, Sheena and her coworker, Cathy had come together over lunch breaks and gym dates and began to daydream of a project that was fun that gave them something meaningful to do on the weekends. Both food lovers, they had the opportunity and the interest of bringing yummy snacks to the farmer’s market. They began to make snacks that were for busy people on the go, who wanted something better than that very limited selection with those unpronounceable ingredients that you could find at the grocery store at that time.

Sheena’s no longer at the farmer’s market. She now runs her thriving business from an office space in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, which is outside of Halifax.  But that vibrant community of the Seaport area, the public art, the live music it’s never left her. COVID times have been good for business. We’ll chat about that in a bit, but she’s craving that public display of art and culture that’s celebration and live music.

Sheena Russell: Clearly there are much more pressing matters in the world, but I’m really looking forward to times, hopefully where we have lots more of that. I’m like anytime I even think going to a concert, I cry. I cannot wait to be back in the community and taking it all in.

Jennifer Chua: And now that the world is opening up again, Sheena feels hopeful.  She’s looking forward to taking in the sights and sounds of her community again. And be inspired by that real sense of the vibrant community. That was such a big part of the early days of the business.

Sheena Russell: We knew that we could make something delicious and nourishing. And we also realized that we could do it with essentially lots of local ingredients, which was Really becoming a trend that was picking up at that time. Farmer’s markets were becoming way more mainstream. And in Halifax here where we’re based, we were just seeing more and more folks really start to think about who is growing my food and I actually have the option to buy it closer to the source. So with all of those things combined, that really was  the Genesis for, what we thought was just going to be this like fun little side hustle to take on  some weekend stuff. And it clearly kind of took on a mind of its own and as much more than that these days, but it is humble beginnings farmer’s market for two years at a little five foot table. And then very slowly reaching out into little cafes and grocery stores  and that’s where it all started.

Jennifer Chua:  It sounds like you decided to make impact after you decided to make snacks. How did that connection happen?

Sheena Russell: The earliest days of the business  were taken lightly, honestly.  The focus was fun. Food, delicious food. Storytelling and community connection and it wasn’t until I became pregnant with my daughter, Ruthie. In 2014 that I realized, okay, we got to figure out  another business model here because me baking the bars on Monday nights and then packaging them on Tuesdays and then going to the farmer’s market on the weekends is not sustainable with a big giant belly or a newborn. So I got to the point in my pregnancy where I knew that something had to happen for me to be able to continue to pull this business off, but I didn’t actually have a plan.

It Was, I think totally serendipitously an act of fate or whatever you want to call it. One day. I got a phone call from a organization just outside of Halifax, in a place called New Minas,  a social enterprise bakery called the flower cart group. And they reached out and were like, Hey, a couple of different people in the local space have mentioned, we should reach out to you because we’re trying to get our little, commercial bakery up off the ground. And we thought that maybe you would like to partner with us, do you need help? And I was just remembering, sitting in my car and like ugly crying with my eight month pregnant belly and being like, oh my God. Yes. Please help me essentially.  So that was just this like beautiful, wild, serendipitous phone call that seemingly came out of nowhere at the absolute perfect time.

And it was only at that point, two plus years into the business that we really started establishing this innovative model, which we’re best known  for today, which is bringing these beautiful local ingredients from farmers who were like literally up the road from this social enterprise bakery. Bringing the ingredients in hand- making the bars in partnership with these social enterprise bakeries that employ and train folks who are experiencing some type of barrier to the mainstream workforce and creating these snacks, that actually, taste better than anything else out on the market. They’ve got a beautiful, simple ingredients list and have a quantifiable and tangible social impact on the community, around them, which is something, in my continued research, we’re not seeing that  in the energy bar space very much at all through north America.

So I knew that we were onto something really special. The impact piece really has been evolving and it continues to evolve in the business. We’re never just saying, okay, this is good enough, oh, we’re doing enough, good work. We can stop now. That’s really not our MO. It really has been this beautiful evolution as we continue to like partner with new, incredible farmers and food producers and create new social enterprise partnerships. So it’s just something that we’re just doubling down on, year over year in the business and Made With Local turned nine years old, a couple of weeks ago, which is absolutely crazy. So  that’s how that side of things is, has come to be and continues to really guide us.

Jennifer Chua: You have a unique experience in that you grew up surrounded by farmland and farmers and knew people that were creating ingredients, but I’m wondering why do you think it’s so  important.

Sheena Russell: For me feeling like I have a personal connection to the people who grew my food is an incredible thing. It just gives me goosebumps even thinking about it. Like even right now, it brings tears to my eyes. When I think about how, how beautiful it is that  the incredible amount of work that farmers put into bringing their products into the world, like farming is absolute insanity. And if you don’t know a farmer, you like, I’m sure any farmers that are listening to this are like, yep, we got a screw loose because it’s an. Incredibly difficult way of spending your life and your career so there’s just the heart and soul that farmers put into creating these beautiful foods. And then to be able to take it directly from this person who so intimately brought it into the world, in partnership with the earth and their family, and to be able to consume that and literally like, make that food part of my body, taking it into my body and like incorporating that into like the, the literal cells that make up who I am. I don’t know. It’s like really, it’s very intimate. Something that we say in Made With Local is that we like to think about love as an essential nutrient in your food.

It’s a bit of a paradigm shift on, oh,  love is like the ingredient it’s like, of course you add love to your food when you’re making it. But what if we also thought about love as like a literal nutrient to fuel us? Like you think about getting enough, like fat or protein or fiber in your diet?

Like what about if you thought about having love as a nutrient, as a macro in your diet? Right. So I think about that and I think about the high love content of food that comes directly from farmers and food producers  in that way. So that’s why local food matters so much to me, that’s the perspective that I have on local food and also the strength of community that is built when folks prioritize supporting local agriculture and local food systems is incredible, right? It’s a beautiful thing. And the, socioeconomic impact of that and everything, like, there’s just an incredible spinoff from making a choice, which is often like pretty simple of choosing something that’s locally produced over, maybe a slightly more convenient version that’s made. God knows where those are some of the reasons why I feel like supporting local is, is so important. And I think now more than ever again, especially in like a post COVID world feeling that that renewed sense of connection to community is something that I feel like we’re all really hungry for.

Jennifer Chua:  This was all serendipitous. This manufacturer reached out to you, which is an amazing story because usually it’s the opposite. You’re really hunting, you’re searching, et cetera, but you wouldn’t have partnered with them unless you really believed in this concept. Right. So I’m just wondering if you can recall any moments where you realize that giving back was important to you, because it’s clear that you can see with the way you’ve grown this business, that it is. Is there any moments where you realized that you wanted to create change in this way?

Sheena Russell: I will tell you, like I’m not your average entrepreneur or CEO in that I’m, I struggled to be solely financially driven. Like at the end of the day, I’m somebody who’s like very at peace with having just enough and, I’m like comfortable with just enough. And I don’t like get fired up by seeing, dollar signs flying in my eyes.  That’s just not who I am as a person. That again comes from like coming from pretty humble means and rural PEI. Like we, weren’t rich but I still had a beautiful childhood. So that kind of foundation was laid for me from an early age.

And I think the motivation for me to grow my business is so much more fired up by this concept of like innovation and impact than it is on the just sheer dollars and cents side of things, all that to say, you’re not going to grow a business if it’s not making money. So the, the really cool thing that has come from us building out this model over, a pretty gradual period of time from those very earliest days with the flower cart group to now having a much larger impact and footprint is that we’ve been able to figure it a way . Like we’re not a not-for-profit business. We are not a charity, but this is a profitable enterprise  but we’ve also figured out a way to do that and commit to social impact at every available opportunity, whether it be through our supply chain or production partners or whatever.

And that is really unique. And I can say though that I just wouldn’t have cared enough about building a business if it didn’t have this impact side of things, because being an entrepreneur is way too damn hard, and I’m not financially motivated enough to suffer through that if it was only just about the money. So when people say , oh, why did you choose to grow the business in this way? And it’s like, I kind of feel like, I don’t know how to do business any other way, honestly.

Jennifer Chua: Can you give some more insight into how you are different from other brands in your category?

Sheena Russell: Oh my goodness. So many ways.  The number one struggle for me in communicating about Made With Local is that there are too many good things or too many exciting things to talk about in the brand, which sounds ridiculous. But it’s honestly true. We have a really hard time narrowing down our key messages because I can’t pick a favorite child amongst all of the key messages in Made With Local, all of the things we stand for. They’re all equally important to me, On the very fundamental side of things from like the actual product it’s made with ultra simple ingredients, you can literally make our bars probably with the ingredients that you have at home in your own cupboard. Beautiful Canadian grown organic oats. Our bars are sweetened only with beautiful small batch Canadian honey fair trade and organic ingredients like chocolate and coconut that we mindfully source from ethical suppliers, blueberries and apples and just gorgeous ingredients that are really familiar to us here in Canada and are sourced in a way that really connect us as closely as possible to the farmer or producer. For that reason, like we’re not using any ingredients that you wouldn’t be able to find  in your own cupboard. And there are other brands out there that say that they’re made with a hundred percent real food, but then you look at the ingredients list and you’re like, what do I have that thing just hanging out in my pantry? In theory, you can stretch anything to say, yes, it’s real food derived, but like what I have, a jar of that sitting in my cupboard. No. So that’s one thing that’s yeah. Ruffles my feathers a little bit, but that’s, that’s the world of CPG. So yeah, beautiful clean ingredients that we can source right back to where they were made in produced.

And then, the production side of things and not just the, what they’re made of, but the how they’re made is something that is absolutely unique. Not only in Canada, amongst our competitors here, but also in North America and probably beyond based on what I’ve seen is that our bars are all handmade in partnership with social enterprise bakeries that help to train and employ folks who are living with some type of disability or barrier to the mainstream workforce. They’re actually producing these products right. And it creates  this beautiful ripple effect out into  their lives, their families, their communities. So with that, like those two things married, which is the, what it’s made of and the, how it’s made produces this product that has this like very quantifiable, very real social impact that, that goes out in all directions.  I value this and our thousands and thousands of Canadian customers value this, because  they want to nourish their bodies with foods that align with their personal values and their viewpoints in the world. And they have this sense that food, because of all of these things, the food is going to nourish you in a different kind of way than, some other kind of like mass produced bars that are made with kind of meh ingredients it’s a different experience I believe. And that’s what I want people to feel. Like I want people to have this feeling when they’re eating one of our Made With Local real food bars or that it is experience that connects them to their community.

One of my absolute favorite suppliers is a little apiary here in Nova Scotia called Cosman & Whidden Honey  They are literally down the road from the flower carts bakery, like a couple of kilometers down the road. They’re this amazing little family owned apiary. They’ve got, a few staff and hives that they spread out all across the Annapolis valley in Nova Scotia, which is almost kind of like the east coast. Oakenoggen honestly it’s very, very highly productive orchard territory. We make beautiful wines there. So the beehives are rented out to farmers and they are put into these fields to help pollinate, the different crops. And then the honey that comes from that is just, I don’t know. I honestly can barely even talk because when I’m away without getting teared up, because  I adore them so much.

And our relationship with them has. Really they’re the very first honey that we ever used to make. The very first Made With Local bars, and we’ve been making our real food bars here in Nova Scotia with their honey for nine years. Every single one, I don’t think we’ve ever even had to place an order for another brand of honey, even in a pinch, like it’s Tom from Cosman & Whidden and his partner Marianne have come through for us always. I really believe in honey, I’m going to go off in a bit of a honey tangent here. I believe in honey. Being such a beautiful and underappreciated ingredient and sweetener. Like it’s just something that is, there’s something magical about honey  in my eyes. And a lot of people don’t know this, but honey literally never goes bad. Like there have been records of archeologists, like finding liquid honey in ancient Egyptian tombs. And for us, the alternatives in the bar space, what you see competitors using for a sweetener, which you do need in a bar, this is just like basic like bar. Chemistry and physics. You need something sticky to hold it together. So what you often will see is like a brown rice syrup or glucose or whatever.  Something that’s super processed. And we don’t have a sight line on how those ingredients are produced. Right. And yes, for a brown rice syrup or glucose syrup, they’re technically vegan, which I know that there are vegans in the world who have issues with honey. And I, this is a hill I’ll die on that, but, but like, I, I, where are we getting agave? What’s the ethics behind the supply chain on agave syrup? Do you know who’s involved in the farming and harvesting of agave, are they treated properly? Are they paid well? What about brown rice syrup? How’s that being made? Where is it being made? Who’s making it.

I can drive down a couple of kilometers from the road, from our bakery visit Tom and Maryanne. I see the bees. I see the hives. I watched them harvest the honey in their little, barn out back and bottle it. And I take it to our bakery and I put it in our bars and sent it out to Loblaw’s and Sobey’s and all these other grocery stores. Local honey, ethically produced honey, in a small kind of artisanal kind of way is a hill I’ll die on. And that’s what you will get in every Made With Local bar. So honey is a really important part of what we do and who we support and what we make here at Made With Local.

And other awesome of our very earliest day ingredient suppliers would be another local one here to us in Nova Scotia, Terra Beata. They are for another family owned company based in Lunenburg county, in Nova Scotia, which is absolutely gorgeous it is just iconic. They farm cranberries and they dry them onsite. They also source blueberries and apples and cherries from around the Maritimes and dry them at their facility there. So we’ve been using Terra Beata as cranberries. Again, since very day one. Dave and Evelyn Ernst are the owners and the founders and owners of Terra Beata. And there was one day, years ago.  I was trying to figure out if there was an opportunity for them to start doing some co-packing for us, for a dried mix. Cause they having equipment where they can, put dry stuff in a hopper and it filters down a ways into a pouch, which is great. So we were trying to figure out from them if we could have them start making this product for us. So I’ve got like little, my daughter Ruthie in the little baby bucket seat, like on the floor, in their like, Production facility. And it was nothing for me to like drive down there with my baby and like bring her along.

And in the earliest days  Evelyn was somebody who, would answer call for me on anything like business and grocery related, because you can find nationally there are beautiful cranberry juices and dried fruit at Sobey’s and Loblaws, I believe. And so I would talk to her and be like, how do I get a UPC code? Like, how does this work with this big grocery store?  All of these things that have nothing to do with cranberries. But she would always  be like, call me, we’ll hop on a call and she would talk me through it. And now. They continued to be even bigger business than Made With Local, but we’ve caught up a little bit since those early days.

And these are just like, so much deeper relationships than just in some companies or some CPG brands where your supply chain is literally like cut the distributor a PO for the stuff you need. And it shows up on a pallet, a week later, like our relationships with our suppliers are really like family. And, and the coolest thing that I just feel really proud about in a growth of the company has been that, bucking the trend that a lot of people would expect, which would be growth of the company means, more streamlining of our suppliers, and not to say that we aren’t more efficient than we used to be. We absolutely are, but we’re constantly looking for new opportunities to work with new, interesting suppliers to be part of this family. We’re not trying to consolidate into one distributor and get everything on one purchase order.

That’s not at all what we’re doing much to the chagrin of our operations team. They’re like, oh my God, please. Again, one of the reasons, and one of the things that like literally gets me out of bed in the morning is the opportunity to partner with people who are making beautiful food and make their beautiful food, part of our beautiful food and to be able to share that story. It’s just, yeah, it, it just makes me, it makes me so happy and just fills my cup and is like the whole reason why we’re doing this.

Jennifer Chua: What does it mean to you to be a certified B Corp?

Sheena Russell:  I think we are the first certified bar company,   we are absolutely amongst the leaders in the B Corp movement here in, food products in Canada. Especially in the world of food, there are so many different certifications you can get, right.

There’s organic there’s gluten-free and those are important for certain folks. Absolutely. There’s, non-GMO, there’s all different kinds of ones. You name it, there’s a food certification for it. For me, the one that aligns most deeply with the values of Made With Local, and for me personally, is the B Corp certification, because  it’s about so much more than just, being organic or being certified, this, that, or the other thing from a nutrition perspective. It’s a holistic certification on the entire business, not just about one ingredient or not just about an allergen it’s every single part of the company is combed through with a fine tooth comb, I will say.  Through that process scored rigorously against  the most ethical and sustainable companies in the world. Especially two years ago when we first got certified, we’re quite a small brand by, for all intents and purposes, but I wanted for us to go through this process so that we could continue to prove our deep commitment to doing things a different way and to using our businesses as a force for good in the world, because that’s what being a B Corp is all about is thinking like, okay, we’ve built this business and I’m going to literally get in the driver’s seat and use it as a vehicle for positive change.

I hate to break it to everybody, but people aren’t going to care about keto in five years, it’s going to be proven that it’s not good for you. And I think that there’s lots of people already understand that, sorry to people who love keto, not to paint with a broad stroke. It works for some people, but not for the number of people who think they should be doing it. These types of things like they come and go, but sustainability and and committing to conduct your business in a way that is deeply aligned with the change we need to see in society as a whole is something that absolutely will not go away and it’s only going to continue to hopefully be something that we see more and more brands come on board with.

Jennifer Chua: You have a newer product, this one kilogram granola bar mix, which is exclusively at Costco, can you walk me through how that happened? How you got into Costco, what that partnership looks like?

Sheena Russell:  I will say something I am known for in the company is digging my heels in, on mass grocery because  I used to believe that it felt like it was kind of a sellout kind of thing. Like we’re this indie brand commitment to all things, grassroots and local. And like, what does that say about us if we’re out in the biggest grocery stores or corporations  in the country, right?

But what we come back to as a team, what I continually remind myself of is that when you build a business that is engineered to create social impact, like Made With Local, our growth means you’re growing your impact. So it’s not about me anymore, right? Like the, my ego needs to step aside, or my fear needs to step aside and say, the opportunities that are held for this company in the future with growth are not mine to stifle because I just like, and turning my nose up at a certain like mass whatever opportunity. So I fought Costco against the notion of Costco for a long time. And then then COVID hit and the world decided that they loved baking all of a sudden love baking. And we’ve been making this granola bar mix product in some way, shape or form for years. And it’s been like pushing a Boulder up the side of a mountain.

Like people just like weren’t getting it. Or like, I don’t know. It was just, it’s a brand new kind of product, right? It’s an innovative product. It’s like a cake mix for granola bars. We have cake mixes, we have muffin mixes. Everybody knows these things and has them in their cupboard, but people haven’t historically you’ve been buying a granola bar mix even though like, why not?

So it’s this really cool product that We had a lot of trouble getting off the ground for a long time, but we saw this opportunity with the worlds starting to spend more time at home and spend more time baking and getting back to meal prepping  and  just being at home more often, this opportunity for specifically this format, like a jumbo sized bag, being something that people might be excited about. So our director of sales here, Christine, she started talking to the Costco buyer over LinkedIn, honestly, a year before we launched. They are pretty collaborative with brands, right. They know what their members like. We know what we have to offer them in terms of  the different types of flavors and the organic certification and all of these things that we said that we could bring to the table. And we effectively co-created this unique product for them, which is our one kg version of the granola bar mix in a chocolate chip flavor, which is so yummy.

And from the earliest conversations that Christine was having with Costco until the day that we sent out that very first chunk of pallets to them, it was,  almost exactly a year, like maybe a little closer to 13 months, actually, it was a very long process, but it’s been wild. And the keep using ripple effect is I keep saying that, but it’s just like a theme that happens in the business, always is we’re seeing this ripple effect out from Costco, but all of a sudden now Loblaws and Sobey’s and the other stores that have been carrying our smaller bags, the 300 gram bags for like a year plus at this point, can’t keep it stocked. So it went into Costco and it’s kind of like a granola bar mix bomb went off and it’s done really, really well despite all odds, like we launched into Costco literally the same week that Ontario stopped their selling of any non-essential goods. So food counts is in essential good, of course, but Costco’s as like from a warehouse perspective, it was like, they were in complete disarray and had to change everything about how they were doing business at that same time. So we actually launched into Costco like that same week. Against all odds, it’s been an incredible opportunity for our business and  the impact of this, of this program with them has been incredible, right? We just on their very first order had to purchase 20,000 killograms of Canadian grown and produced ingredients.

And every single one of those 30 plus thousand bags on that first order that we packed for Costco, we’re hand packed at a social enterprise  in the GTA in Toronto. Again, it’s being able to tell those stories and to come back to that, that route of impact and connection for me is the one that is like, right, what else can we do with Cosco? Like, it might seem like it, it runs counter course to who we are and what stand for. But our mission is to bring these beautiful,  impact focused, nourishing, delicious foods to as many people as we possibly can. And there are different vehicles to do that. And Costco for sure is one of them.

Jennifer Chua: what are the costs associated of not supporting our local producers? Like why do you think it’s so important?

Sheena Russell:  I mean, I don’t have any like quick data points that I can throw at you in terms of like the opportunity cost of people. Just not consciously choosing to buy local when they have the opportunity to o. I guess for me, I go back to the, the sense of connection and love, honestly, that I experience as a human, when I know more about the food that I’m putting in my body and that I have an emotional or personal connection to the food that I’m putting in my body that like literally like nourishes and I’m gonna get weird again. Literally like nourishes my soul. It honestly does. And I think about the opportunity cost of that, like every time you have a meal and again, like we’re busy, I’m a mom, like I’m not sitting down making these like beautiful, heritage heirloom lettuce salads three times a day. I’m not at all. Don’t get me wrong. I’m still like, live in the busy mom life eaten Annie’s Mac and cheese a couple of times a week. So don’t get the wrong impression. But there is an opportunity. Every time we sit down to create a meal for ourselves to, to connect right, to connect to the community, to connect to the farmers.

I think the biggest loss on a personal and community level that we missed by not doing that is, by disengaging or by feeling like your decisions don’t matter because every single dollar that you spend, every single meal that you choose to feed yourself and your family if you’re privileged enough to really be able to make a choice about the food that you bring into your home, which is a privilege, let’s say that too,  every opportunity is a vote for the world that you will want to live in. You’re casting a vote for the world that you want to live in, right? So by spending your money on the bag of local carrots, instead of the ones that you don’t know where they come from, like, it’s a such a simple decision, but it’s literally like every time like that reaffirmation of like I’m casting a vote for the world that I want to live in.

And I guess this is me kind of coming full circle on not really knowing how to answer this question right off the bat. It’s a wasted vote. Right. You’re wasting your vote. If you are not thinking about, or trying to prioritize choosing a local product or having that connection to the food or any product, really, your body care stuff, the clothing, again, it’s very privileged position to be able to choose to support these things. And I want to just kind of double down on that message because it is but, but for those of us who do have the privilege of being able to choose, we need to use that privilege and that power wisely. To not understand that or not to take advantage of that for me, that’s the big loss that’s the votes are being lost in that, in that space.

Jennifer Chua: I came across a quote on your Instagram page, and I was just wondering if you could comment on it, or if you had any comments on it, where it came from or what it means to you. And so the quote was, it is critical to recognize that the highly processed industrial food we were buying is artificially cheap and that the planet taxpayers and people of the developing world are picking up the tab. Do you remember that one?

Sheena Russell: Yeah, absolutely. You know, that really, that does sum it up.  As especially Western consumers, nothing, nothing is as cheap as it is. Like you go to Walmart and something’s oh my God, what a great deal, what a smoking deal. That’s amazing. No, it’s not that it’s actually that it was that inexpensive for that product to come to you for $2.97. It’s that there are people along the supply chain bringing that product to the Walmart or whomever (I’m gonna pick on Walmart. Cause I feel like they’re one of the worst offenders in this space) who suffered and  they were not compensated appropriately in many different ways. And that cheapness on shelf is only because people down chain were denied access to human rights level stuff. That’s what that boils down to. Right.  These are externalities, like that’s what this is referred to in economics is the externalities of supply chain. We in Made With Local have thought really long and hard about the different types of ingredients and different types of innovation that we’ll bring into the company.

And you’ll notice when you look at our ingredients decks on our products, like we’re not using. I’m going to use air quotes here, kind of like exotic ingredients or super foods. Again, I’m going to air quotes, that super foods that are sourced from countries or communities or from companies rather that have a track record or are perceived in the world to not be treating their supply chain appropriately. We stay away from it because we vote with our dollars right. And Made With Local. And we want to make sure that our dollars are being only put towards products and services that align with our personal values and that don’t continue to exacerbate the inequalities that we see rampant, especially I’m speaking specifically through food food supply, global food supply chain. So, our coconut that we use is certified organic certified fair trade, our cocoa that we are using, our chocolate chips. Our newest supplier that we’re really excited about, we’re soon going to be working with this incredible cocoa and chocolate chip supplier from a Mission BC called EMKAO. It’s a female run independent chocolatier business, where she Ayissi, the founder, she sources beautiful raw cacao products from her family’s from in Cameroon and exports from her family’s farm in Cameroon to British Columbia and produces cocoa and chocolate chips and cacao butter and all of these kinds of value added products.

We will be getting like in our next order of cocoa and chocolate chips, we will be getting directly from Ayissi and a directly from her family from in Cameroon. So really cutting out as many middlemen as possible and going direct to the source and paying a fair price.

Like I hate to break it everybody because food is already as expensive as it is, but it’s not expensive enough. And there are certain people who are getting really rich at the top of the very, very, very, very top of the corporate food system. And there are literally millions and millions of people across the world who are not being compensated remotely appropriately for the work that they’re doing in keeping our global food supply chain rolling.

It’s funny because it’s also like maybe bad business practice in the world of like regular corporate business. But I am thrilled to be referring other brands, other companies to work with my suppliers and to partner with social enterprise because I’m like, if our mission is to be to be growing this sector or to be growing the footprint of businesses who are doing good in the world, then like, it is not our job to put up the walls and say nobody else can work with these suppliers that are suppliers. We want to make sure that  they will always have enough product to, to service us for sure. But like, I want them to succeed too. That’s the whole point right. Is shared prosperity.

Jennifer Chua: Do you have a moment that stands out in your mind where you realize that this business was going to be profitable and it was going to go forward?

Sheena Russell:  It still feels like, like there’s almost every day, we’re  I can’t believe we’re pulling this off. Like it’s almost kind of the opposite, it’s working and I mean, I feel like I have a habit of in these kinds of interviews, making it sound like we’re just like, everything’s tickety-boo and it’s just all happened to us and it’s been all magic. it’s super hard work, but we have an amazing team and an amazing community under us, which is also like the life force of Made With Local, which is our community of farmers and food producers and customers.  We have customers around us who’ve been literally buying our bars since 2012 with the Halifax Seaport farmer’s market and they still do to this day. It’s incredible. So I feel like maybe it’s them who convince us, who we’re like, yes. I’m obsessed with these. All my friends are obsessed with these. This is amazing. Never stop doing what you’re doing.  So I feel like that chorus comes from the outside.  Costco was a big deal. Like Costco was one of those, those kind of feather in your cap. Not that it was just a feather in our cap. It wasn’t just kind of like a vanity thing that we did at all. It was an enormous boost to our business and a huge opportunity. And we’re so grateful for it. But it was one of those things like, oh, wow, okay. We’re not at the farmer’s market anymore, baby.  It was a huge, huge leap. And one that we, again, we saw it be like a net positive, not only within the context of Costco, but also for the whole rest of the business. It really started putting us more on the map. And we’re in about 1500 grocery stores all across Canada now, Loblaws Sobey’s save on foods, Calgary, co-op tons of little independents, like we’re in the lion’s share of grocery stores. And that really helps you feel like, okay, we didn’t just get lucky and land a listing at like one grocery store it’s everywhere.

And that feels incredible. So those are, the achievements that we’ve had in the last couple of years, especially that that make sure to reassure us that we’re on the right path and that people, people want what we’re selling, people want, what we make and people value what we do. And that just, continues to push us to go ever deeper and deeper into our values and, and double down on what we’re doing.

Jennifer Chua:  I’m going to be honest with you that we’ve also had those struggles when it comes to big box or anything like this.  A dramatic mindset shift to say, no, the better I do here, the better of the impact I can have.  It’s a tremendous shift. It took me a lot longer, I think. And it sounds like it took you, but it’s true. Were there any mistakes that you think you made along the way or things that. Now that you’re here and you look backwards at your journey here. Is there anything that you would’ve changed?

Sheena Russell: I wouldn’t absolutely erase any experience that happened because like, I know it’s cliche as hell, but it’s, you learn absolutely invaluable stuff from major screw ups in a business. I probably would have shut a couple of things down a little sooner than I let them drag. There’s been times where, a certain partnership, for example, like we just wanted to make it work so badly and a partnership with with another bakery that we really wanted to get off the ground. And on paper, it just made so much sense. And I was like, this is how we’re going to scale this company. We’re scaling the second social enterprise and it’s going to be incredible. And there were just so many, not even hints, but like glaring things along the way that that. I should have taken as a sign that this wasn’t the right fit. It was just like our visions and capabilities were misaligned.

You might seem like we’re kind of a, an overnight success we’re absolutely not. Like we’ve been working hard at growing this company for almost a decade now, which is wild. So there’ve been things like that where I wouldn’t erace the experience entirely. I would have just probably, pulled the chute a little bit sooner.

Change is incredibly painful. And the pain, I think, in the last year or so has been felt disproportionately by our marginalized communities, black indigenous people of color, the two-spirit LGBTQ  community.  The uprising racially and otherwise that’s happened in this last year has been so overdue. And I am, despite how painful it’s been for these communities. So hopeful now that there is going to be real change right in our generation and also for the generations to come.  I think about my girls and like the type of world that I want them to grow up in. And I am really hopeful.

Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Sheena and her nourishing delicious treats with social impact baked in visit madewithlocal.com. Looking to try Made With Local yourself, find the real food bars and the granola bar mix in 1500 grocery stores across Canada. You can follow along with Sheena on her mission to employ and train Canadians, experiencing barriers to the mainstream workforce and help build stronger communities on Facebook or Instagram at made with local.

 

 

 

Jennifer Myers Chua here, the host of Cost of Goods Sold. In today’s episode, I’m going to tell you this story of how I got here, how I went from a career in the food television world to becoming the CCO of Hip Mommies, a boutique distribution company. How I reluctantly joined the struggling family business, scrapped it all and rebuilt a seven-figure business based on values. What I’ve learned over the past couple of years, supporting product-based businesses. What the costs of bringing a product to market really are and why I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned with this podcast in hopes of learning alongside you and inspiring more intentional innovation.

If you want to learn more about Hip Mommies, our carefully curated collection of goods from brands committed to doing better, visit hipmommies.ca. Shopping for the little ones in your life? The collection is available for purchase at shop.hipmommies.ca. And you can follow along with us on our mission to connect retail with thoughtfully designed responsibly, manufactured goods, on Instagram or facebook

Links from this episode

• Failure Diaries: Jennifer Myers Chua
• FuzziBunz On Shark Tank: A Look At Their History, Innovation And Trials Over The Years
• ezpz feeding products
• Hip Mommies

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Myers Chua: Hello, everyone and welcome. You’re listening to Cost of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 04.  In today’s episode, I’m going to tell you this story of how I got here, how I went from a career in the food television world to becoming the CCO of Hip Mommies,  a boutique distribution company. How I reluctantly joined the struggling family business, scrapped it all and rebuilt a seven-figure business based on values. What I’ve learned over the past couple of years, supporting product-based businesses. What the costs of bringing a product to market really are and why I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned with this podcast in hopes of learning alongside with you and inspiring more intentional innovation.

[00:00:44]  Life before Hip Mommies was dramatically different than my life now. And it’s definitely a story that I get asked to tell a lot, because it’s a story of reinvention. It’s a story of saving a struggling family business. And it’s a story of building a brand based on values. And a lot of the things that have happened since I’ve joined Hip Mommies have profoundly changed me as a person, and led me to where we are today, which is with this podcast and this purpose of mine to share this information with other small business owners in hopes of creating change.

[00:01:21] And in order to get back to where this all started, we have to go all the way back to 2014. And in 2014, I was a digital art director. I was working on the Food Network Canada redesign. And I was also the design team lead at a very large television media company. I was leading a team of designers and UX professionals who were working on a number of websites to support television channels here in Canada.

[00:01:47] I loved my job. I loved working on a team and I loved creatively collaborating and I just really enjoyed the day to day. And in addition to doing the design and doing the art direction and leadership, I was also able to do a lot of things for Food Network Canada, in terms of creative content creation. So interviews with chefs and event coverage, cookbook reviews, recipes, things like that.

[00:02:13] One Monday in April, I went into the office and was let go in a round of layoffs. And by Wednesday, when my team took me out to celebrate the time that I had spent there, I wasn’t feeling so hot. And by Saturday, I was in a medical clinic with my husband finding out that I was pregnant with our first child.

[00:02:31]It was very shocking. It was a very difficult time in our lives. I was the one with the job security and the health coverage and the stability. At this point, my husband had owned his business for a decade and he had started it with his sister. She had since moved on. And for a variety of reasons, the business wasn’t doing well. It certainly wasn’t doing well enough to support both of us and a growing family.

[00:02:57] I panicked and I called in all of the connections I could, to try to find another position. And so I was interviewing for creative director positions and art director positions. And I was going into these interviews and having these conversations with people. Fellow creatives. Who are saying things like, how do you feel about helicopters? We have a photo shoot next month. We have to shoot from the air. How do you feel about that? And I’m sitting here with my first trimester nausea, looking at 50 hour work weeks with deadlines and now helicopter shoots and this unbelievable desperation and fear, really. I just didn’t know what to do.  So my husband had an idea.  And he said why why don’t you just join me and join the family business and we can do this together?

[00:03:46] I never, ever wanted to sell stuff. This was the last thing that I could possibly think of agreeing to.  I was a self-proclaimed minimalist. I was very conscious of my impact on the world. We lived in an open concept loft at this point with no storage and clean surfaces. And I had backpacked through Asia and lived out of a backpack and I had appreciated living with less.

[00:04:12] I was really not interested in putting more goods out into the world. Like physical goods. And over the years I had tagged along and visited the industry trade shows for the baby space, with my husband. And it had been really overwhelming. Massive convention centers filled. The number of goods that were being made each year for one industry on one continent was alarming.

[00:04:36] And a lot of, it was just another version of something that already existed. Like there wasn’t any innovation, it wasn’t solving a problem. It was just made for the interests of that particular business in that particular booth.

[00:04:50]At this point, we were getting desperate. My husband’s business wasn’t doing so great. To be honest, it was really, really struggling. And pretty much on the verge of collapse. So we were left with not very many choices and not very many options.

[00:05:06] And I went to a friend of mine and I explained to him how I was feeling. And he had a conversation with me that really changed my thinking. And he said, Jennifer, do you know how difficult it is to change? Everybody’s worldview, their buying habits. Do you know how difficult it is to convince everybody to care about these things that you care about? And in that conversation, he led me to think that it would be possible that instead of trying to make everybody think and feel the way that I did about things. That I could use this as an opportunity to curate a collection and curate better options and make my impact there.

[00:05:43]So I could reach the people that were on the fringes of caring about things like sustainability and multi-purposeness and thoughtful design. And I could present them just really interesting, useful products that looked really good that were really hot. And were maybe something that they would want in their life, but they could also get the added benefit of knowing that those were responsibly manufactured or sustainable. That they were safer options for their children. And so I went back to my husband and I said, yes, I’m here for this. We’re doing it, but we’re going to have to start over. And luckily he agreed.  We scrapped everything. And basically built the business from the ground up at that point. Using my expertise, we did utilize a bunch of digital technologies with a website and an online ordering system, inventory management, e-commerce, digital lookbooks, digital marketing. But it was more than that. We changed our name. We kept our warehouse. We scrapped all of our brands. We scrapped a number of retailers and we definitely built a new mission and a new set of core values. And a new way of looking for goods and acquiring goods and marketing goods, and really rebuilt this business based on those values.

[00:06:59] So my husband thinks I’m overemphasizing this. But the business was moments from going under. And so I’d love to share a bit more about where we were as a business and what was going on at that time. The couple of years leading up to me, joining Hip Mommies, I was working full time, had my own career, my own interests, and I helped out when I could, but I was not nearly as invested.

[00:07:22] And even being a decade old, we were very much the underdog. For one thing, we were incredibly young, generally not taken very seriously. We didn’t have any children. And the baby space is dominated by way more middle-aged men than you would expect.

[00:07:38] The first local industry specific trade show we signed up to do. It was in a hotel. And the big brands were in these lavish ballrooms. And then they had one hallway of hotel rooms available for smaller companies like ours. And it was probably an afterthought. They were basic hotel rooms. Like those unrenovated ones that they never book.  With the beds removed, but otherwise hotel rooms and ours was the very last one at the very, very end of the hall.

[00:08:07] Being the optimist that I am, I was going to make the best of it.  We unfolded our tables and set up our goods. I filled the room with fresh flowers and fruit flavored waters and healthy snacks. We set up a speaker and played music. Our employee Jedd, a talented artist, created a chalkboard sign which I put up at the end of the hall. Anything to get the buyers to actually come visit with us.

[00:08:30] This worked better than expected, at least for the first day. Because by the morning of the second, the small stroller brand in the room across from us, that yesterday just had tables and strollers, today had slightly louder jazz music, a bigger sign, more snacks. I wasn’t flattered.

[00:08:46] The next year we were invited into the ballroom. I couldn’t get the time off work, but I did help set up. We still didn’t have a proper booth and there were lots of visits to the local craft store in the weeks leading up to the show. My husband loves to look back at what he calls “the year of the bunting.”.

[00:09:04] This is all to say that while I was trying to help make this business a success. My work at HGTV, I was working on the HGTV Canada redesign at this time, that was my top priority. And I thought that at any minute, my husband would find a product that would really help solidify the business and bring him back into the black.

[00:09:23] He had done so well with the Bumbo back in 2004, when he owned the business with his older sister, it’s like a molded seat for little babes to sit up. And he introduced it to Canada, spent a couple of years selling it out of a storage locker and driving around a small retail stores, even leaving the Bumbo in store on commission. But since he lost that account, the products that we had were just not that great.  They were not particularly unique. Not memorable. And they certainly were not the kind of goods that retailers were looking for. We had a collection of products, but there was no real story and nothing made us stand out.

[00:10:02]So we headed to Las Vegas. One of the two dueling north America industry trade shows was in Las Vegas each year in the massive convention center that they have there. And so the intent was to come home with a new brand, something that would generate some buzz. And so at this point I had a blog series on HGTV, Canada, about condo / small space living. And I asked to be able to cover the expo for the blog. They agreed.  So I joined my husband and we flew to Vegas.

[00:10:33] Now trade shows have changed dramatically over the last few years, as social media has become more of a thing and video calls have become a normal thing. There’s less of a need for them. And with COVID maybe, hopefully environmentally speaking, they’ve changed forever. But at this time in the early 2010s, this was the trade show heyday.  Thousands of booths, hundreds of thousands of square foot exhibition halls, and tens of thousands of attendees.

[00:11:01] We walked the show, looking for new and exciting things and stumbled across a brand that would change the course of our business. It was a cloth diaper company. Now, looking back at all of this, the details are a bit Fuzzi but these modern cloth diapers were gaining in popularity with the sustainably minded parents of the time. From birth to potty training, the average baby goes through a lot of diapers. Some statistics say 7,000, some say one tonne, and they take hundreds of years to decompose. So it is something worth being mindful of. And modern cloth diapers had been designed to be so much easier and cleaner.  They had pockets to insert absorbent microfiber pads, and snaps to secure fit and colorful printed covers.  They were . The rage.  And cloth diaper fanatics were an enthusiastic bunch. Think of the release of like air Jordans. Yeah. Limited edition prints. Hard to get colors. A new cloth diaper, a style.  This could start a frenzy. I’m serious.

[00:12:03] And this is also the rise of YouTube. And cloth diapering moms were eager to show off their stash shots on their channels,  post reviews, demos about fit, things like that.  So one YouTube search later, it was obvious that this was the brand to sell. If you wanted into the cloth diaper space.  The CEO was winning awards, her brand was the leader in this category and she was looking eagerly for Canadian distribution.  We left that show with a verbal agreement and thought we had made it. This was it.

[00:12:33] Her brand and Hip Mommies quickly partnered. We began selling diapers and opened up a ton of new wholesale accounts with natural parenting stores, health, food stores, cloth diaper specific stores, of which there are many more than you’d imagine. And things were going really well.

[00:12:49] Within a matter of months, the demand was growing, but we could not get stock.   The brand had supply issues. They kept changing manufacturers and switching countries of origin even. USA to China, to Turkey. And we didn’t get it because we did not know what was going on.  And she was not really open with us about what was going on either.

[00:13:15] And we began to use the profits from those sales to expand into related goods. So some organic cotton socks, cloth diaper, friendly detergents, eco-friendly soaps.  Multipurpose car seat breastfeeding covers.  We were still really young. We were still really green,  but we were finally at the point where we stopped having to sell ourselves to get meetings with prospective brands. Brands began to approach us. And it was a huge boost of confidence.

[00:13:42] The cloth diaper brand began to fall apart, but more dramatically like the business had imploded. And again, as we have been left in the dark and because we were all so new to all of this, we really had no clue what had happened. What we did know is that one of our largest sources of revenue had now disappeared and we needed to replace it.  My husband and our employee flew to Germany for the European show. And in between Schweinshaxe and Brau Hauses, managed to connect with another cloth diaper company. The closest competitor who was really, really very interested in working with us.  We should have known.

[00:14:23]  We agreed to start the conversation and meet up again in the fall in Louisville, where they had this spectacular  lushly carpeted booth and all of their team wore what looked like Louboutin. Yes. Cloth diapers.  Being that we were in the land of bourbon. We suggested an evening meeting at Maker’s Mark. And we were a flight of bourbon in, by the time they arrived. Still in heels, drinking lemon and hot water and eager to get this partnership started.  We couldn’t believe at that point, how impressive we had become as a company.  Just look at how badly they wanted to partner with us. And in some ways, this was a step up because their marketing was better. Their colors were a bit more on trend, and they had some adorable prints that were collaborations with trendy artists from LA.

[00:15:13] Now there is a lot of space on the internet dedicated to what happened next. And even a Shark Tank episode about the patent and intellectual property wars that followed between these two brands. So I don’t have to get into that here, but unbeknownst to us, these two CEOs had a long and sorted history. One had worked for the other, one had filed the patent, the other left the company to start their own. You get the story. And it took us an embarrassingly long time to realize that we had left one business as it was struggling only to support the knockoff brand. Maybe I should have dug deeper into the cloth diaper forums.

[00:15:51] For a variety of reasons after that. Intellectual property lawsuits is one.  The new brand began to rapidly lose market share as well. The consumers were favoring cloth made domestically and from newer materials like hemp and charcoal. There were ongoing quality control issues. And really the market had shifted.  Brands like the honest company had convinced the sustainably curious parents that their new eco-friendly disposable solved all of the problems that conventional diapers had created.  They also had cute prints. And even with all of the modern innovations, cloth diapers still meant that you have to do loads more laundry.

[00:16:32] The eco-friendliness of these modern disposables is up for debate. And certainly I hope to do an episode on that at some point. So more on that later.

[00:16:39] But all of this was my introduction to intellectual property, knockoffs. Not to mention the counterfeit. Yup. Counterfeit cloth diapers  coming from China, which were being sold mostly on eBay at that time.  I also learned that patents and intellectual property mean almost nothing now with the influx of overseas manufacturers popping up all over the internet.  Your IP, it’s basically impossible to protect.  It also introduced me to the darker side of the business. The brands built on copying the ideas of independent creators.  Often first-time business owners, usually moms,  who have a great idea and a less robust legal team.  There are brands who have made their fortunes this way for decades. And this wouldn’t be last time that we got caught up in this drama between competitors, but it profoundly influenced what we look for when exploring partnerships. What questions we ask.

[00:17:34]And since that day, we only work with people that we like as people that we believe in. That we feel are genuine. And here to do the right thing.  And it solidified our commitment to support ethical businesses and the innovators. And it got me seriously, seriously fired up about supporting these smaller, independent creators, those making something because they really want to make a difference.

[00:18:03] This takes us to April, 2014. I’m pregnant. I’m binge eating bananas. And my husband’s tiny 8×8 office that he shares with our employee. I’m on the phone with service Ontario, trying to figure out if I can get my maternity benefits early. We’ve just lost our second leading brand in the space of a couple of years and now have a baby on the way. I’m unemployed. The helicopter interview is only just behind us and the next industry trade show isn’t until fall.  I had wanted to spend my pregnancy enjoying those sweet covered by my health care plan, prenatal massages,  maybe taking a yoga class on my lunch break.  And instead I was planning a full rebrand of my husband’s business, which I was about to reluctantly join. I approached some of the major publications in Toronto about writing parenting content,  but never made it past the first interview. I had no idea how this was going to work, but I had to push through because we didn’t have much of a choice.

[00:19:02]  Every so often I’d subway back to my old workplace and sit outside with my former team members and my growing belly, To brainstorm on how to use my digital skills to improve a distribution business. It wasn’t web, it wasn’t design, it wasn’t TV. It wasn’t creative or particularly exciting. And it was in one of those conversations with my good friend, Arron, that changed everything. That was the worldview moment. The next time, Joey and I sat down to discuss our plan with Hip Mommies, I was energized.  We identified our core values, our guiding principles, and set about rebuilding a business that we could be proud of. And things began to fall into place.

[00:19:45] Miraculously. So, and I can’t even remember how it happened because it doesn’t seem possible.  I was up late one night, Googling, looking for new baby brands or products, gaining popularity in other markets.  And I stumbled across the landing page. It had a logo, an email capture, and one line of copy. No SEO. So I don’t know how I found it.  It said something like “sign up to be the first to hear about the newest brand in feeding.” I tried to enter my email and got an error. So I looked them up on Facebook.  Their page was new, not really set up and had two followers. I’d later learn that these two were the founder and her brother. I was the third. I sent a DM, said I wanted to learn more and gave my email address. And on the other side of that DM, Lindsey, the founder of ezpz had her own “we’ve made it” moment.

[00:20:38]  By July of that year, she was showing us prototypes and planning a launch on Kickstarter. She had secured a booth at that Las Vegas trade show, essentially their version of the hotel room at the end of the hall. And Joey booked his ticket. I was very pregnant at this point and happy to just follow along via text messages. We didn’t know much about Lindsay at this point, but she had an incredible energy. And with a design background, I could see that her product was ingenious. And I knew that the end consumer would love it. I knew that retailers would love it. And it was clear that Lindsey was on a mission to support parents through feeding challenges. And she had a tremendous heart.  Day, one of the show, my husband in his trademark suit and Jordan 4s,  set up camp outside their booth. Refusing to take on any other meetings, he was aware that he was coming home with this partnership at all costs.

[00:21:30] The response was phenomenal. The little booth at the end of the hall had swarms of buyers from all over the world stopping in. Bloggers, television crews, influencers taking videos that quickly went viral.  Lindsey had a product that was about to change an entire category forever and a really compelling and authentic story. People loved her and the Happy Mat. And we partnered with them shortly after.  ezpz launched in Canada end of January of 2015, shortly after we launched into parenthood about a week earlier.

[00:22:04] Lindsay has said that she chose us because she liked us for who we were for sure. But that our core values meant something to her. It was a differentiator and one that she resonated with. The industry show with the bunting booth, we skipped it that year, and the next year exhibited with a large booth and a prime location. A hundred more retail partnerships or so, and an expanded team. And all of this, I mean, it was a really big win for us and it just makes me so happy to know that you can stick to your principles and really build something that can make an impact on the world.  And we now have this opportunity to partner with brands who are truly making a difference and help our retail partners stock their shelves with goods that they can feel good about offering to their customers.

[00:22:49] I don’t remember specifically when I became interested in sustainability or social purpose,  but I do remember asking my mother for a reusable canvas, tote, lunch bag and sandwich and juice containers. When they first hit the stores. I was probably seven and my classmates were all using paper bags and plastic, top things and juice boxes, disposable. And I remember being very concerned that cans of tuna had to be labeled dolphin friendly.  And of course justice and fairness were always top of mind. I can recall. In elementary school making signs to protest Sunday, shopping, thinking that it was going to negatively impact small family run businesses. And I wanted to be a defense attorney. Because I thought that like, Matlock. Being a lawyer meant that you were helping those who were wrongfully accused.

[00:23:42] I do remember very clearly when I learned that counterfeits were a thing and it was during the time that I lived in Asia. But I didn’t really understand the danger or of the enormity of that industry. And I would have never considered that you’d find counterfeit, baby products, medications, formula, anything like that until much later. And to be honest, being in this space the last couple of years has opened my eyes to things. A lot of things, that otherwise I wouldn’t have considered.

[00:24:13] But on the flip side, being involved in the product based business space and having a design background, I’ve had the pleasure of being introduced to design led initiatives, some really innovative solutions and products that are creative and tremendously helpful.

[00:24:29] There are some product designers that are just bringing to market such wonderful innovations. And it’s been very exciting. I love stumbling across these  and we’ve made it a priority, which is helpful to our business as well. To support the originals, the innovators, the designers. to avoid the copycat businesses who know how to play that game. The “rush before the patent clears” or “use our legal powers” game. And that capitalize on the innovators. But to say, I have been inspired by all of the new products that I’m discovering is an understatement, because there are so many intentional founders doing some really remarkable things.

[00:25:10] I’m often asked what our criteria are. Like, what are we looking for specifically when we are considering to partner with a brand. And we evaluate every brand very carefully, knowing that our differentiator is truly that we have a carefully curated collection and that our retail partners know that these brands have been vetted in terms of sustainability, ethics, safety, practicality, and that there is a market fit and they will be popular with the end consumer. We look for thoughtful design, responsible manufacturing.  Recyclable or biodegradable materials. Eco-friendliness, multi-purposeness, usefulness. We consider life cycle. What may happen to the products once a child outgrows, something, for example.  Is there a way to reuse this for another purpose? Will it be in a condition that it can be passed to a second child or another family?  And consumer product safety is something that we take very seriously requiring above and beyond third-party safety tests because  dangerous goods are unfortunately becoming more of a thing. With the rise of e-commerce marketplaces, online stores.  And unregulated untested goods, which are coming from overseas.

[00:26:20] There are great costs to the environment, to our society.  The health and wellbeing of our children by purchasing the not-safe goods. And there is an incredible amount of waste being created each year by our purchasing habits and buying things that have an incredibly short life span. Or goods that are just not functional, which then quickly end up in landfill.

[00:26:40] And every wholesaler  or a sales rep can partner with dozens of brands to stack their offering, so they can function as a one-stop shop. But this has been the opposite of our approach, which is to try to be more mindful. And by focusing on a smaller lineup of carefully vetted goods, we’ve had the opportunity to grow the brands organically and intentionally within our market. But we’re also making a promise to our retail partners and to the consumers, that the products we offer, we truly believe in. And they’re not just there to be available or for sale or make us look like a larger business than we are. And with that, we have the opportunity to stay really lean.   We don’t have a warehouse full with end of line goods. Or goods that won’t sell that we now have to consciously get rid of.

[00:27:27] When I came on board with Hip Mommies the goal at that time was to get through my pregnancy. And to get this business rebuilt and rebranded. And then I was to leave it in the hands of my capable husband and our employees at the time. And get back to working in the creative world. And the marker moved. And then it became that I would stay on board until we could secure childcare. And then it became until my daughter reached school age. But the marker kept moving because I kept learning more and more about this space. And there’s just so much more that I can do to support our suppliers and in turn, Canadians.

[00:28:02] The brands that we’ve helped to launch in Canada most are family owned. Most are women led. All have some measure of sustainable or social focus and all are purpose-driven.  It’s not about creating something to make profit. It’s about creating something to make an impact.

[00:28:19] Our relationship with ezpz for example, has truly been life altering. And really we grew together.  ezpz is small, scrappy, self-funded. 100% woman led. Transparent. They have experts and specialists on staff to make sure all of their products are developmentally appropriate and a really purpose first and seeing how hard they pushed to stick to their core values through tremendous growth, counterfeits, having to fight, to protect their patents, knowing that these were the right things to do for the end consumer, has been really inspiring. And part of the reason that I wanted to start this podcast was to help amplify the voices of these independent businesses, that are really fighting to make better choices when the odds are stacked against them.  And I’ve had many, many moments. Many moments where fighting for what we feel is right, has been a tremendous challenge.

[00:29:21] It would have been much easier to partner with one of these really large brands. That have products that span every category and just a huge catalogue. They’re well-known from decades ago. We’d instantly have access to more retailers would just be easy to sell. And these companies already have all of those things in place that will make it easy for us.  Working with the smaller independently owned startups and the smaller brands, we often have to go through that growth period alongside them. The design iterations, the mistakes. The marketing a brand that no one has heard of. And working on things like retail requirements, bilingual packaging. And every time that one of these large brands has approached us, I have that brief glimmer. That thought how much easier this could be. And luckily, because it’s my husband and I making the businesses, the key decisions, one of us will remind the other what we’re here to do, who we’re here to support and what our purpose is.

[00:30:25] And I think the most challenging piece for me in terms of my worldview has been seeing the rise of what I refer to as Amazon culture and how we have this one click free shipping free returns mindset now. That means that consumers may purchase a number of goods with the intention of returning what they like least  Not understanding that the majority of the time, those goods, may head straight to landfill. And I think also that when someone returns something to Amazon, for example, they think they’re like sticking it to Bezos, you know?  But effectively, if it’s a small business seller, the small business is eating all of that cost.

[00:31:01] And it costs businesses a lot more to receive returns, inspect them, process them, restock them, reshelve them for resale than it costs to dispose of them.  And oftentimes there are tax credits associated with the disposal of these goods. So many, many businesses do not bother. And we get all of our return sent back to us. I share about this on social media, all of the time. And each week when I visit that pile of boxes, many returned, unopened, still sealed. It really hurts my soul. We painstakingly open, inspect, donate, and resell what we can, but I know that we are the anomaly and I struggle to try to emphasize that messaging that as consumers, we need to be conscious, but as business owners, we have responsibilities too.

[00:31:51] And the counterfeit conversation is one that needs to be had over and over and over. I talk about it because all of us shopping online have purchased something that we may not even know as a fake. And the counterfeiters are responsible for organized crime. Environmental atrocities. Really awful labor conditions. And these goods are often found to have known carcinogens, lead, mercury, other dangerous toxins in them. They are not tested for safety. They are not made with any protocols in mind and they’re made for a quick profit, the counterfeiters, doing their best to dupe you into thinking it’s the real deal. And without any considerations for health safety and the wellbeing of anyone but themselves. It’s a hundreds of billions of dollars a year issue that I think most people. Don’t think affects them. But Amazon, Ali Baba, Ali-Express, Walmart. We are finding counterfeits of our goods by the dozens all of the time. And commonly counterfeited goods include things you would never think of. Baby carriers. Children’s feeding products, sunscreens, toys, personal care. It’s not just like LV handbags.

[00:33:07] And these goods are sold in all of the marketplaces, online stores, your local social media marketplaces. Pop-ups, even big box stores.  And this isn’t only a surprise to consumers because we’ve been through this so many times with small businesses. When they’ve first discovered that knock-offs of their goods are being sold somewhere. Often with replicated packaging, using the brands, photography, and verbiage. It’s eye opening for certain.

[00:33:36]And while some of this sounds really negative or even overwhelming, if it’s new to you. I want to emphasize the incredible spirit of the entrepreneur. And how many brands I found led by heart-centered founders that are committed to change.  I truly believe that the majority of small business owners and the majority of consumers want to support brands that are making responsible choices. And I truly believe that there is just a knowledge gap. We are not always aware of the impact of our choices.

[00:34:10] And I wanted to put this podcast out into the world to really give a voice to the owners of these businesses that are using their product to make a difference in the world. I’d love to connect with you. If you’re thinking of starting a small business or growing an existing one, or looking into sustainability or social purpose, I’d like to inspire you with the stories of founders that have been here before to take stock and consider what can be done and what should be done differently.

[00:34:42] And I want to explore the true costs associated with creating a sustainable business, whatever those may be, the financial costs, but also the costs to our family life, mental health, the planet, and the people in our communities.  The world needs more intentional creators and more compassion. And with Hip Mommies, I am always looking for ways to do better. And I’d love to have you come along on this journey with me.  And we can learn how to do better. Together.

[00:35:11]If you want to learn more about Hip Mommies, our carefully curated collection of goods from brands committed to doing better, visit hipmommies.ca. Shopping for the little ones in your life? The collection is available for purchase at shop.hipmommies.ca.  And you can follow along with us on our mission to connect retail  with thoughtfully designed responsibly, manufactured goods, on instagram facebook or twitter @hipmommies.