Yash Presswalla from Impact Skateboard Club left a career in music behind to start a nonprofit focused on supporting youth. In this episode we learn why he’s chosen to use skateboarding as a vehicle for social change. We discover how Impact’s programming, empowers children and youth to develop healthy self-esteem, resilience and other necessary life skills on and off the ramps. We hear how Impact teaches so much more than skateboarding. How their focus on accessibility, outreach and activism allows kids of all abilities and backgrounds to become skateboarders and champions for equality.

If you want to learn more about Yash, Impact Skateboard Club’s, programming, or to send a kid to skate camp visit www.impactskateclub.com. Have an empty warehouse in central Toronto? Or a lead on a suitable space for indoor programming? Impact would love to hear from you. You can follow along with Yash on his mission to help kids learn more about emotional wellbeing and social skills through skateboarding and social action. On Instagram @impactskateclub.

Links from this episode

• Impact Skateboard Club

Episode Transcript

[00:02:20] Jennifer Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to the Cost Of Goods Sold. I’m your host, Jennifer Myers Chua and this is episode number 24.

In today’s episode, we chat with Yash Presswalla from Impact Skateboard Club. We learn why Yash decided to leave a career in music behind to start a nonprofit focused on supporting youth. And why he’s chosen to use skateboarding as a vehicle for social change. We discover how Impact’s programming, empowers children and youth to develop healthy self-esteem, resilience and other necessary life skills on and off the ramps. We hear how Impact teaches so much more than skateboarding. How their focus on accessibility, outreach and activism allows kids of all abilities and backgrounds to become skateboarders and champions for equality.

Before building impact skateboard club Yash Presswalla was a working musician. Spending his twenties playing jazz and teaching skateboarding on the side. Teaching and performing were things that he enjoyed. And although he didn’t become the rock star, he once dreamed of becoming Yash had settled into a life of weekend music gigs and summer camps. But when Yash turned 30, he began to reevaluate. where would he be at 40? In a decade. Would he be playing covers at bars? Would alcohol have a hold on him? Would he be playing? Can’t help falling in love by Elvis Presley. Every day, every wedding, every weekend. Where was he going with this life?

[00:04:01] Yash Presswalla: I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was very insecure and and still kind of living with the attitudes of a teenager. I think in part, because of like the people I had around me, who I was influenced by and just the choices I made for myself, like where I chose to spend my time and what I did. That involved drinking and drug usage. But it wasn’t all bad. Like it wasn’t a disaster. On the surface at all.

[00:04:27] Jennifer Chua: This is not what he had wanted for his career and it wasn’t his life’s ambition. And he did know that he was a good teacher and that he was great with kids. And while teaching skateboarding was something that he enjoyed and was a good source of supplemental income. Yash had had a falling out with his business partner.

[00:04:45] Yash Presswalla: And, uh, That partnership didn’t really end up working out too well. It was always kind of fraught, but at this time when everything sort of changed and I decided that I didn’t want to be playing cover gigs for the rest of my life. And I didn’t want to keep drinking and because alcohol was abundantly accessible, just doing what I did. And I didn’t want to keep taking shit from people. I realized that I wasn’t even, I started becoming introduced to the concept of what boundaries even mean. And I realized that I was very much a people pleaser. So, When all of these things changed, I also decided to leave that business partnership where I was doing skateboard camps and programming and and that sort of all blew up in kind of a bad way, but I decided that I’m good at this.

[00:05:32] Jennifer Chua: So he established Impact as a nonprofit and we’ll chat about that decision in a bit. But the intent was that the kids who didn’t have access to programming, like this would have a chance at scholarships. And Yash was already well-known in the skateboard community. He had established himself with the parents looking for this kind of instruction. And after building a board of directors Impact was up and rolling.

But even after a couple of years of programming success impacts camps and workshops sell out in a flash. Yash is always trying to expand and push Impact Skateboard Club forward. Using a council of young people and volunteers Impact has been established as a positive and welcoming space for everyone. From summer campers to at-risk youth and those facing barriers to involvement.

[00:06:23] Yash Presswalla: The underlying goals were very different because it’s not just about like an athletic pursuit or physical exercise or, a recreational activity, but more about what the deeper implications of that are. And I also wanted to make sure that skateboarding was accessible to anyone who wanted to do it. It’s already a pretty accessible activity, at least in this part of the world, because we have access to skateboards and I’m like, there are shops around and you can get a skateboard handed down to you. and a helmet, if you’re a kid, and once you have that then you’re pretty much ready to go. You don’t need a team or a field or anything, except for some flat ground and your skateboard. But even still, that’s not easy for everyone to get. So I wanted to make sure that people could get skateboards, like especially young people if they wanted them.

[00:07:08] Jennifer Chua: And why is this so important to you? Like all the work that you do around equity, inclusion, advocacy, was there an event that shaped how you see the world? This.

[00:07:17] Yash Presswalla: My mom has always worked with kids with special needs. So, like inclusion and accessibility has always been a conversation growing up and, and throughout my life but I think the real motivation for me to do things this way was I just kind of looked back at where I got tripped up as a young person and what might have helped me. What I needed that I didn’t have that ended up causing a lot of distress and and like unnecessary complications. Like the lack of self-esteem without even really being conscious of it, the lack of knowing what my identity was or where it lay, the people pleasing thing, like all of that stuff was just a combination of the way I grew up and the people I was around, and the choices I made.

And there’s so many intersections there where I feel like positive male influences in my life, or, X, Y, and Z, that, that I might’ve been able to make better choices. So that’s what I’m trying to provide. Hopefully be a good role model. And I do that by just trying to continually work on myself and be the best version of myself in my work and outside of it.

And then just kind of be there for people. Young people in an inappropriate way where I had older people in my life when I was growing up, but they weren’t really modeling things that ended up serving me. So I want to try to model things that are going to serve the people that I’m working.

[00:08:46] Jennifer Chua: And what about making a difference? Can you remember a moment that led you on this path to wanting to take your life, to make difference for kids or people in our community?

[00:08:57] Yash Presswalla: um, I don’t think it was a moment. It just kind of seems like the right thing to do. This is maybe a bit after the fact, but being in a recovery program helped me understand what it means to not just like be sober, but to have a productive life. And most importantly, like the end of 12 step program, or like the last step is using what you’ve learned to help others.

And by giving it away is how you end up keeping it for yourself. So I was kind of already on this path before I got there but that just really reinforced like, oh yeah. That’s why I do it. It’s not, it’s not because I necessarily want to feel good about myself, but it feels like I do feel good being able to give back what I’ve gotten. And what I’ve gotten is like people who understand people who listen, people who have helped me without asking for anything in return.

I get a feeling of fulfillment from being able to do that myself. And it also helps me just grow as a person. So it’s not like I made some kind of selfless decision to like, I’m just going to be good and help people. It’s really like a full circle thing because I see it as when we help other people, it’s like, we’re helping ourselves too, because I see us as one big us. So it’s not like, oh, these poor unfortunate people that I’m helping, or these poor kids that would be so lost without me. It’s like, it’s a symbiotic thing where we’re all kind of in it together. And when one of us succeeds, we all succeed. That’s how I see it.

[00:10:27] Jennifer Chua: So why did you choose to go on the route of creating a nonprofit? Like you could have built a social enterprise business with a giveback program. I’m just wondering, why did you choose the path of nonprofit for this venture?

[00:10:39] Yash Presswalla: I had no idea what I was doing. I knew as far as business savvy went, I just knew to treat people. To like, do what you say you’re going to do, and if you mess up, fix it. Even when I was a business previously, I was never led by how am I going to make the most money?

The money was always just like incidental and like keeps you going, but not the most important thing. So being able to provide accessibility was kind of one of the core components when this was just an idea before it even became a real thing. And in my mind, and with the little knowledge that I had at the time, I wanted to be able to access outside funding so that for people who were not able to afford programs, people like staff still need to get paid. We still have, equipment to buy and there’s still money that needs to come in. But I wanted to be able to find ways to. Not have that financial burden be completely on the people who are participating. Particularly for those who can’t afford it. So the gears were going and I thought, well, nonprofits can get outside funding.

And I’d formed a small board of directors and one of the directors runs a non-profit daycare center. So she was like instrumental, especially in the beginning, but even now in just helping me navigate. How to incorporate how to you know, access those funds. And we never really did end up finding that much outside funding. Like we’re all pretty much self self-funded at this point, aside from grants here and there. But as we continue to grow and, you know, as we re-establish an indoor space and all these things that I want to do, we’re going to need funding from outside. And I know that it’s out there and it’s just, I’m learning as I go. But the whole idea of the nonprofit was just to be able to not have the financial burden lay on the people who are participating. So the families and the kids.

[00:12:31] Jennifer Chua: and what are your programs look like? Like what are you doing to support the community? How are you actually connecting with these kids. What are you actually doing with them?

[00:12:41] Yash Presswalla: Lots of things. So the in-person programming primarily takes the form of like lesson programs and the lessons, or like summer camp or weekend, hour long sessions where we’re learning how to skateboard, but. Deeper core component of like, what does this activity actually do for us? So how does skateboarding build confidence?

What happens when we all kind of like work towards something and develop these relationships with each other and become part of a community? Like what then, how do we leverage that to, maybe help others or even help ourselves or to relate better to each other, to develop social skills, all that stuff has kind of built in.

And I knew that going in to establishing as a nonprofit and kind of like having these ideas of deeper goals for the whole thing, but as we’ve gone along and the more I dig, the more I see the richness of this particular thing that I know well, that can help.

There are things like workshops that we’ve done. So like somewhat skateboarding adjacent, but maybe not necessarily. For example, we did this series a couple of summers ago where it was an art based series. Combined with skateboarding, somewhat haphazardly in cases.

But I I just reached out to people that I knew who had other skills. So for example, the first one was like a music workshop where I had a drummer friend of mine bring in a bunch of progressive instruments and taught the kids about just like basic rhythm and playing together and like listening and time, just in a fun, really introductory.

These kids who already skateboarded or who were interested in skateboarding, had them come out to this free workshop where they got to learn this new skill. And then they all got to skate together. So not directly related, but we could still do it all in same day. Another one in that same series was a photography thing.

 Another one that we did, that’s another skateboard adjacent thing is like a graffiti workshop. So a friend of mine who is a really great artist came in and everyone had sketchbooks and he talked a little bit about lettering and. Obviously, like I really wanted to stress that graffiti is different from vandalism. And so you don’t write on things that are not yours. But there’s plenty of examples at the skate park of really great art and also not really great scribblings. And so they got to see what that means from somebody who does like murals and really puts time and effort into what they do. Compared to scratching a swear word on the skate park concrete. And so they got to practice their lettering in the book. And then we had them use spray paint on this giant canvas. And that was really fun for them too. We did a yoga workshop, that same series, so that kind of stuff has always been really interesting to me because then we’re helping them branch out and try new things that they might not necessarily try otherwise.

That following summer, I think this was the summer right before COVID. We did the same kind of thing, but had a couple of kids lead the workshops. So one of them was really into like tie dying. So I got her to teach all her peers how to tie and we just facilitated the, like the supplies and the t-shirts and stuff like that. And she was the one teaching everyone. Another little girl does like this awesome splatter, like Jackson Polack grip, tape artwork. So she’s got this really cool method. And I loved it so much that I invited her to do it, and I think she was like eight at the time and just a pretty beginner skateboarder too, but was so cool the way she was like teaching these teenagers, her like little technique for doing it.

And so we were able to provide the grip tape and like the paint and everything. And, and I, I really loved doing those because that put these kids. And in this case it was two girls. And like these leadership positions where I know they’re both super nervous and like wanting to do it, but also didn’t want to do it and ended up doing it. And it was good for everybody. Like everyone really loved it. And they had such a positive experience too, just from being able to facilitate and prove to themselves, they could do something like that. So I really love that.

Another really important thing that I do want to mention is the youth council. So that’s for 12 and over. They kind of started as monthly meetings. And my original thought is if we’re going to be serving children and youth, I want young people in this kind of advisory role so that it’s not just. me making the decisions about what we do and how we do it, but I want their feedback of like, what do you guys want? What do you need? Or what do you think young people need? And so it started like that, and that is part of the role of the council. It’s kind of just became like a safe place for them to talk about things and discuss whatever’s affecting their lives. So there’s been all kinds of. Awesome conversations.

And some people are really active participants and talk a lot and some just come and sit there and listen the whole time. But you know, talking about what’s going on at school, talking about like addiction talking about all kinds of discrimination. Stuff that’s maybe that I might not bring up to like a six or seven year old, but that is very relevant and real for teenagers. And they don’t have other places to talk about this kind of. So just even giving them a chance to share, it’s not like a lecture thing. We can introduce a topic and you can speak on it and I can share my experiences with them and hear what they have to say about it. And that’s been really awesome too.

So some of the kids in that council don’t even skateboard. Like they they’re just not into skateboarding, but they still come to that because they know it’s a safe place for them to be, and they can relate to other people and build relationships and. My role, there is just kind of like the caring adult. That’s not overbearing, but also going to keep things from going off the rails.

[00:18:21] Jennifer Chua: Now when I was a teenager in the 1990s, there was a lot of us skateboarding, but there was not so many. Kids around, like, I never saw children’s skateboarders until I grew up and have a child skateboarder of my own. What is the skateboard scene look like in Toronto these days?

[00:18:40] Yash Presswalla: It’s so different. So it’s the same when I started there weren’t any skate parks really in Toronto. We were just like skateboarding on the street and generally like 6, 7, 8 year olds aren’t left to just run the streets. I think in general. I was probably like 12, 13 when I started being able to go out by myself and hang out with my friends and just come home before dark or whatever.

And it was very much this, I guess gatekeeping is the word that comes to mind. It’s almost like, I felt like you have to be good before you can even like show yourself at a skate spot or, or like be around those better skateboarders. Not that I ever really felt intimidated because I started skateboarding with a group of friends and there was like a crew of us.

So I could imagine it would be different if I was just really into it and started solo, which a lot of kids do. But I never felt that intimidation so much, but I definitely felt Like a bit of anxiety in that these older guys were okay. Skating with us, but I was still like, I was trying to seem cool around them or maybe I would allow things that I wasn’t okay with just because I didn’t want to like rock the boat or because I want it to be accepted. I just stayed quiet when I maybe should have said something or I may be stuck around when I should have left. Because I didn’t, I had no idea how to like, trust my. Or that my instincts maybe were correct. And that the thing all around me was not the right thing to do. But I ended up hanging out with these older guys and they, they were friendly in a way, but it was that kind of way where they’re like, they’ll let you hang out with them, but they’ll still bully you kind of thing.

And, but in my mind, at the time that was a win because I had these cool, their friends who are like awesome at skateboarding. Today that’s a lot different because there are first of all skate parks. So that’s cool. And a lot of parents are actually really involved with their kids. Whereas my parents were by no means like neglectful, but they would not have had, even if there were skate parks, I don’t think they would have had time to like spend eight hours there with me while I just like tried tricks all day. And some parents I see at parks do have that ability. I know not most of them, but they’re still this, this it’s pretty common for like parents to bring their kids to the park. Sit on the grass or pull up a chair and just kind of like read or do work or whatever it happens to be. But I was just not that kid.

I would not have been okay with that because I would have wanted my parents far away from what I was doing. And I’m not, I think there’s plenty of reasons why, and I won’t, I won’t go into all of them, but it’s just cool to see that skateboarding is not kind of seen as that. Degenerate thing as much anymore.

It’s, it’s a slow climb, but it’s coming around to that. You know, it’s like a lot more legitimate in the eyes of non skateboarders, I think. And part of that has to do with like the kids involved in the families involved. And the fact that skateboarding in and of itself is totally wholesome and like amazing and such a, a great learning experience in all kinds of ways.

But it wasn’t quite that. Even with the like trying and failing and getting better at something and the way that it builds your confidence, that didn’t really apply to me because nobody pointed out to me that, Hey, you really worked hard at this and you succeeded. Maybe you can do that for other things like that. There was no connection there. So I missed the boat on that lesson kind of. And so I think just talking about it or introducing kids to these concepts. Okay. Can be really helpful, but if you don’t talk about it, then it’s a missed opportunity.

[00:22:07] Jennifer Chua: Social action and activism is a big part of what you do as well. Can you speak a bit more to why that’s so important and how skateboarding can be a vehicle for social change?

[00:22:18] Yash Presswalla: So the way I see it is that skateboarding is a community. And it’s a really strong community in a lot of ways, because we have this shared experience of like struggle and pain, like literally when it comes down to it, there’s a lot of things where people can develop comradery and rapport, like on the music side of things, I can relate to other musicians because we’ve kind of spent the time working toward these similar goals.

And so if I see somebody that kinda knows what they’re talking about, musically, I know that they’ve had that shared expense. where skateboarding’s a little bit different because in order to get that shared experience, you really have to hang on through some tough times and like tough times being physical pain, a lot of time, you know, like falling and, and just even the frustration of so much failure just to get a little bit of success. In my experience that really brings skateboarders together. To the extent that like I can go to a country. They don’t speak English. And if I have my skateboard and see other skateboarders, like I’m automatically in that crew, I can go up to them and feel comfortable talking to them, or like using my hands to communicate and more than just like skateboard with them. It’s given me like places to stay in different countries or advice on where to go, where to eat, where to, you know, like where the different spots are. So that’s cool. And so with that shared experience and that like sense of community, I think by extension, we have a really unique opportunity to leverage that community and mobilize because together we can do more than we can on our own.

And so what I try to do with the young people, or at least what I try to introduce them to and provide resources and opportunities is for them to use the community that we’ve already got to stop. To go out and help each other and help others outside of the community. So that comes in the form of like, advocacy for homelessness and just reinforcing that you don’t have to do something big and grand for it to matter that even small things matter.

So we’ve done things even with the little guys working with other organizations like Elizabeth Fry comes to mind, which is a nonprofit. Supports women who are coming out of criminal justice system. And a lot of the time those women are incarcerated because of crimes related to abuse by men or their partners. And so this organization kind of helps people who are coming out of prison or jail and and a lot of the time they’ve lost access to their kids or, there’s all kinds of restrictions. So even things like writing mother’s day cards for those ladies from the kids can be such a, an easy, small thing for us to do, but that can be so meaningful for somebody who’s struggling.

And so that’s something that as individuals, we could do that, but as a community of skateboarders, I mean, that’s something we did with the littler kids, but even they can understand that people who are having a hard time, even just like a little card from you can be really meaningful and that’s empowering for the kids too.

In terms of the stuff that we’ve done around homelessness that’s really kind of taken off during COVID too, because of the encampments that were set up in different parks. So it started with collecting. Supplies for care kits. So just like basic stuff that people could use, like clean socks or hygiene supplies or whatever. We were able to put that together through different donations that the youth council put together. And I was able to leverage some of our contacts. And so they assembled these kits, which was the original idea, but I even had a couple of them go out with me to the encampments and get to hand them out and meet people because it’s not just about giving things.

It’s about realizing that like, people who are living in an encampment are not different from us. They’re not a different kind of human being. They still have the same, like wants and needs and they, have a lot of the same struggles. So it’s, I think we can understand that intellectually, but actually being able to go out and talk to folks and just have a normal conversation. That’s not about like, oh, so you’re living in a tent. How’s that going? It’s like, we can just talk about the things that you talked to anyone about. That’s really been awesome for me. And I know that it’s been impactful for the kids who were able to do that with me too. The skateboard community is so tight knit in a lot of ways, and there’s just such great opportunities there to leverage that at solidarity and pour it out.

[00:26:44] Jennifer Chua: And I follow you on social media and have seen all of the things that you’ve done with rallies and events to support everyone from refugees to the queer community, to those struggling with mental health. Why is this important to you? Why do you choose to use impact to help these communities as well?

[00:27:04] Yash Presswalla: um, I guess it’s just an extension of, of what I care about and it starts there. When I start talking about it, I can see that a lot of the kids in our orbit also care about these things. So in a way, I don’t think this is like the intention behind it, but just the result is I’m influencing other people to either think about these issues or to, go out and change the way that they do things too.

But the, I guess the reason is just again, cause it’s the right thing. And everything is connected in some way. So like the mental health is connected to the inclusion is connected to discrimination and it’s connected to like helping people who are struggling because we are all those people, like we all struggle in different ways. So developing empathy I think goes a long way, and it’s not just about this issue with that, but it’s all kind of one thing. Which is we are all people and it’s like try to treat each other, right. Even people that we might not necessarily get along with, or even that we like play an old don’t like we can still see them as like human and worthy of respect and care and dignity.

[00:28:14] Jennifer Chua: And when you began to look into maybe community services or supporting children, did you have any realizations surrounding how we are supporting kids in our society? There may be disadvantaged in some way. Like what are the costs to how we are treating kids that need our help in, in our society currently?

[00:28:37] Yash Presswalla: That’s a really good question. And it can be actually for me a little bit overwhelming and. I know sad at times, because there’s only so much that we can do as like, youth leaders or whatever. I’m not every kid’s parent and they need their parents to fulfill certain rules that, that are just not appropriate or possible for me to fulfill.

Even though sometimes I really want to, if I think that they’re not getting what they need, but that can be hard. It’s just kind of accepted. Not everyone is getting what they need so I can do my best, but it’s not ever going to be like world saving stuff and that’s okay. But it is heartbreaking at times to deal with I think what I can bring to the table or not even me, but what skateboarding can really bring to the table is that it’s, it can be such a process of self discovery.

And I think that’s something every. It needs to deal with, or it needs to experience in their home, you know, and unfolding. I really come back to the fact that it must be so hard to be a kid growing up with everything we have going on right now. I guess every generation can say that, but just like internet and social media and like lack of person to person interactions.

Or just the fact that they’re so different from pre-internet times. I see that play out and the effects of that, the negative effects of that in a lot of ways some of the positives are that there’s a lot more acceptance and knowledge of like mental health issues and and what discrimination really is.

And, and we’ve kind of been able to tighten up on a lot of things that were wrong, but totally socially acceptable when I was. But the flip side is that kids are super anxious, depressed, and, and really struggled to form relationships that are meaningful and, and real. There’s like a lot of surface level posturing and performative kind of everything going on.

And I think a lot of that just comes from the fact that. We don’t really have place to be bored anymore, you know? And I think from boredom kind of comes that, like, you kind of sit with it and it’s uncomfortable and it’s like itch. And from that, you can figure out like, well, I’d really like to do this, or I’d like to pick up an instrument draw or, but it’s so easy to avoid all that now, but I just like scrolling or, or just mindlessly spending time on your phone or on the.

So, so much so that we not only stifle that kind of natural growth that I think happens for most people, but we actually like regressed in a lot of ways. And I noticed that for myself too, even though I didn’t like grow up with that for my early childhood, but I really I’m constantly checking myself.

Like I need time to just rest and unplug and be still because rest isn’t like watching a show or. I like scrolling Instagram. It’s like, it’s actually spending time with myself and it’s, I think so vital and necessary. And I, I think that’s something that we need to emphasize more, especially for young people, but for everyone.

[00:31:55] Jennifer Chua: And how else have you seen this work impact the kids and the teens that. you’re spending time with? Have you seen any really profound changes in them as a whole, like as a little collective.

[00:32:05] Yash Presswalla: I guess I frame it more as individuals, but there are a lot of them, so they form a collective and I’ve seen it play out in just having these relationships that, you know, over the months and years just the conversations start to change the questions they asked, start to change. And again, as individuals, I I’m really encouraged by times when, when the conversation kind of references or mirror something that we’ve talked about once before.

And I can tell that there’s been like a thought process and time spent with the idea and it comes back around full circle. It’s just cool to see. It’s cool to see how much young people are capable of. Because I know that again, intellectually, but I think we discount them a lot, especially like children.

There’s this kind of adult switch that goes off for a lot of people. I think it’s like, oh, they don’t know what’s going on or they don’t really get it. But they get a lot more than we often give them credit for. And I think just. Acknowledging that to them and giving them choices and giving them as much autonomy is like, as, you know, it’s as appropriate and, and helpful to them.

Uh I’ve I’ve been surprised and I even expect it. And I’m still surprised. So just seeing, yeah, like with our kind of core group that I’ve known for a few years now, seeing that whole group kind of like elevate their mental state and their attitudes toward things. Ability to understand the world around them is, is really awesome and totally inspiring because I’m still trying to do the same thing.

[00:33:50] Jennifer Chua: And how about us like you and me as a small business owner and the owner of a nonprofit or the listeners who maybe are in the same category, how can we best support the adults of the future?

[00:34:01] Yash Presswalla: That’s a good question. And I think it comes back to at least what I’ve settled on at this time. My answer might change a year from now, but I don’t think it will. It’s just that the best thing that I can do to help anybody is to work on myself. In recovery, they there’s like a lot of phrases or sayings that go around and one of them is that you can’t give what you don’t have.

So. If I can be my best self, then, then I can pass that along because young people in particular have a really good bullshit meter and they can tell on an instinctive level when somebody’s faking it. And it’s sad and you know, it’s kind of disappointing a lot of the times, but a lot of people and especially in nonprofit world or a say they’re doing something and don’t actually do it.

And it’s kind of just about the image of doing something. And so I think just being authentic is the best thing that we can do and encouraging young people to be authentic and true to themselves. But you can’t do that if you’re not true to yourself. And I think that goes same for raising kids and same for influencing peers, our own age or older, or.

Just being the kind of person that that you would like to meet. That’s my take on it.

[00:35:18] Jennifer Chua: So in your journey with impact skateboard club, have you encountered any really big challenges like COVID or otherwise? Has there been anything that’s just been really, really challenging and difficult to get through?

[00:35:32] Yash Presswalla: Yes. I think that perhaps you and a lot of people who might be listening to this could even relate, but letting go has been the. Letting go of control and and I’m still very much in the process of that letting go. But in the sense of, I don’t want to be integral to run the show. I want this to be able to flourish with or without me.

And so I’m kind of trying to build the foundation as solid as I can, but at some point it would be great for somebody else to take my. And up until that point, it would be great for other people who are like-minded to facilitate what I do. And so it’s not just like all me making the decisions and doing all the work all the time.

I think that’s important for several reasons. First of all, I tried to not get consumed by any one particular thing. There’s definitely seasons and, and the first few years of impact I was consumed and I think that was, yeah. Good thing and the right thing, but those are seasons and I don’t think it needs to stay like that.

So, finding the right people has been a challenge because I am not in a pretentious way, but I really set the bar very high and it’s super high because I believe that kids need to have good people around them, safe people not perfect people, but people that are going to. Not do any harm, you know, even in terms of their own personal attitudes that might come through.

I think it’s important that people kind of have that right heart going into this type of work. And unfortunately, a lot of people that work with kids shouldn’t be in my opinion, and that goes for like teachers and like, you know, recreation facility, facilitators and coaches and all that stuff.

I think there’s like a lot of inner work that needs to be done to be effective. And to really like help young people thrive. So again, not being pretentious, I haven’t done all of that work that I think should be done, but but I’ve definitely addressed a lot of things and like the me of 10 years ago, I probably wouldn’t hire today to work with kids.

You know, not because I was like unsafe. But it’s because there’s a lot of stuff that I needed to deal with before I could give it to somebody else. So that’s been a pretty big challenge. The first of all the letting go and the second part of that is like just finding the right people at the moment.

I’m really, really happy with the team that we have. It’s pretty small, but but I trust them all and and they do awesome work and I’m just like really great. For all our crew. But I’d like more of them and I’d like, I’d like people to take on more than just an instruction role or more than just a programming role, but more like a, an administrative and like a visionary role as well.

Cause I, I think I have good ideas, but I also know other people have good ideas that I have not thought of yet. And so it’s important to, to bring people in, especially like young adults who are closer to the age group of the people that will be.

[00:38:36] Jennifer Chua: Yeah. And I’d like to learn more about your clubhouse. So unfortunately you had to shut down your physical space. I’d like to learn why you had to shut it down, first of all, but why is having that physical space so important to impact in your overall goals?

[00:38:51] Yash Presswalla: First and foremost, it’s just a skateboarding space for the winter. Yeah. Necessary like this is, it’s not just like a fringe, you know, recreation, hobby, or a sport it’s it’s mainstream now. And so many people participate in skateboarding and get so much out of it that I think it’s pretty ridiculous that we don’t have more infrastructure for it.

And I think it’s just that. We’re kind of running a few years behind. So skateboarding has grown a lot in popularity and it does come in waves, but we’re at like, you know, a peak of one of those waves. And I think it’s still going up and it takes a little while for like policy to fall into place behind that.

So I think we will see more infrastructure. It’s encouraging how many outdoor parks there are and how much and, and the plans to create more. But the indoor thing is really an issue here where we live. Half the year, outdoor skate parks are not viable. They’re not, you can’t use them when there’s snow on the ground or when it’s wet or even when it’s super cold.

So, having that indoor space is just for the skateboard community at large, like forget about impact or kids. We need them. There’s not enough, not nearly enough. There’s one spot in Mississauga and there’s another spot in Scarborough. That’s pretty. Not enough for the community of skateboarders that there are in the city and there’s nothing in the middle.

So I’m speaking for myself and for this organization. And what, what the goals of, of impact are it’s important to have the space, not only to just give people a place to skate, but to foster an inclusive community and really have people whose values are aligned in the same way. Have a place to get together and meet and plan and do and flourish.

So I see a facility like you called it a clubhouse. And I think of it as like a youth space, more than just an indoor skate park, because when we briefly had our indoor space, I really wanted it to be like a safe place for people to come and sure. Escape, but also just to like, be with the friends and hang out and do the things that young people like.

But in this, you know, with this kind of like air of supervision where it’s not, they were just going to like party, like I did when I was a kid. But also not where the, where you would be like shunned for doing that either. It’s like just an environment where you can come and be exactly who you are and you don’t have to put on the airs.

When I was younger and started skateboarding, there was actually one skate park, right. Downtown. And and it was awesome and like grimy and gritty and like all the things you would think of for like a nineties, early two thousands skate park. But it wasn’t, it wasn’t where I would bring an eight year old.

And and I think the places like that do have their place too. And it’s cool. Like maybe teenagers and young adults don’t want to hang out where eight year olds are going to be hanging out. And that’s fine like that. But what I’m trying to do is create a space where everyone feels comfortable and, you know, maybe older people would want to go somewhere else after, or, or do something else, or like be in a different kind of environment as well.

But I want to try to make something that’s like equally accessible and comfortable for whoever comes through. And and beyond that, I want to be able to provide more than just skateboard programming, but my background’s in art music. So like, some kind of facility for that. I think fitness and nutrition are so important.

I think like so many young people, myself included are into like music and production and like digital arts. And so having facilities and spaces for all these things is kind of like the dream. And on top of that, even having a place where people can get their first employment, like a small cap, Coffee shop allowing area, a place where kids can like, you know, just instead of hanging out at a library or a coffee shop, they can come do their homework or, you know, like play games or chat with each other or apply for university or apply for a job and have adults around them that are safe that can help them with those things too.

So that’s kinda like the vision I have right now and it’s all these really awesome. Pie in the sky ideas, but I know that those can come together too can happen. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it happen. And I’ve like seen the end result of it too. So, I’m really encouraged and, you know, yeah. Money is a huge issue, especially because the place has to be so big and we want to have it like within the city of Rome.

And that’s a challenge too, but I don’t really focus too much on why I can’t do it. And more, just try to look for ways that we can. And just take it one step at a time, because in my experience, things will fall into place. If you just prepare and have faith and believe that it can work and work for it.

[00:43:48] Jennifer Chua: And the children in our community, the adults of the future, the kids that you’re serving, obviously I usually ask, how do you think that your work is supporting these kids, but like it’s obvious that your work is supporting these kids. So based on your interactions with these kids and all of the works that you’re doing, that you’ve been doing, are you hopeful for the future?

[00:44:10] Yash Presswalla: I am super hopeful and encouraged. The conversations that I hear happening, or like the topics that come up are so far beyond the kinds of things I would have talked about at that age or that my peers would have talked about. They’re, you know, young people are so thoughtful and and so aware of life around them.

That’s not to say that they’re infallible or like fully immersed in everything that’s going on. Yeah, I’m not trying to say it and him and I in an idealized kind of way, but they give a shit about what goes on in their world. And and so many of them are empowered to do something about it. And again, like it doesn’t need to be something grand.

It can just be a small action, a small word an attitude. And it just, it builds on that. So it’s, it’s been really cool to see. Just how deep of an understanding and more important than you caring they have for each other and, and the world that they’re inheriting. Yeah. And it’s just, it’s so striking sometimes when I stepped back from it for a second and just, you know, do a quick contrast of what was going on with me at that age. Like I had so much less of that kind of self-awareness and that care for the bigger picture. So I’m really, really hopeful and encouraged by that.

[00:45:32] Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Yash, Impact Skateboard Club’s, programming, or to send a kid to skate camp visit www.impactskateclub.com. Have an empty warehouse in central Toronto? Or a lead on a suitable space for indoor programming? Impact would love to hear from you. You can follow along with Yash on his mission to help kids learn more about emotional wellbeing and social skills through skateboarding and social action. On Instagram @impactskateclub.

Alicia Lumsden from Queen’s Shop Fine Hairdressing created a salon where sustainability and community could co-exist. In this episode, we learn what sustainable means in the hairdressing world, and how Alicia deals with the salon’s waste from hair clippings to water and packaging – and how her battle with environmental sensitivities influenced these decisions. We discover how she’s using the salon to help alleviate food insecurity in her neighbourhood, what she’s doing about gratuities and wages, and why Queen’s Shop is a model for what is possible. A salon with respect for the community and the environment.

If you want to learn more about Alicia and her sustainable and inclusive beauty salon visit Queen’sShopHair.com. In Toronto? Visit Queen’s Shop to enjoy an uplifting salon experience. No matter your age, gender, race, or orientation. You can follow along with Alicia on her mission to promote sustainability within the beauty space. At Instagram @queensshophair

Links from this episode

• www.queensshophair.com
• The Stop
• Trees For Life
• Coupe Bizarre Closing On Queen Street via BlogTo
• Davines
• Green Circle Salons
• Genuine Tea
• Propeller Coffee
• Axiology
• Loopjuice

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:17] Jennifer Chua: Alicia Lumsden founded Queen’s Shop Fine Hairdressing. A boutique hair salon in Toronto’s Bloordale neighborhood in the city’s west end. She opened Queen’s Shop with sustainability, beauty and community in mind. Words displayed on the shop’s front window. Providing some insight into Alicia’s mission. And for the last seven years, Queen’s Shop has been doing its part. Alicia has created a more sustainable salon by focusing on eco-conscious products and practices. And caring for the environment and the health of her community. 1% of their sales go to The Stop and Trees For Life. Projects which provide healthy food, foster social connections, build food skills, promote civic engagement, and build the tree canopy in and around the community. and for Alicia, how to communicate the Queen’s Shop’s impact. Has been on her mind.

[00:03:10] Alicia Lumsden:  I’ve just been really trying to take a step back and re-look at things. For me, it’s always been important to not follow what the average person is doing. Whether it’s my physical identity or just what I do on a day to day. I’ve actually been thinking this week about sustainability or caring about our people and our planet. How do we then change our message? That that is just the standard and then evolve into a more unique brand?

[00:03:47] Jennifer Chua: And it’s a message worth sharing. According to Green Circle Salons, 63,000 pounds of hair gets thrown away each day, producing greenhouse gases, as it breaks down, contributing to climate change. 850 pounds of waste was created and measured in one year by Queen’s Shop alone. However they recycle and repurpose 95% of salon waste, including hair clippings, foils, packaging, and excess color. Hair color, lightener and toner or thrown away every day. And when rinsed down the drain, they can find their way back into our drinking water and soil.

I met Alicia through Kristy and Brianna at Decade Impact. You might remember them from episode 14. Alicia and I went through the B Corp readiness program together. A hair salon was one of the last businesses that I had naively thought could create positive impact. And after hearing all of the careful considerations that the Queen’s Shop team has taken in terms of social environmental initiatives. I was left so inspired because no matter what your industry is, there’s small changes you can take. To build a really special, impactful business and lower the carbon footprint, even in a salon.

And before opening Alicia had been hairdressing for nine years. She also spent time as a makeup artist and a wardrobe on film sets. She ended up at a popular Toronto salon where she spent several years being taught and mentored by hairstylists she respected. But when Alicia went through a separation, everything changed.

[00:05:16] Alicia Lumsden:  I think at that point when I was opening, I always did want to open. But you get complacent with life. Nothing’s really urging you to take that next step. But I was in a position where I had. It was a couple years out of my separation and just kind of like, well, what else is there? When you leave that big dramatic thing in your life and you have to reevaluate what’s going on and what’s actually going to make you happy that’s where I was at.

[00:05:45] Jennifer Chua: Also at this time, Alicia was not feeling well. She had a massive, knot in her stomach and some other health issues. Which led her to realize that she had food sensitivities or allergies. I mean, Something was up. And it wasn’t immediately clear what was wrong. While she began to look more into nutrition, environmental allergies, her husband at the time began to look at food and the world in general, from a climate perspective. He began to be concerned about prepping for the end of the world, future doom scenarios. And Alicia didn’t take it that far, but it did open her eyes to the realities of the changing world and her place in it.

And looking back now at her younger self, Alicia was always interested in how she could affect change.

[00:06:28] Alicia Lumsden: I was always. Well, we can’t waste that or that doesn’t go on the garbage that goes into the recycling or like, well, where can I help? I think actually that was the bigger thing too. all those environmental things were definitely key for me. Loving animals, wanting to be outside in the garden. But I think also, even though I was quiet and I’m a very small person I was still the first to speak up about something. So if people were bullying others, I was still like, eh, what do you, doing? So, I mean, I think all of those things… who I am today as a person, whether it’s what I care about for the planet or what I care about for people it’s. Yeah, it was all there as a child.

[00:07:10] Jennifer Chua: Queen’s Shop is a diverse and inclusive space. What do you mean by that?

[00:07:14] Alicia Lumsden: I want . Everyone to feel welcome. So one thing I heard when I was hairdressing as a career before opening, was that, you know, someone would walk into a space and they would just feel judged. They would feel like they needed to do their hair before they went to the salon to feel accepted. To be there. And to me that was just like, you’re paying me. Why am I, I mean, I’m full of judgments. I’m a Virgo full of judgement. But like there’s no need to make someone else feel awful because you’re analyzing what’s going on. I think that’s what a lot of people do. Predominantly as a protective thing for themselves, their ego kind of comes out and wants to like, I dunno, fight for them. And so they ended up treating others poorly. I think that’s the biggest thing. Salons tend to have big egos and there’s just no place anywhere for a big mean ego.

[00:08:16] Jennifer Chua: Just an aside in the nineties, I used to go to Coupe Bizzarre on queen street. I went there because I wanted very out there asymmetrical cuts and they were really the best at that, but that was a space where I very much did feel judgment. And then as I transitioned through my life, so then I remember I was like 26 and I was still going there. Two stylists I would go between. And I remember saying, but I have a job now at like a corporate place. So we need to, we need to transition somehow into something that is a little, and they were just not impressed with my life choices.

[00:08:53] Alicia Lumsden: Oh yeah. Yeah. I can totally see that being a thing. I think Coupe is the extreme and with that, eventually, if you didn’t know you sooner or later knew that it was just where you went to have something a certain way. You didn’t really have the conversation.

You just, you just got what you got and it was going to be great, but you got what you got. But even, even everywhere else, you still get the subtleties of oh, you’re not good enough to be here. You know? It’s like, have you ever walked into like a really expensive store in your sweats. And then you go in like a week later in your really nice trench coat and like all of your jewelry on and the way you’re treated it’s just night and day. I’m like, I still have the same money, same person.

[00:09:42] Jennifer Chua: So what is the experience of walking into your shop? what happens when someone comes and visits you?

[00:09:47] Alicia Lumsden: What happens is that someone walks in and they’re greeted with I guess the feeling of a friendly smile, cause he can’t see our smiles and just acknowledged, welcomed, show them around, get them all set up and uh, Comfortable. Right now I feel like it’s a little different and less nice, but Before, it’s definitely very homey. I’d like to make people feel at home. Definitely as a human, I get a little anxious being a hostess because I want to make sure that all the things are done, but in the salon space, it’s nice. We show them around. We tell them exactly what’s expected of them. Bring them coffee and tea, any other beverages they might want and just continuously direct them. I think that’s the big thing that I’m always letting new staff know is that this is your home. And every client is a guest and it is your responsibility to let them know where they can put their coat. If they need to take their shoes off. If they would like a beverage, where they’re going to stay and hangout while you leave the room for a moment and come back, when their stylist is going to come. Those are all little things that will allow the person to be put at ease and know their place. And I think that’s on a, on a bigger thought, we all just want to know our place.

[00:11:08] Jennifer Chua: We’ve had the opportunity to talk a lot about diversity, equity and inclusion outside of this conversation. And I know that that is really important to you. What is the makeup of your staff look like? How are you being inclusive as a business owner?

[00:11:25] Alicia Lumsden: It is predominantly women. We’re not all women. No. And we don’t all identify as she So that, that is the thing. I don’t think I’m not judging anyone on what their gender is or what their look is. I want men, women, non binary to work in this space, and I want people with interesting unique styles. I want them to actually show their, their style. I think as, as was commented recently that I don’t have a dress code. I do have a dress code is just, is professional trendy. You don’t have to wear all black. You don’t have to wear all white, but you have to be professional in your style. Because hairdressers are artists. So they should be representing their style. Whether that’s through their, their clothing, their hair or whatever that might be, they should still be representing that. When it comes to ethnicity, I think that’s always a challenging one because I can’t I can’t just go out and be like, you, I need you. Cause you’re gonna fix this. Especially when you’re looking for skills and I, I definitely want it and I encourage it. I often actually find more comfort in it if I can find it, if it comes my way and they fit the space. And that’s the other side too, is like everyone that comes in to be hired. I, I asked them, do you understand what the word sustainability means? And so I kinda need someone who’s interested in at least learning about it.

And so I find that even as it is, I already cut down the amount of people that I can hire for any position in this space, because of that, because people just don’t don’t necessarily care, which is unfortunate, but hoping I can change that. I don’t really talk about this. So I guess this is another part of why, if I can find people of different ethnicities it’s actually important to me. I’m a quarter Japanese. And my mom definitely grew up in a time being half Japanese where she was made fun of, a lot, and often. And I think it intensely impacted the way she evolved as a human as an adult. I think there’s just so much trauma for her growing up in a time when, I mean, I think, I think.

People from Japan couldn’t be citizens until maybe five years before she was born in Canada. Which is just, it’s just mind blowing when you think about it. You know, when I think about that, my own ancestors had property and had all that taken from them and put it into a camp because there was a war going on somewhere else. They were instantly accused of of doing wrong when they just simply were born somewhere. I think that’s, that’s a big part of why I do want diversity and inclusion everywhere I can. You have a different skin color, whether you don’t have the funds you know, whether you’re, you’re having a hard time, whether you’re living on the street, whatever your situation is. I think I think we all just deserve a little love and compassion.

[00:14:41] Jennifer Chua: I do want to get back to how you’re supporting your community, but I would love to talk about sustainability. When you were in hair school or acting as a hairstylist or working in that space and you began to look at things like conventional hair care products and conventional treatments, did you find anything surprising?

A lot of people fall into the interest of sustainability in different ways. They will start exploring, going down some sort of route and be like, this is not what I thought it was at all. Or I can’t believe how much plastic waste we have here. Or I can’t believe that this choice I’m making actually impacts someone else down the line in a different way than I thought originally.

[00:15:23] Alicia Lumsden: We had two big bins in the, in the basement. I guess three where I worked. One was garbage. One was recycling and I mean, that was always a little thing for me to like that doesn’t belong in there. And then the big hair bin. And then that kind of just goes out with garbage. And that was always a thing, where I was like, isn’t there a solution here? And there, there was I think around when I did start, but it was a pretty small company. Green circle salons had already started. And it just, it took a while for people to understand that there is a solution. And I think that’s more recent that that’s been a thing that people are thinking about and realizing that if you put something in the recycling bag, it doesn’t mean it gets recycled. Aside from that, I don’t think I thought much about that the things that we used, because I suppose I didn’t realize that there could possibly be other solutions. And the thing that I think I thought about most was when I did start to go through those changes with my ex husband changing our diet changing, like how much time we spent outside. I would actually go to work after a weekend and get a headache from just smelling the shampoo. And to me, that was a big red flag to imagine how sick people probably could get, if they had a higher sensitivity to what was in the products.

[00:16:44] Jennifer Chua: These products that you’re using, when I think of salons and I think of salon quality products or the kind of products that I would think as someone who doesn’t work in this space at all, I would think of your shampoos that are lining the walls beautifully in the salons for purchase. I don’t think that they’re going to be sustainable. Like it’s not the first thought that comes to my mind. I think they’re going to work really well. Can you explain to me what kind of products you’ve chosen to use or why you made those decisions?

[00:17:13] Alicia Lumsden: When I was opening, I was looking at a lot of different options because that was important to me. I knew what I used at home. I knew how I felt when I went into the salon after the weekend. And I didn’t have any severe ailments aside from my digestive issues. But I mean, a headache is alarming enough. And so I wanted to make sure that the company cared and also had plant-based ingredients and also was effective because. I think until more recently, and I’m sure there’s a lot of hairdressers who still don’t believe it. The idea would be that a plant-based hair color you think of henna or you think of like, like the stuff you buy in the natural drug store. But that’s never looks nice. And your greys aren’t getting covered. So that was a big factor for me as well when I was looking at different companies. And I almost couldn’t find something that still had good reviews on there, a great coverage. If you can’t cover grey you don’t have the company, you have nothing is, is my perspective as a hairdresser. So I ended up actually looking at Davines, which is what we carry. And I didn’t realize that they had color. I was just looking at them for their products. And and then I realized that they had color as well. And I kind of fell in love with them almost instantly. I asked around a few friends that I knew use their products as well. Do you like them? Do they do the job? Are they less than great? What was the end result? And they give me a little care package, take home, try it. They care. They’re a family owned company. They have their own manufacturer where they manufacture other products. So I know they’re not getting sold out. Which to me is, was also a fear. You get invested into a company and then some big company buys them and then everything’s washed out and it’s no longer what it was, but you still have the same branding and marketing.

Their main line. They have slow food farms in Italy that they have one ingredient from like their active ingredient from one of these farms. And that’s what they use. When I started with them, it was before they were B Corp, but in, I think 2016, they became a B Corp. And so they’re just continuously doing a new thing each year, changing their formulas and evolving their packaging to continuously become more sustainable. I found them quite exciting.

[00:19:45] Jennifer Chua: Is there anything else about our trip to the salon? That’s maybe less than ideal in terms of sustainability.

[00:19:52] Alicia Lumsden: we use a lot of water. And I guess that’s that’s another thing I love about Davines. They have a high percentage of naturally derived ingredients and biodegradable ingredients. As we’re using a mass amount of water with we got a company called eco heads. And so it just kinda changes the flow. So you get more pressure, but with less water used. And then all of the shampoo and color that you washed down the drain is just a little bit softer on the water that needs to be cleaned out. I think that’s probably one of the biggest things. We do recycle. We use green circle salons to recycle everything and they take everything to a manufacturer to turn it into something else. So that’s nice to know, compared to city recycling. We need a lot of lights. That was the big thing for me at the beginning, when we opened is changing everything into LEDs or any appliances or fixtures that we have, having them being energy star or somehow cutting down on the amount of energy that was used.

[00:20:55] Jennifer Chua: So how environmentally friendly can a salon be really? You’ve done so much to create this low waste environment. I’m wondering if there is anything else that you’re striving towards in your efforts to become green?

[00:21:06] Alicia Lumsden: In a perfect world, in a perfect world, I would have a standalone space where I could have solar panels and a gray brown water system. Maybe some geothermal heating but that’s not really, that’s not realistic in the city. Maybe if I have a place in the country or something, I can do some little spa retreat kind of thing with all of those magical systems in place.

 I mean, I don’t know if there is much more we could do right now. We try to reuse whatever we can. we go through tons of towels and so when they start to disintegrate, we’ll cut them up and we, we use them as decoration in the salon or find other ways that we can turn them into something. Even with our cleaning products, I make sure that all our including in products are eco-friendly mindful of where we’re getting them. We usually use Saponetti across the street, they’re a refill company. So we usually get majority of our cleaning products from them, which is great. And then we can just refill all of our bottles all the time versus having to buy new bottles. Yeah, I mean, we have pretty low waste. We’re not a big enough space to utilize a compost system. So that would go to the same as my standalone space and I’d have a spot for our compost in the back and it wouldn’t matter.

Yeah, I think those are the things I would love if someone gave me brilliant ideas for other things, because I feel like you can always only think so far, right.

[00:22:39] Jennifer Chua: And if I walk into your salon, you’ve taken my coat away and you’re offering me a beverage or a snack, as salon owners, do, what will I be served? Or what will I be offered when I come to visit you?

[00:22:53] Alicia Lumsden: So, we have been using Genuine Tea., which is an ethically sourced, local tea brand. Lovely, lovely couple. Lovely company. We also use propeller coffee, which is also around the corner from us, which is great. And they’re similar. Fair trade ethical brand as well. Additionally, we are licenced. So you can have local craft beer or a glass of bubbly if you like. For snacks we used to do a snack spread vegetables and hummus and crackers and all that good stuff. I don’t carry any meat or dairy in the salon. So if you do want milk with your coffee or tea, it’s going to be oat milk. If you really want milk, which is fine, but I don’t judge anyone. There’s a cafe right next door. So we’ll, we’ll run next door and get you some of that.

[00:23:48] Jennifer Chua: And so you said you serve bubbly on occasion. Does that mean that you do community events?

[00:23:53] Alicia Lumsden: We haven’t in a while. I really can’t wait until things go a little bit more back to normal. We just do so many fun things throughout the year. We have artwork through out the year. We change it every couple of months to a different artist. And we always start with an art opening. And so that’s an open house and anyone can come in and we have alcohol available or we carry loop juice. Oh my gosh. Check them out. They use near bad fruit and veggies. They’re from Montreal. They make cold press juice and I believe they just started making beer. They might’ve even started making gin. I don’t know. They’re cool. I think they’re cool.

[00:24:33] Jennifer Chua: You’ve really taken every little aspect of the experience into consideration, really for your guests. And created this environment that seems to be incredibly sustainable. which is surprising. Cause when I think of a hair salon, it seems like the last type of business that you could take and make it into something that’s eco-friendly. How did you stumble upon this idea to even try to take on such a, in my opinion, massive feat.

[00:25:07] Alicia Lumsden: Thank you. I think it’s just it’s everything I want in my daily life. I can be a snob in the best of way. I think that’s just what it comes down to as I just I, I want these things for myself. And maybe even it’s my own self-reflection that I, I would feel like a hypocrite offering something, even though I know you can’t be perfect. I do have perfectionist issues. I know you can’t be perfect when it comes to being sustainable and having perfection as the goal is not healthy. But we have been open for several years, so every step of the way another thing gets changed. Evolved. And grows and gets better and better and better. You know, we didn’t open licensed. We didn’t open with the way that our place looks now. But every step of the way we add something new or we reevaluate and see how things can be done better.

[00:25:54] Jennifer Chua: and I noticed that you have an online shop too, and that you sell some other sustainable goods. Can you tell us what those are and why you chose to do that?

[00:26:02] Alicia Lumsden: It wasn’t necessarily something I always wanted to do to have the online store, but I feel like out of so many closures and being locked down for so long, it became necessity to evolve into its own store. The pursuit of finding products was rather challenging. All the different little aspects that matter to me, I had to then find in a product and they exist, which is exciting. But it was hard to find things that are actually sustainable. And so what I found is there’s so much beauty stuff being launched right now, but then the packaging isn’t in line. And to me, that’s just so confusing why would you go through the effort of making it sustainable on the inside, but not sustainable on the outside?

Why are we not talking about our packaging? As a province, as a world we’re pushing for an elimination on single use plastics, but we’re not talking about our packaging. So that, I think that ended up being my, my biggest thing when I was looking for products. Making sure that our packaging, when we were sending it out to you was going to be sustainable and that you could count on us for that.

I don’t know about you, but I hate getting something and there’s just all this extra stuff and space. And I’m like, why I don’t you’re not going to receive a packaging slip in our shipments because I don’t personally like them when I get them. I know what I ordered. I don’t need a checklist of what I ordered. So that’s something we don’t do. And then it was also important that what we were sending as, as best as we could, the ingredients were good, the product itself was functional and effective. That the packaging, the company cared about their packaging whether it was a sustainable by default, or they actually took an extra initiative. One company that I love Axiology, they’re a little makeup lid to lip balmy. So you can put it on your lips, your cheeks and your eyelids, and they’re all really subtle tones. As a makeup artist to a consumer they’re full-proof because they just blend really well. But additionally, their packaging is recycled from the beaches of Bali. And then they employ local people to help that situation. So they’re removing waste, they’re employing people and they’re giving you a sustainable recyclable packaging.

[00:28:30] Jennifer Chua: So when your clients come in to visit you in the salon, do they understand how much impact you’re creating here? How do you feel people are responding to this messaging? Cause it just seems like you’re doing so much. I’m just wondering how are people resonating with this or do you think that consumers are still just looking to get beautiful hair and don’t care so much about what’s gone on in behind the scenes?

[00:28:56] Alicia Lumsden: Yeah, we could always do better at um, better educating. At the same time. I think I guess a key marketing thing is repetition, right? The more you repeat the things, the more people actually hear it because they don’t often hear it the first couple of times. I think there are people that care in those are definitely our fans. I think there are slowly becoming more, more people that care. I also think that not everyone’s going to nerd out the way I am currently about these kinds of things and that’s fine. So long as we can take the thinking out of it, for people who don’t care as much and just make it an easy, like you don’t have to care this is just good quality stuff. That’s doing good in the world. However we can get that message out. I do think a lot of our clients do come because we take the, the extra work of caring out of it for them. They just, they know that they’ve made a good decision and everything’s just going to get taken care of for when they’re there. We’re going to recommend things that are good for them as well as good for the planet.

[00:30:07] Jennifer Chua: And so you’ve been going for B Corp certification. Are there many salons that are B Corp certified?

[00:30:12] Alicia Lumsden: There’s one out west. One in all of Canada, so I’m okay to be second. I can follow.

[00:30:21] Jennifer Chua: And B Corp certification is difficult to get, and I can only imagine that it would be very difficult in a business like yours.

[00:30:28] Alicia Lumsden: I feel like as a, as a company that relies on… basically what you do with your brick and mortar and your employees and, your policies on who you choose to carry. I do find it is actually a little bit more difficult versus being a brand. Like a product brand. To actually to, check the boxes.

[00:30:51] Jennifer Chua: There’s more discovery for sure.

[00:30:54] Alicia Lumsden: Yeah, what we do – hair itself. Isn’t an act that that really does anything in these areas. I mean, obviously there’s little things little subtleties and in the amount of compassion that you have but it’s not directly impacted the social and the environmental part. So I do find it can be a little bit tricky for that. I would definitely say that since I’ve started looking at B Corp, my comfort level with offering my team more and more has definitely expanded. You know, I think when you’re small and starting out and you only have a few employees, it’s kind of hard to rationalize, well, I only have this much coming in how can. I give you more than just being nice and supportive and helping you build your career. How can I give you a higher wage? How can I give you benefits? How can I give you sick days? Like those little things that do help an employee succeed and feel better. It’s hard to imagine as a small employer. But the more I’ve kind of looked at it and thought about it and, and was brought awareness through B Corp about it and asked more questions it’s just allowed me to, to just have the comfort and confidence that I can actually offer those things and it, it, isn’t actually going to cost the business that much more in the long run. And I think that was probably the bigger, impactful thing going through the B Corp journey. We’re already doing so much sustainability wise. I feel like that’s, those are all just easy givens us.

[00:32:29] Jennifer Chua: Is there any other way that you’re affecting social change with your business?

[00:32:33] Alicia Lumsden: I think so. I’m actually excited to possibly affect more social change. I’m going to adjust our prices in the new year for removing gratuities. Throughout the past couple of years, it’s been more on the hair industry’s mind. Why are we still taking gratuities? Why is this a thing? It’s uncomfortable. As much as a stylist can say that it’s a gift and they just simply appreciate it. It’s still becomes part of their income, part of their expected income, because they use that for a certain part of their bills. Why is this a thing? Why isn’t that just in your pay? Why is that how we’re doing things? There are other salons doing it, not many, but I hope that we can encourage some social innovation with that mentality and evolving those kinds of things. In the new year, at some point when it starts to warm up, we’re going to start doing some more pay what you can haircuts with the Stop. We’re finally a big enough team. We have the support, we have the time. I think that’s something we can definitely do. And I think it’s needed as well with how much, how many people have lost their jobs. How many people have lower income paying jobs? Have definitely felt the hit over the last couple of years and prices are just going up.

[00:33:59] Jennifer Chua: What about collectively our children, the adults of the future, the hairstylists of the future. How do you think that what you’re doing with your salon is impacting future generations?

[00:34:13] Alicia Lumsden: I know when I was starting out, I was on my honeymoon with my ex and uh, We were at a cute little Airbnb in Niagara lake. And so we had the super cute, 60 plus couples sitting around us, so excited for newly wed newness. And so they were asking what we did. He was an electrician. We’re both trades. We both have to go through the ministry and the Ontario college of trades and write an exam. His process is a little bit longer but ours requires more school. So. There’s a little bit of a similarity and starting out, we both made the same and eventually I made more and the, these adorable couples around us however many generations older. The second I said that I was a hairdresser. They’re like, oh, that’s nice. That’s nice for you. And he said he was an electrician and you know, they were just like, oh, look at you. That’s great. So I think, I think that’s what the industry currently wants to change.

Hairdressers have a lot to offer. And as much as, having your hair hygiene taken care of is necessity. Having your hair done is also a luxury and if you’re going to a higher end salon it’s because those hairdressers have put a lot of work and effort into training and evolving. Their skills and their skills are technical as well as, managing a person in their chair, managing assisstants to support them with that. And then also being a creative. And doing all of those things at the same time while building their career. Most people don’t think hairdressers do that much. Most people think we just go to work and have fun and chew some bubble gum and that’s it. They don’t think about the, all the different little things that go into it, as well as the pseudo therapist that we are as well. I’m excited to see that evolve.

[00:36:26] Jennifer Chua: So you’ve made big strides in changing the hair game in terms of how people view hairstylists, how really low waste you can become as a hair salon. You’re really pushing these boundaries. Are you hopeful now for the future?

[00:36:43] Alicia Lumsden: That’s a tough one. I want to be. I think our younger generations definitely care about these things. But I think with, with all big change, there’s a big reset. And I think we’re going through a big reset right now. And I think there’s still a lot of nastiness, so to speak in the, I don’t know if that’s the simplest way for me to put it. There’s definitely people who need to be reminded that they need to take care of themselves first, but then there’s the taking that consideration to the next level of like, what does it matter? Who I step on along the way, because I’m all that matters. And so I think we’re in a, in a bit of a reset of understanding self care and mental health and speaking up for yourself and setting boundaries for yourself and understanding what all of that means and mindfulness, what all that means versus just walking over everyone. So I’m hopeful that the reset will happen and everything will fall into place. I am hopeful that I think small business can start to plan again and I am hopeful. 2020 and 2021 gave us a lot of things to think about. And there’s a lot more people reevaluating what’s important and what’s not important.

[00:38:11] Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Alicia and her sustainable and inclusive beauty salon visit Queen’sShopHair.com. In Toronto? Visit Queen’s . Shop to enjoy an uplifting salon experience. No matter your age, gender, race, or orientation. You can follow along with Alicia on her mission to promote sustainability within the beauty space. At instagram @queensshophair

Melanie Cote from Social Enterprise Do Good Donuts is using donuts to teach young adults with barriers to employment job readiness skills. In this episode, we talk about the realities that Melanie faces as the parent of a child with Williams syndrome and learn how she’s changing how people think about hiring youth with intellectual disabilities. We discover why youth with these challenges face an 85% unemployment rate, how Do Good Donuts connect their trainees with fulfilling and meaningful work in their community, why this inclusive employment matters to all of us, how business owners can support these initiatives and why, they’ll want to, why Melanie chose to start with donuts, and how she’s used the pilot program to bake hopeful futures.

If you want to learn more about Melanie and how she’s helping youth with intellectual disabilities to train for mainstream jobs visit https://www.dogooddonuts.org/ Want to help support the trainees by ordering some donuts for yourself? Or have the team train some young people for your company? Interested in having us train young people?  You can connect with Melaine and follow along on her mission to bake brighter futures on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram 

Links from this episode

• Do Good Donuts
• The Leslieville Farmer’s Market
• Williams syndrome
• Hire persons with disabilities, Government of Canada

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:28] Jennifer Chua: If you’re visiting a farmer’s market in Toronto on a Sunday morning and happen to come across a booth selling donuts, it’s worth taking a closer look. You may stumble across some delicious flavors like Mohito, blue slushie, lavender, lemon sugar, rainbow sprinkles or even creative seasonal favorites like Turkey stuffing. And you may be enthusiastically greeted by Alma an eight year old. Founder Melanie’s daughter and the reason Do Good Donuts exists.

Do Good Donuts focuses on more than just these classic confections. It’s an employment social enterprise that hires and trains young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Offering them the job before the job to help bridge the gap between programs and the employers that are waiting to hire them. Do Good Donuts has just wrapped their pilot program. They hired three young people with disabilities and ran a booth at a local farmer’s market all summer.

Melanie Cote is a mom of two. She has Alma and then also an 11 year old son. She spent her career in advertising, working on copy and creative strategy. But when Alma was born with intellectual disability, Melanie wanted to do something to improve the outlook for her daughter’s future. So three years ago, she began to look into ways to help young people who are at the age now where employment can make all the difference, knowing that she needed to do something to create change in this world. For Alma, for her son, for her community, her family and other families facing similar challenges.

Melanie grew up in the town of Espanola. If you listen to the episode with an Anong Beam from Beam Paints, it’s near there, in Northern Ontario. Located close to Manitoulin island, Melanie’s father was a high school teacher there and the coach of the basketball team. The school was located near a first nations reserve and half of the kids he taught were indigenous. He helped them with basketball. And then also with their homework and encouraged the kids to continue their schooling. When he passed his funeral was held at the church on the reserve. And Melanie recalls that it was full of former students. Now grown men, recounting the stories of how her father had profoundly influenced how they thought about their futures. How he had changed their world. And how his support had meant everything.

[00:04:47] Melanie Cote:  I think it matters. My dad was a teacher and his approach to teaching was very inclusive and to make sure that everybody, who wanted to, got to college, even if maybe didn’t look like it was their path, like he was very committed to making sure his students got where they wanted to go in life. And I think that rubbed off on me and onto my sister, she’s a teacher. And I guess in some way, right now I am too a little bit. So there you go. I never thought of that before.

[00:05:14] Jennifer Chua: When you hear Melanie’s story, it’s obvious to see her father’s influence. She’s providing opportunities to young adults who otherwise would be left behind. She has a lot of ideas of how we as a society can support these initiatives. And we’ll go into that in a bit. And Melanie’s week with her trainees is jam packed. It’s her intent in the next session to find ways to scale back on her incredibly long hours and spend more time at home. The piece of Melanie’s story, that is the most interesting to me, is why she decided to do all of this in the first place.

[00:05:49] Melanie Cote: Do Good Donuts. My favorite topic.

[00:05:52] Jennifer Chua: Could you tell me how you came up with the idea to create basically a social enterprise that’s focused on donuts. And how you actually move that forward into an idea?

[00:06:03] Melanie Cote: Do Good Donuts, a social enterprise that sells donuts. First of all, people love donuts. Secondly I really wanted to create an employment skills training program that would be relevant and lead to jobs that already existed. So when you’re pushing water uphill, I think you pick the smallest tail to start. And a small hill for me is seeing that there are always job postings for people looking for people to work at McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s and burger king and Starbucks, and second cup. Those that those jobs were available. And despite the branding difference between them, a lot of the tasks are the same.

So if you teach someone how to prepare the ketchup and napkin and cup station at McDonald’s, you’re also teaching them how to prepare the sugar and stir stick packets at Starbucks and you’re teaching them how to do the little stand with the garbages at Tim Horton’s. And when you think about making a sandwich, you put something on the bottom and then you put a thing in a thing and a thing, and you put something else on the top, but you make an egg sandwich and a breakfast sandwich, the same way you make a pizza the same way you make a sub the same way.

So how could we create somewhere that would cover as many of those job tasks as possible to allow people to then be ready to work at any number of businesses. And how could we do it in a non-branded way so that Starbucks and McDonald’s and Tim Horton’s and burger king and pita pit and pizza, pizza, and subway, and the little family restaurant down the street, who’s always really appreciated their neighbor with down syndrome, but had no idea how to welcome them in the restaurant,could all see that they had the skills they needed to be effective more quickly at work and be ready to succeed and not needing that three or six or nine months of more supported employment to be able to be a valuable member of their staff. So the idea for Do Good Donuts was, first of all, people love donuts and it’s fun and it’s friendly and welcoming and they’re not perfect.

So if our staff is starting out and they’re doing donut finishing no donut is perfectly perfect. They’re all a little bit unique and it’s okay. that they are maybe are a little bit lopsided or there’s too many sprinkles, or there’s not quite enough sprinkles. It’s a safe space for learning and I donut shop and cafe has the ability to be a donut shop, but also do other baking also make sandwiches also have soup. So food prep, and beverage service and hot beverages and cold beverages. So the idea for Do Good Donuts was really how do we create a lab, that serves food, that has all of these skills checked off. And then what menu do we need to create to be able to teach all those skills? So it’s almost a backwards process of how do we build the training program that the hiring partners need, and what do we need to make in order for the people to be able to practice the skills.

[00:09:12] Jennifer Chua: Your daughter who inspired really you to go on this journey? Can you tell me a little bit more about her?

[00:09:18] Melanie Cote: Oh, my gosh Alma. Alma’s syndrome, Williams syndrome is sometimes called the opposite of autism because kids with Williams syndrome, generally speaking, not all, have an insatiable social drive. The need to connect with people is one of the driving forces of her life. And yet the inability to read social cues, the inability to follow social norms, a lot of those same challenges that are associated with autism. And that makes it difficult for some people who are autistic to make connections, exist within people with Williams syndrome only they’re overly friendly and overly social. It’s that next step? How do you then make a lasting relationship? That is a big gap in her learning. So she is both a fluffy ball of sunshine and light and very sad that she doesn’t have a best friend. She is doing really well in school all things considered. She does have a, very large nonverbal learning disability. She has some other things that make it hard for her at school, but all in all her health has been good, which is excellent. 80% of kids with William’s Syndrome I’m have open-heart surgery in the first year and ongoing heart surgery throughout their lives. And she’s so far in the 20% that has not required heart surgery, which is amazing for us. I’m very grateful for that, but she is just so delighted that Do Good Donuts exists. She comes to the tent, she yells “welcome to Do Good Donuts”, to all the people. She tells everybody at school to come and get the donuts. My son wrote a report on Do Good Donuts last year. It has been really something that’s brought us together and has allowed us to have a common interest and a common goal. It’s certainly become a big part of our family life. But even more than that, our kids recognize it as something where we have a donut shop, but it helps people. And so they’re really seeing that social enterprise connection in it, which I’m also excited about. That that’s managed to shine through for them is really meaningful to me.

[00:11:25] Jennifer Chua: I’d like to discover more why you chose to start a social enterprise.

[00:11:30] Melanie Cote: There were a number of things that happened. There was sort of a, a slow and steady climb up of a rise of stairs. When my daughter was five months old, we learned that she had a genetic condition called Williams syndrome, and that was really going to shape her future and what her life would be like. But it was also going to shape our future and what our lives would be like as a family, as her parents, my son’s life as her sibling. So that was sort of the first moment of change in my life. And then as the years went by, I spent a lot of time volunteering for the national syndrome that supports her disability. I met a number of other people who were at different points in the journey. I’ve met people right when they were diagnosed where I was all those years ago, and also people who are much further ahead of us on that journey, which is a really interesting window to the future.

So the more I learned about that window to the future was sort of the next step on the journey. And then the third step that I think probably the, the one that was the most. Influential in this decision where on one hand I had this incredibly deep and interesting and somewhat painful conversation with a family who were moving out of their town because their late teenage daughter was never going to be able to find work in that community.

So they were uprooting themselves from this place. They had lived for many years to move to a larger center where there might be a possibility that she might have a job one day. And to me, that was a heartbreaking thing because at the same time, in that week, in my career in advertising, I was working on a corporate social responsibility campaign for a large corporation who was partnering with the special Olympics and really excited to talk about the hiring program they were putting in place to ensure that young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities would have the opportunity to work.

And the town, this family lived in, had two outlets of that large corporation. And yet at the ground level, they knew that they wouldn’t hire in the community because they were hiring other teenagers. Their own kids’ friends. They were hiring the kids from the football team. They were hiring other kids.

And the huge disconnect between what the corporate world was doing in terms of taking credit for all of this hard work and ensuring that people would have jobs and how that was actually translating to the families was a broken system. And I wondered if there was a way to create something in between that could serve the young people and serve their journey on their way to employment, but also catch the eye and understand what those national hiring partners needed for the people who were actually interviewing and doing the jobs to say yes. And in that moment, the germ of an idea, the seed of Do Good Donuts came to life. How could we create something that bridges all of the work that I’ve done in my volunteer life for, and around, and with, family supporting people with disabilities and all the work I was doing in my corporate life to build, to build a bridge?

[00:14:36] Jennifer Chua: So before your daughter was diagnosed, did you ever think about this whole concept of like barriers to employment? Did that ever come up in your life

[00:14:46] Melanie Cote: No, no, I never thought about it. I did have a small glimpse in high school. Because in high school, I wanted to start a high school newspaper. And to do that, you need to have a staff member. A teacher has to be your advisor, and all of the teachers were already doing other clubs. And the only club, or the only teacher that wasn’t involved with the club was the life skills.

At that time, we call it the program life skills teacher, and he agreed to be the advisor, as long as I would put some of his students on our staff, because they had never been at a club before? And none of the other clubs had made space for them. And of course I have a Rebel’s heart and I didn’t know that they didn’t ever have a club.

And so of course I, I hardly agreed and they were amazing members of our staff. They did the photocopying, they did the stapling, they did all the organization. They deliver the papers to all the classrooms. And at the end of that year and the following year, I was the editor for two years. They had their picture in the.

In a club photo, which they, up until that point had only had their one personal photo in, you know, in their grade level. And for all of them, they were so thrilled because it was the only time they appeared in the yearbook more than once. So I knew that there were, I knew that there was things, there were things happening and that there were gaps in the lives and the community, and the sense of belonging for people with developmental disabilities and learning disabilities. But it hadn’t translated into the rest of my life until I had Alma. And then I remembered very clearly how much that picture in the yearbook meant.

[00:16:24] Jennifer Chua: Do you remember how the conversation with that teacher went at all? Like, how that conversation with him would have gone that would have influenced this decision to start this club under his guidance?

[00:16:36] Melanie Cote: I wanted to do something that no one had made space for me to do. And he wanted to do something that no one had made space for him to do, which was bring out a sense of community and belonging to his students. And I wanted to bring some different perspectives to the student body that maybe people weren’t thinking about.

So I, I don’t remember the specific words, but I do remember both of us feeling like the problem we had was the same, even though it was very different. That I wanted to feel like my Merry band of misfits should have a club that wasn’t cliquey and it didn’t exclude people because they were gay. We had a gay writer on our staff who was very quietly gay and not really openly out. We had an indigenous writer on our staff, I come from Northern Ontario, our school was split. It was half people who were not indigenous and half people who were indigenous. There was not a lot of other you know, vibrant backgrounds in small town, Northern Ontario, all that time ago.

But there were cliques, there were norms, there were ways that people fit in. And, and me with my combat pants that my dyed black hair and my Merry band of misfits wanted to have a club where we could be who we were and that we could express some opinions that probably other people had, but just didn’t really feel like they had the time and space and, and the platform to be able to express that it was okay to be different.

And I think that Mr. Debo really understood that we would be welcoming to different in terms of his kids, because that was really what the newspaper that I was starting was all about. It was about talking about all those other little things happening at school that, the most popular kids just didn’t see or tramped over or possibly caused.

[00:18:22] Jennifer Chua: You’re selling your donuts at farmer’s markets. Why did you make that choice?

[00:18:27] Melanie Cote: I started out at an initial incubator through the Toronto enterprise fund, and then I got a very small grant and wrote a business plan and a feasibility study and did all of the background work. And then I got all ready to go to pitch for funding on March 6th, 2020, which as you can imagine is a terrible time to have been finally ready to pitch for funding for a food service business that supports marginalized people at high risk with COVID. Bad news.

So rather than. Again, push water up a hill. That’s not going up. We took a break, we worked on governance. We worked on our board of directors. We’ve worked on other things and on a whim, I applied to my local farmer’s market. And part of the reason is their head volunteer is someone who has the same syndrome as my daughter, Corey has Williams syndrome. So I’ve known him a long time. We frequent the market. We’re big supporters. And I thought, why not? I mean, what’s the worst that could happen. Really at that point, the worst that could happen is we get in and we have to be ready to go in nine weeks, but you know, how could they possibly say yes, we, we don’t, we’re not even a thing yet. We just live on paper. And email came saying, congratulations, you have a spot at the farmer’s market. And I thought we have nine weeks to go from a plan on paper, to a working food service program and be prepared to hire trainees to start a training program we haven’t done yet. Surprise. So. Really the idea to apply for the farmer’s market was a way for us to start. We just needed to get started.

[00:20:03] Jennifer Chua: And where are you finding your trainees?

[00:20:05] Melanie Cote: We put on a large call far and wide. We put a job poster and application out through groups that support people with various disabilities. So we sent it to the down syndrome association. We sent it to some groups who support people with autism. I sent it through the Williamson community, people we know at special Olympics. We sent it to our local service providers and some other foundational partners that we’ve met along the way. And try to see who would come forward and apply. We weren’t sure if people were ready and willing to join a new program during the pandemic, or join us on this uncharted journey, we just kind of got out a megaphone and said, we have this new thing who wants to come on the journey with us. We did get 10 exceptional applicants. And we interviewed everyone. It was really hard to decide. It was a really hard to make a choice. We had the budget worked out to hire two people and we hired three because we had three exceptional candidates and it’s only money. And we held their start date until they could join us in person. So we’ve run a completely in person program and we pay them $15 an hour because that’s what people make.

[00:21:15] Jennifer Chua: When you began to look into employment opportunities for young people, when you were doing all of this research and maybe looking for trainees at that point, did you find anything surprising?

[00:21:26] Melanie Cote: I think the thing that’s most surprising, and the thing that continues to surprise me is that 85% of young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are unemployed. And 15% of typically developing young people are unemployed. The gap for employment for young people with disabilities is cavernous and devastating. Of the young adults who are living with those disabilities now will never earn a paycheck in their life. And for someone like me who had a career who really valued work and being part of a team and being part of a community and being someone who contributes to something and who had a sense of independence and how little money in my pocket, it was really heartbreaking to me to think that that entire experience skips over so many people.

[00:22:18] Jennifer Chua: What are some of the costs we are not considering associated with leaving those with barriers to employment out of our workforce.

[00:22:27] Melanie Cote: Any times when a young individual finishes school special education can go up to age of 21. So they could be anywhere from 18 to 21. When they finished school, they have to go somewhere or do something or be with someone generally speaking.

So the costs are programming cost to the families and also to the social service system are the day programming and ongoing program supports that keep people living more vibrant lives, they’re expensive. There are barriers. They generally are populated with families who have strong advocate parents, which is a real privilege to be able to take the time to become a strong advocate. There are the costs associated with the family member who has to ensure that the person is safely able to go to and from the program, the program may be a half day program. A lot of times, one of the family members leaves work when their child finishes school because they need someone who can either ensure that they can get to their program.

They may only be able to afford to send them two days a week. So they have three days where someone has to be home. They may not be able to send them at all depending on financial situation or space in the program. And so there’s often a loss of one income source in the family. This is extra challenging for families that have only one parent figure in the home because the divorce rate for families raising young people with disabilities is far higher than the average divorce rate.

It’s almost 80% of families divorce. So there are a lot of single parents raising young people with disabilities. And then there are costs in terms of mental health, physical health, which both deteriorate. There’s the ongoing cost of social support for young people with disabilities. Everyone is entitled to social support with a disability with through ODSP, but there are additional costs associated with the ongoing and long-term care.

And then there’s a cost and quality of life for people. If you don’t have a place to go, you don’t feel a sense of belonging. You don’t have purpose. If you’re not continuing to use the skills that you did acquire in school, they start to deteriorate. If you don’t have a place to go or a job or some place that is pushing you to move forward, most of the individuals tend to recede. So reading skills go down, math skills go down, personal independent skills go down. And reading is important. If you can read well enough to read a bus schedule, to understand how to use the bank machine, to read the street signs, to be able to order food, you don’t need to be able to read war and peace, but a lot of these young people’s reading skills will backslide, which means for them to get a job five years from now or 10 years from now or 15 years from now it really lessens that chance for opportunity.

A lot of parents call it the gap or the cliff. Once they leave school, that our society really hasn’t figured out an excellent plan or pathway for adults who don’t fit into the typical norm of the employee or the volunteer or some of the other roles that are out there in the world. Many don’t marry. So it’s not like they have a same age partner in life. So they rely on their parents and siblings to give them that that family structure.

You can imagine everyone who says, Oh, as soon as my child leaves to go to university or college, I’m going to do this. I’m going to fix up my living room or go on that trip I always wanted to take or start to go camping or take up my hobby again, or pick up more hours at work. For many of the families raising young people with intellectual developmental disabilities, that time is never coming. The waitlist for independent living or group homes is about 20 years in Toronto. Once your child reaches the age of 18. They’re often in their forties before they have a space within a group home, which you can imagine if you’ve never left for a college dorm until you were 40, what it would feel like leaving the house for the first time.

Doughnuts are really cute and really fluffy and have lots of sprinkles on them. But what you don’t see behind the donuts is really the opportunity to give someone the potential of having an independent, meaningful life in whatever that looks like for them through work that pays them a decent wage and allows them the opportunity to really integrate into society outside of their family and allows their family to experience what it’s like to have that shift from having children that they care for in their home until they become sort of more independent adults to having an independent adult who is at least somewhat participating as an adult in the world. Like, we were all meant to.

[00:27:22] Jennifer Chua: I know I’ve asked you this, million ways, but I was wondering if I could just ask you one more time Why does this work matter?

[00:27:28] Melanie Cote: This work matters to me because I can’t keep myself from dying and I need to know my daughter’s going to be okay. Everywhere all over the world two o’clock in the morning, there are parents raising kids who don’t necessarily have a place in the world trying to figure out how they can not die. And none of us can. But if we can do enough to know that our kids will be able to take care of themselves well enough to be a statistic. Like 85% of young women with intellectual and developmental disabilities are sexually abused, that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities life expectancy is far shorter. And a lot of the time it’s because their dire health needs go unrecognized by care providers. So they die of things that could easily have been averted, but nobody cared enough to pay enough attention. The level of poverty that is placed around this population based on the constrictions of their social support system means that she will never live a life that she’s accustomed to with us, because she’s not allowed to have wealth that supersedes a certain level in order for her to get social services. And all of that is dependent on government support. If they remove that support, and we’re gone, there’s no one to care for her. Obviously my son will be watching out for her, but there’s no way for her to independently, with support, improve her situation based on the construct of the world, unless she can have a job unless she can work.

If she can’t work, she can’t change how much that check that comes in every month. She can’t change the restrictions on how much she can remove from her RDSP savings program that we’ve set up for her. Those things are all static. What can change is can she earn a paycheck. And if she can earn a paycheck, then she has a whole team of people at work who are looking out for her, might notice her health issues. She has people, peers, who can support her if she’s having challenges with unwanted advances. And if I can’t keep myself from dying. I can certainly create a world that makes room for women like her, for young men like her, for families who can’t afford day programs for families that can’t afford independent living that only have so much savings to go around, who only have one child. There is no sibling. Then who is looking out for someone? If you don’t show up for work for three days, your colleagues figure out where you are. That’s one of the things about having a job. Every cat lady says, at least if I don’t show up for work, someone’s going to come by because they know someone has to feed my cat.

And that is also part of work. It’s a fabric within a community that gives you a place. And so it would not be nice to never die, but for, for none of us that’s happening. But for all of us worrying about these young people, knowing that they could have the ability to work and there’s a world that makes space for them, within that very important societal construct. Maybe we won’t wake up at two o’clock in the morning anymore.

It’s more. It’s the paycheck is nice, but it’s really about having a meaningful place in community where you feel like you belong and you matter. And you’re independent. And people want to get to know you better. And you have inside jokes. And you have somewhere to be at a certain time and you might get invited out to go for a coffee with the team afterwards, or go bowling or have a Christmas party. Like all of those things that are tied to work when you can’t easily make friends and connections outside of work. for the rest of us, I work from home, and I have communities of people that I have found and made. But for a lot of times with people with. Various social anxieties and disabilities and, and things that make them quirky, the construct of work breaks down those barriers so that you can form those relationships despite the quirks. When you are outside of that construct, making those relationships is really hard.

[00:31:47] Jennifer Chua: And so You’re giving your trainees skills, which is really, really key, but are there any other ways that you’re helping the trainees or people in your community find meaningful employment?

[00:31:58] Melanie Cote: Our program works where we do skills training, but then we do on the job training as well. So basically we talk about something in our training day and then we practice it in real time. Actually doing the work. So, our trainees have had growth in every area of our business. They do everything from mixing recipes independently for cookies, mixing the cookies, they are glazing, finishing and packing donuts as assistant bakers on the donut side of our business, they’re running our POS system, punching in the orders having tap, making change, they’re speaking to customers, thanking customers, taking the orders down.

They’re really an integral part of everything we do. And when we interviewed them and asked them what they felt they would be able to do, it was a very small part of what they’re doing now. They have exceeded our expectations, they’ve exceeded their own expectations. They’ve exceeded their parents’ expectations. So I think in addition to giving them that work, we’ve given them confidence. We’ve given them independence. They feel like they’re part of a team. They feel like they’re part of what has allowed Do Good Donuts to come to life, breathing life into something that’s helping them, but will help other people in the future. Having conversations with employment partners. I had an amazing conversation with Loblaws yesterday. One of the person from their diversity equity and inclusion team is going to be taking that further up the food chain to Loblaws to see how we can work together.

And I think the hardest part and the one part that’s really causing them to struggle is that the market ends. We don’t have a program for them anymore. And that was the plan. But our program works when we have a working food service business. So anytime that we’re quiet, we can’t be offering impact. The one downside is until we manage to raise the funds and get all our ducks in a row to have a full-time bricks and mortar cafe and donut shop on you know, main walkable street in the city. There will be times where we can’t help anyone. And so that’s, that’s kind of sad.

[00:34:02] Jennifer Chua: I’m wondering if once you started the program with actual people on site, if you learned anything from them that has shifted this program while it’s gone forward?

[00:34:12] Melanie Cote: Oh my gosh, I learn stuff every day. I think I have learned that the expectations we all have for the young people who might be in this program are too low. I realized I had very high expectations and they weren’t high enough. I realized just how beaten down the parents are and how low their expectations are -not for their kids, but for the potential of any program, to be able to finally make a difference. And I think there’s not much I can do about it, but I think as society, as a whole, we, as the village that raises a family should be more there for the parents raising their kids to this time. I have realized that on one hand society is really not ready to accept that it’s possible for these young people to work. And on the other hand, there’s an army of individuals, leagues of people who are so excited at the notion that this is possible that their passion will outweigh the naysayers in the end. And I thought that maybe I was alone and I learned that I am not alone, that many of us believe it’s possible.

[00:35:39] Jennifer Chua: I love that you get to connect with these bright, vibrant souls that are teaching you so much about running a social enterprise and making a difference. But how has this affected your journey as a parent with a child facing similar barriers?

[00:35:58] Melanie Cote: Well, I think the most important thing is it is a lot of work. And I do recognize that my family wishes, I was home more and that they’re still little and they, aren’t sitting where I am looking at the big picture. So finding ways in the next pilot and in the future to make sure that there’s protected time for that is very important as a mom and as an entrepreneur and all of those things. I think all of us face that conversation. And I think over the course of this summer, it was made even more abundantly clear that I need to build that into the plan. But I also think that learning what I have now spending so much time with these young adults, and I feel really bad for everybody who’s about to meet the new me as an advocate, that the school system needs to be doing more. The community clubs who have said they have don’t have space for her, with her disability need to be doing more. I think that the number of small annoyances that I felt before I now see as the building blocks of giant walls, that will keep her out of things in life. And I am no longer going to let them stand in her way or keep her out of doing the sorts of things that would make her ready for the next whole slew of challenges that she will face when she’s 18 to 21.

[00:37:25] Jennifer Chua: So you’ve become an advocate. And you’re making big strides and big impact in your journey, but have you encountered any notable, like really big challenges?

[00:37:37] Melanie Cote: I think the biggest challenge for me can be summed up in one interaction I had where I got some feedback on a grant that I had proposed. One of the comments was at the end of the day, no matter how much training you do, we don’t believe that these people could work in a fast paced environment like McDonald’s. And this was a very large organization. It was an organization that, that is built around supporting marginalized populations. And if organizations that big, who should be the most open-minded and one of the biggest advocating bodies that we have in this city feels that way. The biggest challenge I have is not about money. It’s not about doing, it’s not about anything. It’s about the perception that people simply don’t believe that there is a place in work for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. And it’s not all of them, but it is enough of them that it’s pretty clear now why the disparity in employment exists and how many minds will need to be changed in order to make meaningful impact in this area.

[00:38:51] Jennifer Chua: Was there ever a point where you felt differently and felt like maybe you couldn’t make impact in this way and you’d have to shift to a different idea?

[00:39:03] Melanie Cote: You would think that those things would make me question what I was doing? And I think there’s probably about 30 seconds between hearing those things and when my mouth opens, that I have a neutral space that could go either way. But it just makes me so angry that it actually fuels me to show them they’re wrong more than it makes me think I should stop. And I’m really trying very hard to have an open mind about the path to the end. I recognize that I may not be able to do everything as it sits in my mind exactly the way I think it should be. The more peoples give me all the reasons it shouldn’t work. What I hear is them telling me again that maybe these young people aren’t worth the effort to make the change happen. And if they said it differently, if someone had given me an actual reason, like, this is going to cost you $17 million and you don’t have $17 million, then I would think, oh, geez, I guess I have to think about this differently. But all the reasons they keep giving me have to do with the idea that it’s either not the way we do things, that I expect too much of the young people, or there just really isn’t a place for them at work. And those reasons to me are our only reasons to work harder.

[00:40:41] Jennifer Chua: The people in your community and the people that come visit you at the farmer’s market on Sunday do you think that they understand fully what’s going on or do you think they just love your delicious vegan donuts? What do you think the consumers are thinking about when they interact with you and your business?

[00:40:57] Melanie Cote: think it’s both. I think there are customers who’ve just loved the donuts and don’t really care. And I think there are people who really love the mission who buy stuff anyway, even if they don’t need it. Particularly the parents, we have a lot of families who come and they bring their people who have a developmental disability or a learning disability or mental health things within their life that have caused them to see some barriers and they buy everything. So for them, it’s really about supporting the mission. And for other people, I’ve had customers who we’ve seen every single week and just recently are like, “oh my gosh, I didn’t realize you guys were doing this”. Like they didn’t even notice. And I think for anyone who’s thinking about creating a social enterprise, it’s really important to know that you have to have an excellent product because people will support your mission once. But if your product isn’t great, unless they’re hardcore committed to what you’re doing, they’re not going to come back. And there are only so many people who care about your mission. Everybody cares about their own thing. Like this is, I’m really passionate about this. And yeah, I care about the environment, but I’m not going out of my way to support an environmental cause because I’m busy already supporting the thing that’s at the top of my list. So if you have an amazing product, the person who super cares about the environment is still going to buy your product. Not because they care or don’t care about the mission, but because you’re giving them something that they really want. And the next door doughnut shop is an environment donut shop, but their donut isn’t as good… so they may go to that one half the time, but you’re still going to be on the list. And I think it’s important.

At the end of the day, people don’t buy crappy products, even if they’re doing amazing things, unless they do it once in 10 purchases or once in 20 purchases. If you have an amazing product, people will buy your amazing product eight out of 10 times. And if they love your mission, they’ll buy it 10 out of 10 times. And I think that that really was ingrained into me very early in this journey. And there were people who said that a donut shop that supports people with disabilities simply couldn’t make as much money as one that only had typical staff. And I think that’s more a testament to the idea that other social enterprises that are really focused on their mission and less focused on the product haven’t delivered to their customers well enough to be able to consistently keep a customer base that’s coming, regardless of the mission.

[00:43:27] Jennifer Chua: When we talk about purpose, sometimes we think that purpose has to be this huge thing that is creating so much impact. But for some people, something as small as having meaningful employment can be all of the purpose that changes everything for them in their outlook. And it’s amazing.

[00:43:48] Melanie Cote: It’s amazing. The difference in mental health, physical health, life expectancy, happiness, the status of mental health, the need for medication, the physical fitness, eating, nutrition, the ability to manage money. Like all of those things feel very singular, but they are all the one non-economic benefit of employment. And none of us think of it that way. We all think, oh, I hate my job, but I have to go. And we forget about all the things we get from it. And part of I have to go is I think that our written way of saying. There’s a whole bunch of this. It’s important to me, even though I have a crap boss, or even though it’s a really far commute, or even though I’m underpaid or undervalued, or I really hate the way that the person next to me eats their lunch at their desk. All of those things are very small annoyances within a very large construct that gives us a lot of meaning, like a lot of what we get from work.

[00:44:49] Jennifer Chua: Knowing what you know now about how society treats people with various disabilities and how businesses potentially treat people with barriers to employment. But then also with this delightful experience really you’ve had with the community and with your trainees, are you hopeful for the future?

[00:45:12] Melanie Cote: Absolutely. Particularly at this time when there’s so much discussion around diversity and there’s so much discussion around inclusion and there’s so much discussion around all the things none of us knew that we didn’t know about people who weren’t necessarily having the same life experience as us.

The disability community has been tangentially included in the big discussions that have been happening over the last year and a half in the states and obviously in Canada. And I think that as the need for this inclusion is brought to the forefront. People say, “oh, it’s just like that other thing that I didn’t know that I should be examining within myself.”

And I think the time is ripe for the kind of change where people make space for people who maybe aren’t the best candidate and noting that they aren’t the best candidate, because they didn’t have the same opportunity to become the best candidate, or they’re not the best candidate because in this case, maybe they don’t have the innate ability to just be able to do it now without work. But that doesn’t mean that their contribution isn’t worth the effort. I think the time is now I think that Do Good Donuts has come about at an exceptional time. And I have so many conversations with so many amazing people who say, I never thought of it that way. And I think the work you’re doing is enough for us to be able to find a way to make this work.

That without the go-between without the job before the job, without being able to see the experience that people have had and have the job recommendation and have people be sort of, pre-trained, it’s really hard because businesses need to make money. I get it. And nobody has six months to wait for somebody to become effective. But if we can spend the six months making them effective, then the employer just has to teach them the nuance of how the job is different at the new place. And the ability for the efficacy is so much greater. And the payoff to the employer comes so much sooner. They get to see all the bright spots sooner and spend much less time in the part that’s challenging and the part that they don’t have that much experience in. Let us do that part, let us find the experience to make that happen and let you reap the benefits of… communities rally around businesses that support the community. All of the research shows that if there are two businesses and one of them has a person with an intellectual developmental disability that the public sees, and one of them does not, the public will go more to the one that supports the community than the one that does it. They make more money.

I think it’s important to remind everyone as we have been reminded so many times this year, that we all have a lot of innate biases and we. all have a lot of preconceived notions around things or people or situations or how things come to pass. And I think a lot of people are surprised to find someone with a disability, asking them for their order at our tiny donut shop.

And I really urge people to take another look at themselves and wonder if there are ways or places in what they’re doing in the community at their workplace or within some of their social groups to ask why there isn’t anyone like this on their staff and how can they make a change? Because I really think that for me, and I recognize that I’m biased and also super into this, but really, my employees are my favorite people because they spend so much time building me up and, I made a whole business to try to build them up and I show up and it’s like, this is our favorite place. You’re the best boss. Like they really are such a delight to have on staff.

And yeah, it’s a lot of work and yeah, they’re quirky, and I think just cause the quirks are different than the quirks you’re dealing with now, it doesn’t mean that it’s in any way going to should stand in the way of, maybe making a little extra space. Just, just see if there’s a seat at the table.

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.

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Emma Rohmann from Green at Home. We learn how Emma went from environmental engineering to studying our toxic load from the products we use in our everyday lives, we learn why ultimately, regulations don’t work as they should and the onus is on us as consumers to protect ourselves, what you should be mindful of when buying products for your home OR your business, and what steps we can take immediately to influence manufacturers to reduce toxic chemicals and create a healthier future for all.

If you want to Learn more about Emma, or learn more about how to reduce toxins in your home & body visit https://greenathome.ca. Interested in these topics? Emma’s podcast, the Missing Pillar of Health explores the impact our environment has on our health, our happiness, wealth, families, communities, and the planet. And it’s available everywhere you get your podcasts. You can follow along with Emma on her mission on Facebook or Instagram.

Links from this episode

• Green Product Forum Facebook Group
• The Missing Pillar of Health Podcast
• Tests find toxic toys in stores across GTA
• 6 years after Rana Plaza collapse, many fashion giants still unwilling to make changes, says industry expert
• More than 18 million Mattel toys on recall globally
• Not Enough To Be Harmful” And Other Misconceptions About Environmental Toxins

Episode Transcript

Jennifer Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to Cost of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 09.

In today’s episode, we chat with Emma Rohmann from Green at Home.  We learn how Emma went from environmental engineering to studying our toxic load from the products we use in our everyday lives,  we learn why ultimately regulations don’t work as they should. And that the onus is on us as consumers to protect ourselves,  what you should be mindful of when buying products for your home or your business.  And what steps we can take immediately to influence manufacturers to reduce toxic chemicals and create a healthier future for all.

Looking back at the last year, chances are that you’ll remember things like the hoarding of antibacterial wipes and hand sanitizer.  And likely spending more time at home.  I’ve been looking back at all of the things that have changed in my life, and what’s changed in the world around us.  And what the impact of all of this is.  Mostly I’m feeling hopeful.  Yes, Amazon sales are through the roof. Plastic use is up dramatically and counterfeits and unsafe goods are headed into more homes because of the increase of online shopping.  But more and more consumers, and our customers for sure, are asking the important questions.  Where is something made? What is it made of? And how can we prove as a seller that it’s safe? And personally, I’ve been leaning more and more on Emma for advice.

Emma first became interested in chemicals in university. She’s quick to point out the chemicals are everywhere and that they’re not all harmful, but while learning to design waste and drinking water treatment plants, she learned what chemicals were in our water and how difficult it is to remove them.  She immediately stopped using things like conventional cleaners and began to research the source of the contaminants in our water systems. Over the years, Emma developed a career as an environmental engineer in the green building world. She became more aware of the importance of our decisions beyond cleaners and personal care products and how we are not being properly educated and not told about all of the impacts that these products have  on our health and the world around us.

In order to be conscious consumers and make more informed choices,  we need access to balanced, researched information that isn’t just one sided. And so Emma’s business Green at Home was born to help untangle all of the conflicting information and find that practical middle ground that she found was lacking.  Emma now works with primarily parents and those who are expecting, helping them to lower their toxic load by addressing toxic chemicals in our homes and daily lives.

Toxins are everywhere. Yes. And our systems are able to filter out some of them. But with the dramatic rise in cancers and allergies, hormone imbalances, chronic disease, obesity, and other environmental illnesses,  it’s worth learning a little bit more about how we can make more mindful purchasing choices because the environment has a huge impact on us and our health.

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 Chua: In the past couple of years with my own business, I’ve been discovering how many known carcinogens are in the products we buy. Most of those purchased online that haven’t passed safety testing. Even if the manufacturer claims they have. And I’ve been having this conversation with like-minded people like Emma. Who is responsible? Is the onus on us as a consumer? Is it on the seller or the manufacturer? And what is the government doing to protect us?  And why, when I tell people that the children’s products that they’ve bought at the dollar store on Amazon might contain lead in dangerous amounts, why is everyone not more aware?

In my work, legally importing goods, we have a number of checks and balances to make sure a product is safe to sell.  This includes third party safety testing.  And getting insight and information on certifications and on factories. It also includes having huge insurance policies in place in case anything ever is to happen.  But anyone with an e-commerce store can buy a case of goods from a factory overseas without any of this in place. And it’s a huge, huge risk. For themselves, for the factory workers, the planet, and ultimately their customers and families.  Safety testing, safer materials its all expensive. So as something seems too good to be true. It probably is. And regulations, they help, but they’re not enough on their own.

Emma Rohmann: A lot of people will say the government regulates everything in North America. We’ve got stringent requirements that products need to meet to be put on store shelves. And so it’s fine. The other side is some people saying nothing’s regulated, everything’s harmful. And so it’s actually somewhere in the middle.

In north America, we do have. Certain regulations that look at known harmful ingredients. A lot of the times it say, especially in personal care products, it’s a dosing requirement. So it’ll look at okay, you’re allowed to have X ingredient up to a certain percent of the product, because this has been shown to be the threshold where it is safe. In other instances, there are flat- out bans but the problem with both of these is that it’s not like we have thousands of enforcement officers who are testing every product ever made to make sure that it’s within the regulated limits. And so even though we do have some regulations, they often don’t go far enough when looking at again, back to the environmental health picture and understanding the impact that cumulative exposures have on our bodies.

Often the regulations are looking at substances in isolation, so it doesn’t . Necessarily take into account our full, toxic load. And. They are relying on manufacturers to demonstrate that they’re meeting and not obviously violating regulations. There are checks, sometimes products will be spot checked.In North America, we operate in what’s called a post regulatory or post-market regulatory system. And so often when ingredients or products end up being deemed to be harmful, it’s because either consumers or environmental or health advocacy groups have raised the alarm bell, and this happens years, sometimes decades after a product has been on store shelves.

Jennifer Chua: As a distributor.  It is part of our duty really, part of our responsibility to view these third-party safety testing reports. And in our case, hold our manufacturing partners accountable for safety. But I know a lot of people don’t necessarily do that, they just import on their own or they import without seeing these reports or paying for these reports, if they’re importing direct from a factory. And when I’ve spoken to primarily parents about the dangers of these unregulated products, I do hear those comments. People saying, well, if it’s on the shelf in this big box store, it has to be safe. And it concerns me that these regulations in north America are allowing toxic goods to get onto our shelves, but I understand how difficult that is.

What are we missing as consumers, or as people looking to stock our shelves, which potential toxins should we be looking for that we’re not thinking about?

Emma Rohmann: That list is long because it depends on the product itself.  I think the most important thing to recognize is that, lead, BPA phthalates, parabens. These got a lot of public attention. So most of us have at least a general awareness that these things may not be so great. And so when you see packaging that says, BPA free,  free PFOA is another  big one PFOA free. You’re like, great. It doesn’t have this big chemical of concern that I’m aware of. It must be fine. And so the biggest thing that I think we are missing is that industry is very good , the chemical industry in particular is very good at monitoring, which chemicals are likely to be banned or restricted. And when that happens, they have a replacement ready to go. And what we’re finding is that these some people call them regrettable, substitutions have the same, or sometimes worse safety profile than the chemical that they’re replacing. So instead of looking for BPA free you want to be looking forBisphenol free because BPA has been replaced with other bisphenols that’s what the B stands for, but you can put BPA free on the label, but you don’t know what it’s being replaced with. And so as soon as we see those something free, I think it’s our responsibility, whether you are sourcing a product or component, or whether you are buying one is to ask what is being used instead, because that regrettable substitution process has us in this regulatory whack-a-mole with chemicals constantly being introduced to market before they’ve been fully tested. So I would say that is what. Is most concerning right now.

When I speak about conscious consumerism, this is one of the things that we talk about most often, which is feel free to reach out to the manufacturer of a product to get some more information. And if they don’t have that information for you, then that’s okay. Likely very likely a red flag that you should be purchasing something else. Earlier, you mentioned BPA free is on a lot of packaging. And we’ve noticed this too with like counterfeits and goods that are just not so thoughtfully created is that a lot of the time, this verbiage will just be copied as well and placed on the packaging, regardless of what the product contains. Why is it important that we’re mindful about where we shop as well?

When BPA became banned from baby bottles and phthalates became restricted from baby products. Testing was done to see if this had impacted how products were being made. And it was shown that products with that BPA free label and phthalate free labels still contained these chemicals. And so I think it is really important to understand who is selling the products that we are buying and what their track record is. And so a lot of the tests that have been done, showing that products have excess levels of toxins, like lead in particular are coming from overseas. Often they’re made in China where the regulations are not as strict and they are making products as cheaply as possible because that’s what the manufacturer is wanting to do.

A lot of companies are just, they want to maximize profits at all costs. And I think we need to change the way that we are defining business. And look, I get I’m a business owner too. I get it that we need to reduce expenses. So that we can make money doing the things that we’re doing. However, when looking at the other costs, if you’re buying from a manufacturer who is using unregulated labor, who is operating in a country that has notoriously poor environmental and labor standards, and you are not checking  that factory is operating within the standards that maybe would exist in North America, if you’re going to take labor elsewhere. It’s like the wild, wild west, and we’ve seen it. We’ve seen what happens with the factory in Bangladesh, the clothing factory, and that had a big uproar for what I would consider a way to short period of time, because everyone who was bent out of shape about that sort of thing happening are still buying clothes from companies who are using offshore markets without checking their practices. And so I think both on the business side and the consumer side, we need to be asking these questions. And if you’re using offshore labor and factories to make your products, there are a lot of brands that are doing this, but they have full oversight into the labor being used, the materials, they do their own testing. It’s possible. I like to support locally made products as much as possible. I get that it’s not possible for all brands to do it, but there are ways to work in other countries, but still adopt better standards. But if you don’t ask, then I think, unfortunately we’re at the point where we need to assume that companies are operating at the lowest common denominator.

Jennifer Chua: the Rana factory collapse is a very good example of this really, because when I do mention that to just friends or whatnot? A lot of people don’t know that happened.  And a lot of people don’t know that the brands that were paying these employees to work in this factory are paying these contractors to work in this factory in these deplorable conditions, really,  are brands that all of us have in our homes, especially in Canada, like some of the very large Canadian brands, we’re part of the factory collapse. And that just makes me think, If we’re concerned about removing this product from our home, because potentially it’s toxic just with toxic load in small amounts. What about the people that are manufacturing? What are the people in there who are actually stirring these chemicals all day long?  What kind of impact does that have on their health overseas?

Emma Rohmann: That is one of my biggest pet peeves when people say, oh, come on, don’t worry about it. It’s just a small amount, like frying pants, for example. Not an overseas example, but yes, the impact of using a Teflon frying pan is likely minimal as a user in the kitchen. There will be some migration, but the impact to you compared to the impact of the communities in the United States who have been poisoned by the manufacturing facilities, making this. The impact can’t even be compared because people are literally dying from the manufacturing plants that are dumping the hazardous waste. And people who have been working in the facilities have Cancer birth defects for pregnant women. And so these, those impacts are often not considered in the argument that it’s safe to the end user, same with overseas, clothing, a lot of these products that are using chemicals in their raw form. We don’t take into account that somebody somewhere is exposed to incredibly high amounts and it’s the workers. And it’s also the communities surrounding these factories, which are often more marginalized communities to start with. And so sure us sitting in our homes in Canada may have very little risk for the clothing that we’re wearing, the dyes that are used in clothing may not harm us in any meaningful way, but the waterways in India are polluted beyond recognition because clothing dyes or some of the most toxic chemicals and are just being released into the environment. It’s opened up a lot of doors to be in this global economy, but it’s also opened up a lot of problems. If we are going to be taking advantage of having access to global markets, then we also need to be taking responsibility to protect the people that we are relying on to be giving us our goods.

Jennifer Chua: in a recent episode of your podcast, which I’m a huge fan of, by the way. You spoke about a Toronto newspaper, which had purchased, and in this case, it was toys from 18 random retailers who had sourced goods from China. Can you give us some insight into what they found and what you find surprising about that information?

Emma Rohmann: They purchased toys and had them tested for lead. Which is probably the most regulated chemical on the market because we know the damaging, the effect that it can have, particularly on children. It’s a neurotoxin, it’s a hormone disruptor and there is no known safe level of lead for children. And they found that the majority of the products that they tested, tested for lead and often substantially higher than the legal limit. I think it just brings to light the reminder that like lead is something that is not up for debate. There are still hormone disrupting chemicals and other things that have a lot of debate around them as to how harmful they are. I don’t see much debate around lead being toxic. And yet it’s found in dozens of products still when it is regulated and should not be there. This is where I think it can get confusing and overwhelming because,  if this is something that’s regulated, we need to be able to put some level of trust in the marketplace and our regulations. Right. Otherwise we will drive ourselves crazy. And so it goes back to again, Understanding who is making the product and what kinds of checks and balances that they have in place.  Most of the products are the very low cost kind of dollar store trinkets. These are the ones that have repeatedly been found to contain higher levels of things like lead and cadmium, which is another heavy metal.

There was one major recall of products by an incredibly large toy company. That was also surprising. But the difference with them is that they caught it. And so they recalled, I think it was millions of toys, but something like 85% of them hadn’t yet made it onto store shelves. And so I think that’s a good thing. They’ve got the ability to do that. And they’re checking a lot of these dollar store type markets, Amazon type markets. They’re not doing this. And so that’s why they ended up being on store shelves and why our kids end up being exposed. Unfortunately.

Jennifer Chua: Why are they manufacturers using lead light? Do they not have an alternative? If we all know collectively  that lead is so damaging.

Emma Rohmann: it’s cheap.  It’s often found in paints. In one article I was reading, they interviewed some workers at a factory in China, and . They do have alternatives. They make that alternative available. But if the company is saying. We don’t want to spend more than X amount. And the only way to do that is to use lead then that’s what they will make. And they’ll kind of turn a blind eye to the regulations. And so at the end of the day, it comes down to money.

Jennifer Chua: So if I’m sitting here in Canada and I’ve decided that I want to set up an online store, or I want to sell something on Amazon, or I want to sell something on Facebook marketplace or at a pop-up. And I’ve gone to legitimate importers, distribution companies and, or manufacturing partners of . People whose brands I admire. And then I’ve gone on to Alibaba or AliExpress. And I see that I can buy a case of something that looks essentially the same for much, much cheaper. And I get a much bigger margin. I mean, these margins are substantial when compared to buying a product from a legitimate manufacturer. Often times these e-commerce shops are ordering goods without seeing the products without visiting the factory, running safety tests on their own, based on your research?What do you think they’re actually buying.

Emma Rohmann: I’ve learned a lot about counterfeiting from you. And the reality is you don’t know what you’re getting. It could be perfectly fine. Chances are, if the price is too good to be true, there’s a reason. And. This is where I think you have to be very mindful before just popping up links. It is so easy to set up an online shop now and have, even if it’s just affiliate links through Amazon or other third party platforms. And it’s why the shop page on my website, I actually went to great lengths to use. Non-Amazon links. It would have been way easier and I probably would be making more money if I had just done that, but it, it goes against my mission. And so I think you need to really think carefully about what the mark is that you want to make in the world. And before selling products, I think you need to do your due diligence and ask the questions. And don’t just assume that because something is cheap it’s because somebody else got a good deal. I don’t think that you can assume that something is cheap without somebody else paying the cost.

Jennifer Chua: But what if a product is labeled FDA approved, this is something I hear all the time, but it says FDA approved.  As a consumer or as someone who’s talking my shelves, what should I look for in terms of labeling?

Emma Rohmann: FDA approved. I mean, it’s, if it’s actually FDA approved and not a counterfeit, that’s just slapping the stamp on the label. It’s. Fine. It usually means that the product is tested more for physical safety than toxic ingredients. They do have some requirements like lead and whatnot, but I would say  that is a bare minimum. And I don’t even know if you can legally sell something that is not FDA approved if it is within that FDA jurisdiction. So it’s kind of an obvious, no-brainer and so whatever the product is, if it is a consumable, like a personal care product, if it is a baby toy or a teether, I think we need to have a better collective understanding of the types of ingredients that are used to make these things.

And so if it’s something like, let’s say a teething toy. Often they’re made with plastics that are soft and flexible. And so we know that plasticizers and phthalates can be a risk. And so it’s asking, okay, what is being used to give this product? The properties that it has and are these ingredients potentially harmful. And that’s a big ask. It’s a lot for people to  try to take on. And it’s why I spend so much of my time in my programs, educating how to ask these questions and what to do with the information as well as providing the solutions, because we need to be more educated, aware, and conscious both as consumers like from the family side, as well as consumers on a business side, getting materials for our products, because there are thousands of chemicals on the market right now. And as we’ve talked about, they aren’t necessarily safe. And so unfortunately until we get to a place where regulations and industry catch up, It’s on the consumer way more than it should be. But if we don’t start asking the questions, I don’t think any of the other mechanisms are going to change. And so I really do think that it’s up to us to start driving this conversation so that companies know that it’s important.

Jennifer Chua: As consumers, we have the opportunity to buy anything in one click online, which is convenient. and oftentimes these massive online marketplaces or these dollar stores have goods that are much more affordable. Like there a lot more inexpensive, but what’s the cost?

Emma Rohmann: I think we have to look at this from. The cost to ourselves, as well as the cost to the environment and the people who are making them.  Look at the cost to ourselves. A lot of these cheap products are not made to last. They are cheap because well,  they use cheap materials, but also they want you to keep buying more of them. That’s the business model. It’s volume, right? Low cost, high volume. That’s the model. And so if you think about buying something for a really low price, how long is it going to last? How many are you going to have to buy over how long in order for it to do whatever you want it to do? Andthink about that and say, okay, is this cost really worth it over the long-term. The other issue is health both. And I don’t think we put enough of a dollar value on our health that we should, I think a lot of us are forced to invest in our health when something bad happens. But the idea of investing in prevention or risk reduction is a tough concept to grasp for a lot of us because we don’t need it right now. Right. We’re fine. And so I think it’s just starting to think about our health differently and understanding, look, not everything that you buy is going to be a hundred percent non-toxic that is okay. But if you’re evaluating something that your baby is going to be sucking on day in and day out, this is something that really matters, especially for children because they’re developing. They’re growing, their systems are maturing in ways that we know chemical introduction at certain windows in a child’s development can have lifelong impact, particularly with hormone disruptors. And so this is something that we need to know and we need to be considering because our children’s health is not getting better.

Looking at the big picture and understanding that a little bit more of a cost for a product, like let’s say a teether or a mattress for a baby that you’re going to be using for a long time, knowing that it’s not going to be adding to your child’s risk of developing issues down the line is something that we need to be factoring into our decision-making. And then thinking about who is making these products and who is exposing themselves to working conditions that are potentially unsafe to chemicals that are potentially, or like lead obviously harmful. And if the company has a track record of poor enforcement or dumping chemicalsif we are buying products from those companies, then we are at fault as well. We can’t just keep putting the blame on companies and absolving ourselves of any responsibility because we’re the one supporting them. And I think we need to really be looking at that big picture.

Jennifer Chua: at Hip Mommies. We vet very carefully for that. For cost of use. It is something that we’re mindful of. And we’ve had this criticism because we sell some silicone baby plates, for example, that are much more expensivethan buying a plastic plate from a dollar store.  But if you use this three meals a day and you know, it’s safe and there’s a lot of contaminant issues in silicone, for example, that’s a really big one. You can get some unsafe silicone,  then you’re eating off it. So like you mentioned before, it makes me really uncomfortable. So health and safety are definitely one thing to be mindful of, but are there any other environmental impacts associated with these toxic goods on top of the impact, our health or the health of our families?

Emma Rohmann: yes. And I think it depends on the chemical. So in some instances there are chemicals used that we now know do not degrade. Once they hit the environment, these are called forever chemicals and they are found in flame retardants. They are found in stain repellents. They are found in waterproofing materials and they have been found in polar bears in the far reaches of the globe where they should not really be exposed to any human made ingredients. And so the problem with these is they’re forever chemicals because they. They do their job very well. Like Teflon, it’s the slippery substance on earth. It is effective at what it does, but when it enters the environment, it doesn’t go away. And it is hormone disrupting carcinogenic, and it is building up because as we use and dispose of products, It’s not like our trash just disappears. It ends up somewhere. And yes, when it goes to a landfill, there are some systems in place to contain what it goes in that landfill.

But there is still leachate, which is the stuff that ends up settling out at the bottom of the giant garbage pile is things start to degrade. That needs to be disposed of there’s always a waste product. And with things like forever chemicals, we’re finding them all over the place. When we look at ocean pollution, microplastics are now known to be a huge problem and we’re now facing the fact that we’re looking at having more plastic in our ocean than fish. And the wildlife eat it. We eat the fish and the chain just continues. The harm on the environment is sometimes one of the things that make. So  clue in that maybe there’s going to be a health impact for us as well.

But I think when we are making decisions, we easily forget that there’s also the environmental impact of things. And my career started as being a burgeoning environmentalist. I wasn’t thinking about things from a health perspective.  I came at this from a backwards way from a lot of people, but the environment isn’t some other extra thing that we can use as a dumping ground. Like the environment is literally our home. If you think of the work that we’re doing too, or the work that I’m doing to help reduce toxins within our actual houses, the same goes for our planet. We rely on a healthy environment for our food, our air, our water, and when we constantly use it as a dumping ground, our soils, our water quality, our air can’t recover. And so being mindful of the manufacturing processes that we’re supporting, the chemicals that we’re introducing without fully looking at their impact. I am worried for our kids to be honest. I mean, it’s kind of a downer of an answer, but the environment has a carrying capacity too, and we are not respecting that.

Jennifer Chua: I was doing some research for a previous episode, and they were talking about these forever chemicals, which are often found in packaging , and they did a random blood testing of. Like a random selection of a population and they found five or more of these chemicals in 70% of our bloodstream. And they also found these chemicals. And I think it was in California, in the waterway.  In their drinking water source. So I know that those are a really big problem and this all sounds very overwhelming. And I know that. You take the position that this should not be overwhelming. Anyone that’s made it this far into the episode, that’s feeling a little bit scared right now. Do you have any words of hope  or words of how they could approach this more mindfully without that overwhelm?

Emma Rohmann: There’s a fine line between. Educating, and  I’m not about fear-mongering at all, but I think we need to understand how important this issue is. Right. And I’m kind of past the point of sugarcoating it or making it seem like, oh, everything’s fine. But it would be really nice if we, because we’ve gone too far for that to be the case. And so I do hope that you are hearing this with a sense of curiosity and open mindedness. Because I think without being aware, we can’t drive change. And one of the quotes that I use in all of my web classes and seminars and presentations is from Dr. Maya Angelou, the quote, where . She says do the best you can until you know, better. And when you know, better do better and we can’t do better if we don’t learn. I hope that you’re hearing this with a sense of, okay, this is bad, but what can we do? I want to make a difference. Knowing that we as individuals have the power to create positive change is super empowering. And I think recognizing that we can be part of the solution faster than government regulations will change is the first step. And step number two is recognizing that every dollar you spend is a vote and if you want to create a better world for your family, for your kids. You’re not going to be voting every single dollar on something that is 100% non-toxic you’re not going to be doing all of this research into every single manufacturer. However, the more that you can, the more that you can ask companies, the questions, hopefully I’ve given you some information in this episode to arm you with some of the things to think about. Even if you can’t necessarily afford something that is kind of the ultimate goal. The fact that you’re asking the questions makes a difference.

I started my career as a co-op student phoning manufacturers and asking them for the MSDS and the VOC content of the materials that were going into the buildings that the projects that I was working on and. This was back in 2004, I think. And the people on the other end of the phone would respond. Like I was asking them the most obscure question. They had no idea what I was talking about. Just three, four or five years later, every major company that supplies products for building projects posted on their website. Or you call them up and ask for it and it’s like, yep, no problem. Here it is. And it’s in your inbox three seconds later. So having these conversations works, I have seen it time and time again. I think that is huge. You may not know all of the questions to ask. You might not know how to take in their answers, but the more that we can have this conversation, the more that we will drive change.

Taking a step back and looking at our consuming habits over all. We’re buying too much. And so if you want to just do one thing, it’s being more conscious and aware of what you’re buying and starting with the mindset that less is more. And then it won’t be such a hurdle to maybe invest in a few of the bigger ticket items that you might have your eye on. That’s a gross simplification. There are a lot of people with different economic situations. I totally get that, but I think we just need to start thinking about our kind of budget process and our lifestyle on the whole differently.

Jennifer Chua: Some of our partners for example. Small, independent retailers that we work with. They are often putting these questions to us and having us ask the manufacturer, or often being very mindful of what they’re selling or what they’re stocking their shelves with for their consumers. Like They’re being really great about it. Oftentimes these stores are now also accepting used goods and then reselling them. So repurposing. So if money is an issue,  a lot of these things you can find used too. Particularly in children’s products, if they have a shorter lifespan, in terms of use in your home, you can find these reused.

So Ultimately for our safety of our homes and our environments and our health who is really responsible here, is it on the consumer? Is it on the importer? Is it on the store that’s selling it to you? The manufacturer, the government? Like ultimately, should be responsible for you and your family’s health?

Emma Rohmann: I think we are responsible for our family’s health. That onus is on us. I think the onus on making goods that don’t harm our health should be 100% on the manufacturer. That reality is far from being realized. We all play a role and I think the more that we start shifting blame to other people, the more that we prolong this process of constantly playing catch up and arguing over whose responsibility it is. Companies are people. We often forget this companies aren’t this like machine, some of them act like it, but we’re all people. And I think the more that we can look at how the decisions we are making are impacting the bigger picture, the better off we will all be. And I really hope that companies, especially the big ones, step up, because if they were to change the way that they were operating tomorrow, the world would be a very different place.

This is the thing with a lot of certifications. Like you’d never know which ones are legit or which one is not. And B Corp is stringent. And that’s the other thing too, that stuff is expensive. And so getting that demonstration, it  takes some of the requirement off of the consumer too. Double-check and look into things because you know that there’s a third party who has already done that. And so that is something that you’re paying for as well, right? Like you’re going to pay something anyways, whether it’s money or time, you just have to trade off which one you’re willing to do. And sometimes you’re more able or willing to throw one thing at a problem than another, but don’t forget that. If you’re going to be spending less money, you’re likely going to be spending more time on something down the road. And B Corp or better made products are more expensive, usually for a very good reason. And it’s probably going to be saving you headache.

Jennifer Chua: I know earlier you said that you’re a little worried as a mother,  but seeing the response of your podcast and you have a Facebook group,this messaging is resonating with a lot of people. So are you hopeful for the future?

Emma Rohmann: I definitely am. And I think kids are getting it. Like we’ve seen kids striking for the climate. We’ve seen kids suing the government over environmental policies. So yeah. I am hopeful. I, we have some damage to undo and so we can’t just leave it up to our kids. So I am incredibly hopeful for the bright children that we are seeing and are going to be leaders in companies and governments. I think they are going to do amazing things in the world. I think our generation and our parents’ generation who has unfortunately been responsible for a lot of what we’re dealing with now. There’s still time for us to act and the conversations that I’m seeing in my communities give me so much hope and honestly keep me going, because I can see how much people care and how much people want to change. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people messaged me saying, Hey, I messaged this company and this is what they said, and this is what I said back. And it’s amazing. It’s how change is going to happen.  There’s the Margaret Mead quote, a small group of thoughtful people can change the world indeed is the only thing that ever has. And I see it every day. And so we can change the trajectory that we are on. We just need more people to be joining the conversation.

Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Emma or learn more about how to reduce toxins in your home and body, visit greenathome.ca Interested in these topics? Emma’s podcast,The Missing Pillar of Health explores the impact our environment has on our health, our happiness, wealth, family, communities, and the planet.And it’s available everywhere you get your podcasts.  You can follow along with Emma on her mission on Facebook at greenathome or Instagram @emma_greenathome.

 

 

Melita Cyril from social impact business Q for Quinn makes certified organic cotton basics for children, ethically. We explore the environmental costs of manufacturing conventional cotton, and the potential health risks of the colourful dyes, and pesticides used. We learn how Melita’s trip to an orphanage on her thirteenth birthday and her newborns son’s eczema both inspired Melita to create change, how she’s carefully selected her manufacturing partners in developing countries, and why she feels that there are many more things we need to consider when determining the true cost of a product.

If you want to Learn more about Melita and her certified organic, mismatchable socks, visit https://www.qforquinn.com.  Looking to buy a pair? Through Mary’s Meals and the 1 pair = 1 meal initiative, Melita has donated 28,000 meals. You can follow along with Melita on her mission to create comfortable and practical basics which are gentle for your skin and for the planet on Facebook at qforquinnshop or Instagram at q.for.quinn.

 

Links from this episode:

Episode Transcript

Jennifer Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to Cost of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 08.

In today’s episode, we chat with Melita Cyril from Q for Quinn. We explore the environmental costs of manufacturing, conventional cotton. And the potential health risks of the colorful dyes and pesticides used. We learn how Melita’s trip to an orphanage on her 13th, birthday and her newborn son’s eczema, both inspired Melita to create change, how she’s carefully selected her manufacturing partners in developing countries, and why she feels that there are many more things that we need to consider when determining the true cost of a product.

Certified organic is something that we hear about more and more often. And even in the last few years, since Q for Quinn was founded, it has become more of a thing. And although we all know that we might want to look into organic when buying things like strawberries, for example, does anyone look that carefully at socks?

Meltia designed her gentle socks to help with her son’s eczema. She uses GOTS certified cotton and OOEKO-TX 100 certified facilities. We’ll learn what all of that means in just a bit.

But unless produce was sustainable practices. Cotton is a huge challenge. And unless it’s certified, who is to know how sustainable the manufacturers really are. Most cotton is grown overseas in parts of the world that are vulnerable to exploitation and cotton farming and manufacturing can be associated with high environmental, social and economic impacts. Buying socks? There’s a lot more to consider than your size.

I fell in love with Q for Quinn socks, not because they’re organic for me, it was the thoughtful design. One pack of three socks is really nine mismatchable socks that share a color palette and a theme. So there’s no more crying over misplaced kid socks and no need to tossthe second in a pair. If one has been destroyed. They’re gender neutral, boast fun prints, and patterns, and are incredibly comfortable and high quality. And Q for Quinn’s social impact business model means that each purchase helps solve one of the world’s biggest problems.

Melita grew up in Sri Lanka. She moved to the UK for her undergrad and started her career there in investment banking. She was a trader with Lehman brothers and worked for credit Swiss, but she always had a feeling that banking, that this work, wasn’t meant for her longterm. And soon after meeting her Canadian husband, the pair spontaneously moved to Toronto. And after completing her MBA at the university of Toronto, Melita had a better idea of what the city had to offer. What the corporate culture here was like and what kind of opportunities she might have to look forward to. And she also knew that she wanted to escape the whole banking world. It had been stressful. She didn’t feel as if she helped. She didn’t feel as if she was in control of her hours and the work did not feel meaningful. Her life now felt like she had more freedom and the opportunity to do something, to contribute to society. She knew it was time for a change.

Melita Cyril: I knew in the long term, I wanted to build my own business, some sort, build something cause my dad was an entrepreneur and he started his business with nothing. So I’d always been influenced. By him. When I was a kid, he would drag me to all of these business meetings. Whenever we would go on vacation. It was always, there was always business with it. So I would say that part of that also influenced my decision to start something and I felt I actually wasn’t working when I had my son, because I had worked my body to the ground that I struggled with infertility and So I decided to take some time off, help, go back to Sri Lanka, help my dad with the business.

And eventually we sold the business. And then I came back and I was like, now what? But we got pregnant. And I was, I’m just going to take some time off and enjoy this. And that’s what I did. So when my son was born, I actually didn’t have a job to go back to which actually gave me even more motivation to start something. And I felt like the timing was right.

Jennifer Chua: Melita had her son and within the first couple of months, he began to have some issues with his skin. Doing some digging, Melita began to learn about conventional cotton and the potential toxins used in making baby clothes. Over 90% of baby socks have been found to contain known irritants, and she learned that these often contribute to skin issues like eczema. She was having difficulty finding soft, organic cotton basics for her new babe, especially socks. And this led to the spark that started her thinking about creating Q for Quinn.

Melita Cyril: That’s sparked the idea and I think just not having another option made it seem like I went all in on it because I didn’t have a job to go back to. And I’m glad I did.

Jennifer Chua: Melita began to build her business and looked back to her father for inspiration. His business had been wildly different. He was in the printing and packaging industries. He worked with printers and those manufacturing packaging.

And later he would work with large commercial brands like HP and related technologies. Very different industries. And very far from socks. Regardless. She learned some lessons from being dragged around to all those business meetings as a child, and she hopes to carry these forward as she continues to build Q for Quinn.

Melita Cyril:    I think the biggest lesson and I haven’t got a chance to fully apply it. Cause we have a really small team is just building a solid team and caring for the people. Cause to this day, my dad has sold his company, but. A lot of his, like employees  we’ll speak very highly of him, how he trained them and, and all of that. And I thought, oh, I want that. Like, if this company were to, grow into something meaningful, when we end up having a, a relatively, a decent sized team, I want to be in a position where I could inspire people, train people. To do better and to to improve the skillset. And that’s what my dad did. So I thought,that part of it was pretty rewarding. For sure And also, I think one thing I learned just from a business perspective is focusing on profitability and margins because that ultimately that’s going to what is going to sustain your business.

So not compromising too much on pricing and from a business perspective, making sure you’re profitable and being sustainable, which is getting harder and harder to do these days. It was a rising cost and of, of business. And the pricing of more sustainable goods and even having to justify it to consumers is a challenge especially when you’re competing with lower price products from parts of the world and from places where, you know, sustainability and even the input products used are harmful to the environment and, and to us.

Jennifer Chua: Was there an event that shaped how you see the world? Like, I’m wondering why sustainability means so much to you.

Melita Cyril: I think, especially after I became a mom and I wanna raise my kids in a world that also exists past,  my generation. So I felt like it became my responsibility to make sure that I do whatever I can. I do my part to ensure a sustainable future for my kids. And I think a lot of moms feel the same way. And I think we might just be within that demographic that makes more of those choices and it’s encouraging to see a lot of the other, like the other demographics, like millennials also choosing. Right. But I think, just being a parent and being responsible for another generation ahead of you. I feel like I’ve got to do my part to, to be more sustainable.

I also started to find that being more sustainable is not just purely for the planet. It’s also. It’s also a healthier option for you because it also means whatever is bad for the environment and whatever’s bad for our planet is also bad for our bodies. So the pesticides used in the production of cotton. That’s bad for the environment, but it’s also bad for us to inhale it or to the workers that make that in the cotton plantations and the processing of cotton to the fabric. Not just cotton, bamboo and whatever. It’s,  bad for their health too.   Going back to what motivates me and what we wish we had more often the world it’s kindness, to people, and also kindness to our planet.

Jennifer Chua: I actually have been exploring that concept a little bit more and more lately, which is how much sustainability and health are actually linked. And I think a lot of people don’t consider that so much because there are a lot of people that are very interested in their health and very motivated by that who might not be interested in sustainability or not understand that connection.

Melita Cyril: Exactly. And, you know, I I’ll raise my hand up and say it is hard to be, to make sustainable choices is usually more expensive. It is usually Less convenient. And, and so I get that culprit too. I’m not like always sustainable with my choices as a consumer, but when it comes to health, we try a bit harder.

And so that provides more of a compelling reason. And I think everybody is born inherently, somewhat selfish, to be honest, right. So we think of our own that’s human nature. We think about our own needs before we think of you don’t need to. For others and you know, it makes sense. We’ve got to be that on good health before we can take care of others.

And so immediately when I, when you make a decision for sustainability is usually secondary, I feel. But when it comes to your health, that’s going to be a primary factor. To motivate you to, to buy. And that was also premier factor factor. When I designed the socks, because I started to, when I did my research, I started to understand how many chemicals and toxins were in, in clothing.

I mean, I knew they were in food and I knew they were in skincare products, but it didn’t occur to me that much, that it wasn’t also in our clothing. And that was. I guess a primarily primary drive for me to create not only more sustainable products, but healthier products for our kids.

Jennifer Chua: Could you tell me a little bit more about the story of coming up with the idea and then moving this forward into an actual business.

Melita Cyril: My son did suffer from eczema, especially on his feet, sometimes in different parts of his body. I tried to go organic a lot with his clothing, but I had a tough time finding organic cotton socks. And socks that were breathable. I think the way too many socks are made are majority polyester. And then even the regular cotton socks. Now that I know what I know, I feel like, you know, because of all the chemicals, he was just sort of reacting to it. And so that, that was  the pain point that I had, but me being the business person or like my, with my business background,

I started researching like what are the options for organic cotton socks? What about the cost to make it, cost to ship? Can I build a sustainable business from it? Can I make this also fun ? I didn’t know. At the time, like there is a relatively high incidents of kids with eczema, but it’s not such a common problem that I, that I could go maybe mainstream with it. And so I looked at ideas to make it more fun. So I actually ended up writing a book about socks.  I, I really sort of was driven by the creative drive that comes with having an idea and creating something. So now I’m writing a book about socks and then launching the company. Obviously there was designing the product, finding the manufacturer.  Doing tons and tons of prototypes, testing samples on the then sort of limited sample size of friends and family that I had to figure out fit, to get feedback, and eventually come up with a product that could be manufactured and then launched.

So the whole process took about six months. And then when you launch,  the harder part is getting the word out. And and you know, initially it was friends and family, actually, when we first launched that was a complete stranger who had bought my product. So I was like, wow, somebody actually, you know, who didn’t didn’t know me, bought my product. So that was that was quite cool. After launching. Sort of trying to figure out, where I should market our products how to reach that consumer who’s starting to pay attention or who has the same problems that I had, and is also starting to pay attention to what’s in their socks and clothing and and also building a more sustainable future for their kids.

Jennifer Chua: How are you different from other companies that sell children’s basics?

Melita Cyril: Our products are all now GOTS certified organic. So we make them from organic cotton. We also have a merino wool collection. We focus on materials that are sustainable, and the production process from farm to consumer is free from common harsh chemicals. So what the GOTS certification means is is that our products are tested and audited from the source to make sure they are free or they follow the highest environmental standards and are also free from chemicals and toxins that are commonly found. That have quite honestly become mainstream. I would also highlight the fact that GOTS is not just an environmental set of standards is also a social set of standards. The companies that we work with, or the manufacturers that we work with, they’re also GOTS certified. And in order to be GOTS certified, they have to show that they paid their workers living wages, not just minimum wages and offer them very safe working conditions and there is no coercion or anything like that going on there. The standards are upheld to the highest level of social standards in a lot of these countries. And so just sourcing from GOTS certified facilities being GOTS certified brands we are held to those same standards. We source from Portugal, Sri Lanka and India. There are family owned facilities. We’ve visited them.  We have a good relationship with them. We have transparency and we know we have the security so that we can offer this consumers the same security of where their clothes came from and the fact that they’ve been tested to make sure that there’s no contamination with non-organic products or any harmful chemicals. And I would say that’s our main differentiator.

Jennifer Chua: I’m so thrilled to hear that you visited with the factories and that you truly understand them. Cause a lot of people are manufacturing things and sending them over on the internet to anywhere else in the world, and they don’t have any real idea of what the standards are like at the factory or how the people are being treated. I appreciate that.

Melita Cyril: Yeah. And part of this was me also, growing up in Sri Lanka and just like,  I would go to my dad’s customers who had factories. And so, I mean, I guess for me,  it was also a little bit easier for me because my dad lives in Sri Lanka. So. My dad represented me to go because obviously in the last year and a half, we haven’t been able to travel because of COVID. And through the three years of the business, I had two more kids. So that made it a bit harder. But my dad, he has been the facilities that, of course, in the facility, in Sri Lanka, he visits them often because he’s there. So that makes it logistically easier for us to do, but it’s so important to know. To really does not even rely on and certification as such, but to see it for yourself.

I look for OEKOTX100  as well as a minimum.   That is similar to GOTS but it’s not just for organic products that is specifically for harmful chemicals. So whenever somebody asks me, especially if there’s an item we don’t carry and they say, how do I make sure that a a product is safefor my baby or for my kid, or even for myself. I say, if they don’t have GOTS at least look for this certification, because it can be for conventional cotton GOTS who only certified organic cotton as an example. But would not certify convention cotton. So if, if the product is conventional cotton, at least make sure they have that certification because at least the facilities and the, the textiles have been tested for over a hundred harmful substances. So as a consumer, those are the two like certifications that I look for the GOTS and if it’s not organic or,  GOTS does not certify all types of fabric and all of our facilities are also OEKOTX100 certified as well.

Jennifer Chua: Why is conventional cotton so problematic?

Melita Cyril: So the pesticides used to grow the cotton. And that’s why. It’s precisely other pesticides used, and that has harmful chemicals to the workers in the plantations, as well as our environment. Now they both consume, I think the same amount of water. In fact, maybe organic cotton consumes more water so it becomes a little bit of a balance between the pesticides use versus the water use. That is precisely why conventional cotton is, is worse for the environment and, and then worse for, for us as well.

Jennifer Chua: Your socks, for example, have some really interesting features. The fact that you can mix and match them. If you lose a sock, you’re not throwing out the other one. You can just use that with another pair and then the comfort of course, but what was the most important to you? Was it this mix-match ability, the social good or the sustainable materials? Which one did you focus on first?

Melita Cyril: The sustainable materials that would say, because that was like the driver and the, the gentleness of the materials, because that was obviously the driver to make sure that it was something , my son can wear all day, every day, not have a reaction and not worry about the chemicals in there. So that was like the primary focus. But. I wouldn’t say I’m a true perfectionist, but I really wanted to get something that’s, not just for kids with sensitive skin, something that is functional practical. It really comes down to performance of everything, like, just because you buy something for your sensitive skin doesn’t mean that you have to compromise on the grips for example, or the fun aspect off the socks.

So of course, like starting off and even now we’re still limited in terms of how many designs and how many fun designs we can launch. So we have our customers always say, or do you have something with rainbows or unicorns? And I was like, I would love to keep doing it, but  it is, it is hard for me with the minimums to always launch new styles without three pairs, nine possibilities concept like you highlighted.

So that was like the challenge of the beginning.  Of course, every little one has different needs. So we have  a pure collection, which has actually no dyes whatsoever. There’s no patterns because it has no dyes. It comes in the natural colors of cotton, but it’s more suitable for sensitive skin. We have more fun mix and match patterns, which,  to be honest, has the same composition of the original composition. So it’s good for sensitive skin, but some kids just don’t like,  lose thread, which is a common function of having more patterns, for example. There’s no one size fits all on one pattern or type design fits all, but we’re trying to cater to different needs. For us right now, it’s creating a healthy product that’s also functional and meets the needs of, the majority of our consumers.

Jennifer Chua: Can you speak a little bit more to the pairs of socks that you receive and how you can mix them together?

Melita Cyril: So you actually get three pairs and we say nine possibilities, cause you could mix and match because they follow the same theme. So for example, if you go on our website, you’ll see like a hot air balloon theme or inside a robot, which has got the different robot components.

So it follows the same themes, but, and the colors, but they’re different pairs. It’s a unique pair in itself, so you can match it. Or if you feel like it, you can mismatch it. Or given the sock problems we have in our own home of like socks, just kind of. Disappearing or just like you losing a pair of one day and finding it the next day you can wear it, mix matched for functionality and this way,if you would inclined to throw your socks or not use it. You can still use it. And so that prevents that ending up in the landfill or just lying in your drawer unworn. So it is a little bit more sustainable as well.

Jennifer Chua: When you were looking at manufacturing overseas in several different countries or sourcing from several different countries, what kind of costs did you learn about like associated with the environmental impact of manufacturing and sourcing from overseas?

Melita Cyril: Going back to  looking to manufacture the socks, first of all, I would say I look for a local manufacturer and unfortunately almost all the Canadian sock manufacturers have either shut down and moved overseas especially in kids and baby cause it’s requires special tooling. And it was impossible to find somebody locally. I wanted to find somebody locally just so that I could manage the quality control of the first product and design. So very quickly I had to look set my eyes on overseas manufacturing. I’d never manufactured a product before, but I assumed, okay Google is my best friend here. Let’s see what I can find out about sock manufacturing. I looked at different countries, including China. And then I also found a manufacturer in Sri Lanka. So I probably got samples and quotes from about three manufacturers.

Sri Lanka was sort of in the middle, I would say. But they also had the best quality. When it comes to the types of manufacturers, I look for. I had done my research on chemicals. And what certifications did they have that wouldmake me feel secure, that  this product is going to be free from harmful chemicals, not only for my kids, but also for the environment. And so I looked for certifications like the OEKOTX100 certification and the GOTS certification. I wasn’t certified as a brand at the time that came last, last year. But at least I could source from GOTS certified facilities. And so it Sri Lanka was part of that.

I wanted to highlight something as part of your question because of course your podcast, I think has a brilliant name cost of goods sold. 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.

It’s a hard concept to get your head around, but it’s simple because, and that’s exactly why. It’s almost impossible for us to compete while still uphold ourselves to the same standards as other companies. And we have to do a little bit more on educating why our products are better for you and the environment. And you’re actually paying the true costs and not, it’s not ending up in my bottom line.

Jennifer Chua: one of  the messagings that seems to be clicking more with conscious consumers is the cost per use.  Whereas, if you get a pair of socks and one of them gets a hole in it or gets destroyed because we have children absolutely destroyed or lost in the wash. You have that opportunity to mix and match, but one of them isn’t larger than the other. They’re going to be the same size. One of them isn’t higher than the other. Like they’re going to be the same level of comfort on both feet.

Melita Cyril: exactly.

Jennifer Chua: Sometimes if you look at the cost per use or investigate how long you’ll be using something or how many times we’ll be using something.  In that case, it seems to make more sense.

Melita Cyril: No, absolutely I pay attention to all our views coming in, all the feedback, all the emails from our customers, good and, sometimes feedback for improvement as well. And one thing I am noticing now is a lot of people are saying they’re passing on their socks to siblings. I would do this with my kids. Like my daughter. Is only wearing my my son socks, which is the reason why we also make them gender neutral, so they could be passed on to siblings with boy or girl.

I’m glad you brought this up because it’s also a better quality product and a product that’s going to be used many times, which will end up saving you money and also costing the environment less because. The fashion industry is so dirty and over consumption is a big problem. And it’s a big cause for pollution. And, and so by being able to reuse the socks, because its in  the same good quality as  a brand new pair.   We pay very close attention to a quality, so there’s less fading and it still fits the same. And the holes are not developing and of course you have some bad apples, very, very small percentage, but overall, your product quality is good and you pass it on to siblings or cousins or donate it. Somebody somewhere can use them as opposed to it being in the landfill. That’s a good reason to buy, and I think we need to do a better job as a brand to really kind of communicate that cost per use. It’s something that you can pass on to younger children and or donate. So it doesn’t end up in the landfill.

Jennifer Chua: And they’re not like, the multipack that you’re buying from a big box store that I’ve always found either the elastic, wears out at the top very, very quickly, or the holes come very, very quickly. And those do end up tossed. Like you do have that quality in your product for sure. And I commend you for that, obviously. So when you were building the business, what was your big dream in those days?

Melita Cyril: I was very passionate about the product, so it was just seeing my product in the hands of as many little kids as possible. That is like the goal, but I would also say one part, which I haven’t really mentioned as part of this conversation up until now is our give back initiative. We actually give back through an incredible organization called Mary’s meals. So for every pair of socks that we sell, and now we have underwear, pajamas, but for every product that’s sold, we donate school meals to one of the world’s poorest children. For me, that’s really the dream and what’s driving my business. Sure. I can go out and donate myself and encourage others to donate, but I feel like I’m achieving like Goals that are beyond myself. So, I’m helping,  little kids who have scent sensitive skin or refuse their socks because of the seam across the toe. So I’m helping moms and their kids, but I’m also helping feed children in a place of education. They’re also going to school more because of the little things that we do. Now we’re making a small impact, but for me personally, that’s what drives me because as you know, Jennifer the small business world is hard. You need something to motivate you. And this is our motivation creating products that solve problems for our consumers, but also helping these children.

I grew up in Sri Lanka.  I was a bit more exposed to poverty than my kids will probably ever be. And there’s some kids there who don’t even have a meal a day. It’s very sad, but I always wondered, like I always felt grateful to be born to the parents that I was born to. And,  I am grateful to be in this position. And I feel like I got lucky and, and I could well have been born to a family without means, and I could have been one of those children or my children could be one of those children. So I feel incredibly grateful to be in this position and to have obtained a world-class education and be given the opportunities I was given. And I feel like these kids just need opportunity. They need to be able to go to school. They need to eat. And that’s what Mary’s meals is solving. I was very glad to have come across Mary’s meals because something very high cents to the dollar goes to direct charitable activities.  As, as of right now, we’re not position where we’re funding projects, so we know exactly where the money went, but I have the confidence that it’s reaching these kids. So incredible, incredible organization. I’m so grateful to be able to give back.

Jennifer Chua: Your childhood in Sri Lanka, is there a moment in your life where you realize that you want to create change?

Melita Cyril: I think it was my 13th birthday andI went to an orphanage and I’d been visiting them quite a bit. And I decided that time to celebrate my birthday there. So I took cake to them. And I saw the, the pure joy in some of these kids’ faces and it just made me so, so happy that in the back of my mind, like I still remember that moment. So. Even when I started Q for Quinn, I knew I wanted to give back or do my part in some way. Cause I knew that’s what’s going to drive me in the end and I just couldn’t figure out what that would be because one of the things I also struggle with is just having that transparency of where the dollar is going and the best way to have the most impact.

That feeling in that moment and that gratification  from the joy that, just giving cake to these kids and they still had access to food. And I could just can’t imagine those kids who don’t even have access to the food. So, I think that changed me in that sort of made me realize that  I need to do something that’s what’s going to drive me when, when things get really hard. And it’s challenging being a business owner. It’s a lot of sacrifices, but just knowing that. Well, for every product that I sell, I’m actually making it back in a way that I’m feeding these kids. It just makes it so much more meaningful and drives me even more.

Jennifer Chua: So once you started Q for Quinn, can you remember a moment that you were just really proud and why were you proud by that moment?

Melita Cyril: I would say there’s been moments where I’ve been really proud.  The proud moments have been like reading my books to kids and seeing the kids read them on their own. That makes sense, really happy. Just kind of, kind of seeing that. But as I said before, like just counting the meals every month that we’re able to donate. That makes me happy and it keeps growing. So that makes me proud and happy.

Jennifer Chua: can you tell me about a moment when you looked around at Q for Quinn, what you have built and you said, Hey, this is going to work. Or people are interested in this concept.

Melita Cyril: I would say maybe sometime last year in the fall , when things started really picking up I would say yes, that is, but I would also say that I’m still, some days are a struggle.It’s not always like,  we were still growing and figuring out where to put ourselves forward to like from a marketing perspective. So I still have failures a lot. And so sometimes those failures make me question, am I doing something that people want, right. And if that’s the case, why aren’t they all lining up to buy? But, and that’s what, giving back through the school meals really helps me because I’m saying, you know what. Whatever happens. I can feel proud that I I’ve been able to donate these school meals through that, and then buildings an organization or a company that it’s is built on those values. And at some point people are going to start to recognize it on a larger scale I hope. It’s not just that I want them to recognize it, I think as long as see that positive change, that we’ve started to see more recently with a more conscious consumer, I would love that to keep continuing, because I think we all, as a society have a lot to do to make better choices in what we consume and how we consume.

I still don’t feel so confident from a business perspective. It Is hard, I would say. And it’s hard to like, like I mentioned before sometimes I feel like I have to really justify the price of our products and it’s not even a huge purchase in the grand scheme of things, in the sense that, our socks costs three pair pack cost $27. You could share the sizes as with siblings you could use for well over a year. And I feel like it’s sometimes still a struggle because. I get still sometimes get these complaint complaints of like, why is it so expensive or, and shipping is another reason for years is like, I won’t pay close to $10 for shipping. And I get that,  I’m hesitant as a consumer to pay, but as a small business, we don’t have a lot of negotiating power. Until we get to scale, we just won’t be able to reduce our shipping costs and every year it just keeps going up.  I always say, there’s no easier time to start a business. But it’s becoming very, very difficult to sustain a business these days.

Jennifer Chua: Is there anything else as consumers or business owners that we should take into consideration when we talk about those costs, is there anything else we should be thinking about that we’re not thinking about?

Melita Cyril: I wouldn’t say that there’s anything else that you’re not thinking about in terms of raising awareness of why, buying a most sustainable product is better or why it’s priced the way it is. Of course, like when I explained the whole externalities issues, like, I don’t think people understand it the same way. But they are starting to understand like the cost to humanity or the people making the clothes, just knowing where the clothes are coming from and who’s made them whether this amount of water or this amount of pollution was caused by the result of turning the plants into fabric and all of that.

I think it’s continuing to educate and whenever we see comments, public comments just, yeah being as transparent as possible and also taking the time to educate and write.

We do a fair bit of Facebook advertising and so we get these comments and I always go in there and I explain to somebody and I see other brands doing that as well. So I think the more brands continue to do that, and people see that consistent message. They. They start to understand, and we’re already seeing that shift, which is encouraging.

I think this is where like government and governments and standards play a role. We talked about b Corp before the Before the interview and, and having more standards like that and also having access to be certified. Hopefully those standards are able to advertise and put themselves in front of the end consumer so that those consumers can look for these standards in these brands, and that’s how they can differentiate between A brand that’s trying to do good by our society and by our environment and those that are not. This is not just the role of brands, but also the standards of the brand. So I think all parties that play have to play a role.  It is a challenge and I think everybody has the role to play the consumer, the brand, and also the standards and even our government, to be honest, too.

For example, with Azo dyes, which have been known to have carcinogenic materials they’re banned in the EU, but they’re still allowed in the USA and Canada. And so. So I think our government also has a role to play in all this

I just wanted to say that I’m encouraged, like part of what you’re doing, Jennifer, is educating the customer with this podcast or consumer with this podcast. So I’m grateful for people like yourself, who are playing the role to bring in more awareness to what’s in our clothing, what’s in our products. And not only what’s in them, but how it’s made, how the workers who are making it are treated. And so that we can start living with our decisions now that we know we can start making the right decisions and also being happy with the decisions we make and feel good about it. And not only for ourselves, but for our children.

Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Melita and her certified organic mismatch, double socks, visit Q four quinn.com. Looking to buy a pair through Mary’s meals and the one pair, one meal initiative. Melita has donated 28,000 meals. You can follow along with Melita on her mission to create comfortable and practical basics which are gentle for your skin and for the planet. On facebook at qforquinnshop or instagram at q.for.Quinn.

 

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Lisa Nguyen from Baubles + Soles. We explore the environmental costs of conventional footwear manufacturing. We Learn one of the first dinner’s out with her new baby inspired Lisa to design an interchangeable bauble to give her daughter’s shoes a new look with a twist, how Lisa’s early childhood as a refugee and career in law led her to build a purposeful business that supports children in the developing world, how a decade-old pair of drugstore flip flops led Lisa to find her manufacturing partner in the United States, and why she thinks that paying more for domestic manufacturing may be more cost-effective in the long run.

If you want to Learn more about Lisa and her sustainable, and adorable footwear for toddlers,  Visit baublesandsoles.com. Looking to buy a pair? Through the Heart + Soles fund, Lisa donates a part of the proceeds to support women and children vulnerable to trafficking in the developing world. You can follow along with Lisa on her mission to create shoes that are as practical and fashionable as they are sustainable, and to make momlife that much easier on Facebook  Instagram or twitter.

Links from this episode

• Baubles and Soles
• Video explaining the twist lock
• Shark tank recap on Inc. Magazine

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to cost of goods sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 06

 In today’s episode, we chat with Lisa Nguyen from Baubles + Soles. We explore the environmental costs of conventional footwear manufacturing. We learn how one of the first dinners out with her new baby inspired Lisa to design an interchangeable bauble to give her daughter shoes and new look with a twist. How Lisa’s early childhood as a refugee and a career in law led her to build a purposeful business, to support children in the developing world. How a decade old pair of drugstore flip flops led Lisa to find her manufacturing partner in the United States and why she thinks that paying more for domestic manufacturing, maybe more cost-effective in the long run.

 If you have a growing child in your home, you know that they may go through a dozen pair of shoes in a year.  Some shoes are for one purpose some are for for one occasion, and most are only worn a handful of times before little one outgrows them.  And while some footwear brands are exploring new materials and sustainability  until Baubles + Soles, no one had focused on the years where we change pairs most often.

 Founder, Lisa created a 100% recyclable and multipurpose toddler shoe  from an innovative material of sea salt and soy.  Less than 0.01% of shoes purchased in north America  are made in north America.  And the majority of shoes sold in north America are not recyclable.  Many that claim to be a really just shoe redistribution programs.  The shoes are collected and oftentimes shipped back overseas.  Baubles + Soles participates in a closed loop recycling.  With the intent to reduce the use of Virgin material  and to keep those old shoes from becoming environmental waste.  Each new pair is made with a percentage of recycled materials. They’re also low carbon footprint being manufactured domestically  and being animal free.  And with features like water resistance, they replace all of those single purpose shoes that are not suitable for both the playground and the party.

 I met Lisa on Instagram when my little one was still a toddler and she has worn these shoes in every size as she’s grown,  collecting the baubles and happily putting them on the next pair, as we size up,  baubles are attractive to kids. They’re rainbows, mermaids, unicorns, hearts, things like that.  And while I was drawn to Baubles + Soles for the sustainable nature of the shoes and the multi-purposeness. They have the added benefit of being really attractive to those looking for a high fashion shoe for their little one.

 And Lisa’s career path might surprise you. She went to law school. She spent some time as a lawyer.  And doing pro bono work in Southeast Asia.  She spent a lot of time in the nonprofit space and advocacy and worked in entertainment with the Vietnamese community as well as a television host. But immediately before Baubles + Soles, Lisa was a first time mom. Working on understanding and navigating new motherhood  and putting a lot of pressure on herself to go back to work immediately.  She was on a flight just three weeks after giving birth, crossing the country  and thinking about how she was going to make all of this work. 

And like many of the founders that I’ve met with for this project, having a child completely changed Lisa’s perspective,  and she began to look for something,  something that could make an impact on the world,  but also give her that freedom and flexibility to spend more time with her daughter.

Lisa Nguyen:  And I remember, putting a lot of pressure on myself to go back to work immediately.   That was definitely the catalyst for Baubles + Soles and it it just, yeah, my wheels, the wheels of my head, it was turning as I was looking for, how I can solve this conundrum of wanting to work and wanting to challenge myself professionally. But that at the same time, like not miss out on being in her life and seeing her every day and seeing all the milestones.

 Jennifer Chua: A couple months later on an evening out with her family, Lisa had the idea that would change everything.  It’s a great story. And I’m going to let her tell it.  Because Lisa is a really wonderful person with a huge heart, and she’s just brimming with optimism.  She’s incredibly determined. She’s creative and caring, and she’s really hopeful for the future. 

  Lisa Nguyen: I think everybody’s engineered for good and engineered for contribution. And, not only are we capable, I think it’s, it’s in our DNA. It’s just whether or not that part of us  is ignited by the people around us, by what’s happening now in our world. You know?  

Jennifer Chua: We’ve talked a lot about your past before and all of the wonderful things you’ve done in your career. To support social purpose really? Is there a moment that stands out in your mind where you can remember when you first became interested in doing this, like using your life to give back?

Lisa Nguyen: Growing up, I. I’ve always had a very strong sense of civic, duty like I think, even before I was academically excelling.  I was always an average student, but I would always be the kid that would like, if there’s a tap, like a bubbler in Australia, we call it a bubble, which is like a drinking station. If there was a tap that was like slightly like running, I would run over and close it. Or if there was a kid who was struggling, I’d always want to be that person to, to help that kid along. So I remember like in primary school I got the award for the. The citizenship award, I guess it’s the award where you help others. I was not expecting it. I had no idea how it happened. I was a wallflower, that was really interesting to actually think back about that. And I had forgotten about that actually. But, like I said, I think that the desire to contribute and to leave this world a slightly better place than, than how you found it. I think that it’s, in all of us. It’s just whether or not, we are mindful of it. And then whether or not we surround ourselves with people who like have these conversations and remind us all the time. Like when I speak to you, Jen, I’m, I feel inspired to like, like, Oh, gosh. Yeah, we gotta be thinking about that again. I think it’s, it’s there in all of us.

Jennifer Chua: Can you talk a little bit about your past in terms of your legal career, a brief overview of what you’ve done for people all over the world.

 Lisa Nguyen: I actually grew up in Australia. My mother and I left to Vietnam on a boat and we spent a week at sea. And then we went to Hong Kong where we lived in a refugee camp for three years. And so that  is definitely a defining part of me growing up, I think. And some of the, like my characteristics, I, I definitely have a very strong sense of survival because I think we’ve really had to vote for that. Then we immigrated to Australia, on a humanitarian visa and the Australian government took us in, I was eight at the time. And then I grew up in Australia.  I was never academic, but then I guess at one point, you have a couple of teachers who just really just change your life and make you believe that you can.  And I was hanging out with like really nerdy girls. So then all of a sudden being smart was really cool. And it was something that I’m like, okay, well, I could. Try this. So I tried to do really well at school and got into the best law school actually in Australia, Sydney university. And I was working in banking and finance litigation, I guess, immediately after I graduated and between my,  law degree and my master and I can definitely see that life and where it would go. But there definitely was a moment where I thought, gosh, life has to be more extraordinary than this. And I definitely remember a moment when, we were acting for the bank, the firm that I was working with and somebody was on the phone, I guess, the person whose house was up for sale because he defaulted on his mortgage. And I remember he was crying on the phone to me and I was, I had so much empathy for him, but then the clock was also ticking because that those were billable hours and I had to, like, it had to continue. And I just, and in the end he would have to pay for that. Like once the bank takes his house and sells that he pays for those hours. Right. And so I just.  It really went against, what I, what I felt like I wanted in my life. I, just wanted something just a little bit more humane.

I was fired at the first firm and then the second firm that I was at it was really great, but then I kind of asked them if I could just go away for four full months. I think I asked at the time, and the partner, he said, yes. And he said, come back, you always have your job here. And then I went and then I never came back. So I went to the Philippines where we did pro bono legal work for refugees and stateless people that like very similar to my mother and I were, I think they just came a little bit later on and they miss, a deadline to enable them the resettlement. So I was there, what turned out four months turned out to be over a year. And then I was offered the job as executive director of that organization in Washington, DC, and hence the move to DC.

Jennifer Chua: And why does sustainability matter to you? Do you have any experiences that shaped you in terms of sustainability?

Lisa Nguyen: I think growing up in like on an Island, like Australia, it’s the smallest continent, but largest Island. I think that we we were ingrained us children to be very mindful about the environment. It’s definitely it, I think in Canada, it’s the same, the emphasis on sustainability was huge in Australia.

We were encouraged to not buy bottled water. Because Sydney tap water is good enough to bottle. That was the slogan of the ads. We were taught to really just be mindful of the environment. And so  I grew up with that mentality. And I knew when when Baubles + Soles came up, I knew we had to do something that was better than what is currently available right now.  If you’re going to bring a new product to market, like, how is it better than the competitors? Like, what are your convictions like?  Why you, the new guy, and not somebody who’s being around, with a lot of marketing budget behind them. At the same time, it was also like, I, was making this pair of shoe for my baby girl. So it better damn be the best possible pair of shoes I could make for her because she deserves it. So that was kind of, sustainability for me. Like I, that had to be a part of this product.

Jennifer Chua: Can you tell me the story of coming up with the idea for Baubles + Soles and moving this idea forward into an actual business?

Lisa Nguyen: It happened on the 30th of September. 2016. And we were heading out to dinner. When your new parents dinner is at 5:00 PM, so it could have been happy hour, but you know, dinner, it was and Kaia was nine months at the time, 10 months. She had this pair of shoes and it had like a big red hot on it. It was a gift from a friend and I, and that was the only pair of shoes she had at the time.  I didn’t want to buy more because I knew that she was going to grow out of it like immediately. But then like there was this pair of shoes that she’s wearing every single day of all the time. And it’s so recognizable because this heart is so huge.. And I remember looking at her shoes and thinking, gosh, I wish I could just take that heart off and like put on another animal or I do something else so that it doesn’t look like she has the same pair of shoes. But at the same time, it would go with all of her outfits and that was it. Like it came to us very quickly. The drive to dinner was only about 10 minutes. And in that 10 minutes I was talking to my husband and I was like, gosh, you know what, this is what we’re going to do. Like that’s how it’s going to be done. The reason why I remember the date so clearly is because I took a photo of the, all of our shoes that day. When we arrived at the restaurant, I took a photos of her shoes, my shoe, and my husband’s shoe together. And I said, I want to remember this day because  I think it’s so special and exciting. That was when the idea kind of first came to mind and it took a couple of months to set everything in place, just, flushing out the ideas, looking at how we can make the shoes, looking at how to design the Twistlock. It took me 18 months before it launched to market. Like it took a long time to, to come up with the prototypes. I could definitely go into the whole story about the R and D for the brand, but , that’s basically what happened when we, I came up with the idea.

Jennifer Chua: Can you walk us through how you’re different from other shoe companies?

Lisa Nguyen: Firstly, we are sustainably, made in America. It’s made off a bio-based material that is predominantly soy as in soy milk and salt. And so therefore it’s extremely soft and mushy and it’s machine washable. They get really dirty these shoes and you can throw them in the wash with your clothes and they come out brand new, which I love. I love that. Especially as a mother. We don’t realize that you can’t just throw any pair of shoes in the wash because some shoes that are plastic, for example, will melt and and some just don’t come out looking the same. Our shoes are machine washable, which I think, in light of hygiene and everything that’s going on in the world, I think that’s a great thing. Of course, when you have kids, that’s very important.

And then finally, it is interchangeable in the sense that you can change out the top, the decoration on top to go with different outfits and occasions. So you can take it off and just wear the shoes on its own and be at the playground and get it dirty and everything is fine. And then you can wash it and pop on a bauble and take her shopping. Or if you’re going to a wedding, then put on a pom pom and she’s going to look so cute. I also wanted to focus very much on the experience.   We made the box so that they could be reusable and, everything is definitely being thought of. And we’re always improving and there there’s always things that we want to do better, but. It’s the shoes with hearts and there are two hearts on the shoes. It comes with already a pair of heart baubles so,  it’s a nod to the original shoe that inspired the brand. I think we put a lot of heart into the making of it.

Jennifer Chua: Often people refer to Baubles + Soles as a minimalist shoe because they are so multi-purpose like they’re water shoe, a dress-up shoe, a daycare shoe, a play shoe they’re a number of things in one.  Which one of these things was the most important to you? The multipurposeness, the social good, which we have to get into still, or the sustainable materials? Recyclability. What, what was your focus in the beginning?

Lisa Nguyen: Some of those things. Overlap with each other. So for me, I think it’s, and a very smart person once told me, but it’s just one shoe from playground to party. And that would be you, Jenn, we trademarked that. And so I think that  that’s the most important element of the shoe is that it’s just the one shoe that goes from playground to party. But because of that one shoe, you are not leaving 10 pairs of shoes in landfill, which then speaks to the sustainability. And then that also speaks to the multi-purpose of the shoe, the ability to use it for different occasions. So I think that that’s probably the defining thing about the brand.

We had another slogan, it was one shoe, endless possibilities, but really it’s playground to party, really like it summarizes up this brand so beautifully and it speaks to the interchangeability, it speaks to the sustainability. And then it also speaks to the playfulness of being a child. Like when you’re a kid, I mean, what are your memories? Like it’s going to be at the playground or going to see your friends for play dates. At least that’s what we hope for our children. Right. And so, yeah, it just encapsulates the brand beautifully.

Jennifer Chua: So if someone has managed to destroy a pair of Baubles + Soles, and they want to send them into be recycled, how does that work?

Lisa Nguyen: We do have a a program whereby we can take back old shoes. And actually if they’re, completely destroyed and there’s no way to repurpose them, then they can be grinded down and made into new shoes. In fact, I want to say that each pair of shoes uses either 25 or 75% of like old material and new material is only is like a proportion of it. I certainly didn’t engineer all of that. We were very lucky to partner with a factory in America that does that. But it is so perfect and we feel so grateful.

Jennifer Chua: As a mother, I do know how many pairs of shoes a child goes through per size, of course, but also per occasion. So I really do appreciate that Baubles + Soles, at least in my case, or in our case here at home were placed like six pairs of shoes at once. So I just love that so much. With conventional footwear for children. Why are our shoe buying habits so problematic?

Lisa Nguyen: Everybody loves shoes. It’s just one of those things,  we love our shoes, especially if you’re a woman it’s in your DNA. I don’t know. But I think the problem that we are solving is that, especially when they’re growing so fast and they’re changing so much, you don’t need 10 pairs of shoes of a size five, and then then 10 pairs of shoes in a size six three months later. You really absolutely don’t and they don’t need it. And I think that people need to be mindful that, these shoes that we buy, then they grow out of so quickly, like that, that will eventually end up in landfill, where it will sit there for thousands of years. 

I have seen images of, of like shoes in landfill, as we were doing some research for the company and we never participate in that kind of marketing, like the guilt marketing, it’s just not the way that I’m engineered. I don’t like to kind of make too many references to that and then, but focus on, what it offers like the good things. However, I do think that if we do see If we do see the shoes in landfill, I think that we would think twice and it is just about mindfulness.

Jennifer Chua: Your shoes are made domestically, they’re made in the United States. How many companies are doing that? Like how, why are shoes not made domestically more often? Why are we always going overseas?

Lisa Nguyen: well, so like 0.01% of shoes are still made in America. Of shoes that have purchased in America, and with children’s shoes, it’s even less than that. Obviously it’s a cost. It’s a cost factor for sure. We could have chosen a different route, which would have made that like our cost of goods sold a lot less. But then at the end of the day, I think that it’s this like, well, do you add the human factor to that cost of goods sold when you’re,  doing your spreadsheet of numbers?

Our shoes is a one-piece construction and it’s great. The buckles and the Velcros don’t fall off. But unfortunately there is a downside to that. Like when a child has like slightly chubbier feet, it’s a little bit harder to get into the shoe, but so the reason why we made it a one-piece construction is because the shoe is not handmade because if it’s hand made in America it’s going to be really hard cost-wise.  I invested in tooling for the shoes and so it’s injection molded. So when only a machine is injection molding, then the cost goes down dramatically for us. Adding Velcro or buckles, the cost would have been exorbitant and we wouldn’t have been able to do it, but when we’re talking about like made in America, like some of the things that we’ve had to do to to cut costs, they are also perks to it, but you know, there were also some downsides.

Jennifer Chua: I’d like to talk a little bit more about your manufacturing, because it’s something that people ask me about all the time and I don’t have the information because I’m not actually manufacturing anything. Can you tell me the story about how you managed to find a manufacturing partner in the United States?

Lisa Nguyen: Sure. So when I was living in DC and working for a nonprofit, I remember going to CVS, CVS. Yes. And I found these flip-flops and they were made in America and they were machine washable and they were the right price. And I was like, wow, this is fantastic. So I would wear this flip-flop everywhere. And I still have photos of me during those years. And it’s like, I’m always in those flip-flops like everywhere with everything like fancy dresses, just yoga clothes, like all the time. And I would buy the shoes for my like friends. For my parents back in Australia for my sister and then my boyfriend at the time who now is my husband, thankfully. I would always gift the shoe. And so when the opportunity came to make the shoe in America, they came to mind, for sure. So I just cold called them. I called, I Googled the factory and I called them and immediately they were like, yes, we do private manufacturing and private labeling. And that was kind of like the beginning of that journey. I mean, they do not always take on startups, so it took a lot of persuasion and follow-ups to have them give us a chance. But I was very lucky because the president of the brand the factory, she at the time had a four year old. So she knew what we were doing. And because of her, it was really the reason why we landed on the manufacturing relationship. Everything great that’s ever happened to this company. It’s been because the person on the other side of the line had a young daughter in our age range at the time.

Jennifer Chua: And they saw the value.

Lisa Nguyen: Yes.

Jennifer Chua: Are there any benefits other than carbon footprint and the local economy to manufacturing in the United States, like in terms of holding stock or lead time.

Lisa Nguyen: Yeah. So exactly. When you talk about margins, the effective margins of a brand like ours is actually even is better than, than if we had had it imported because you’re not losing, a month at sea, import export. You are not losing a very long turnaround time for the shoes when they’re made here in America, I could place an order and have a very big batch made like within a week. My cost of goods sold for the money that is kind of sitting in inventory is not sitting at sea. It’s not sitting, in customs. So, yes, there are some really fantastic benefits. And I know in our media kit, like we talk about like how much diesel we save from not having these shoes ship in from, from overseas. So, all of those things are amazing. And another thing is the material is also a US patented US made material, the bio based material that’s being certified by USDA. So like all of those things, I think just make the shoes so special and, it’s, it’s near and dear to my heart for sure.

Jennifer Chua: As conscious small business owners, a lot of us have been trying to create systems and products that help create less waste and your shoes are truly minimalist and have done so, and one of the things that I would like to mention is that they’re vegan. So in terms of sustainability, they’re not made with animal byproducts, which I think to a lot of people is important as well.

Lisa Nguyen: That is absolutely right. In fact, my sister-in-law she’s vegan and raising her children vegan. I was a vegetarian for a very long time. I’m not anymore, unfortunately, but one day we’ll go back there. But yes, the shoes are vegan which you know more about the products than I do.

Jennifer Chua: If we want to make an impact, we can do so in a number of different ways. And I just love that your products tick so many of those boxes that people would be interested in. So someone that maybe isn’t as concerned about, what your giving back program may be more concerned about like vegan materials. So that’s, that’s wonderful.

Lisa Nguyen: I think it’s just about being very intentional with what you’re bringing into the world. And, and my thing is always, if it can be better than what’s out there right now. Because of this point or because of something else that you trying to put into your product, I think that that’s the world needs more kindness and love, right? So then it just needs more people making products with kindness and love  and understanding what’s out there and understanding what, what else they can do to make the current status quo better.

Jennifer Chua: I wanted to talk about your big dream in the beginning days. Do you remember, or could you tell me about the first thing that you were really proud of and why

Lisa Nguyen: Oh, no, I think that first day when we came up with the idea, it came really quickly. So that was lovely. I certainly like when I was telling my close friend about the idea and I was like explaining what it would be and what it would like do. And then I was like, and it’s going to be called Baubles + Soles and she was like, I still remember her reaction to that. And then another friend was like, Oh my God, you’ve hit your million dollar idea, but I think it’s, it’s that response to this concept  at the beginning, that was really exciting. Obviously, the realities of being in the footwear industry  is harder than those initial days of dreaming. And, obviously we dreamt about being on Shark Tank because when you come up with an idea for a product  that’s what you want to be. But for me, the proudest I think I am most proud of executing the product of my dream.

This is the idea, and this is the thing that we want it to be. And then to make it a reality, that’s probably my greatest joy and achievement as I think about the brand. And as, as I think about the amount of time that I’ve invested in it, I think that there are some exciting things on the horizons, but yeah. It’s, it’s definitely been a great joy  and a huge sense of pride.

Jennifer Chua: And you have had some big wins, like you’re in countries. Countries all over the world.

Lisa Nguyen: Yes, there are some big wins. And then obviously to be able to be on Shark Tank with my family, I, I couldn’t bring out seven month old at the time. Cause that would have been just like absolutely disastrous. But, my Kaia,  the one that inspired the shoe, she was there with us in the tank and then to be in there with my husband and to take him along on this ride, it was great. And then the fact that we walked out of there with a deal when we almost did not like that was all, like, I am so grateful. And I think that all of this happened for us, just, I think it’s because of the karma and the Goodwill that we’re trying to put out there in the community. I mean, it’s not always easy fighting the good battle and trying to be, quote unquote, good. Sometimes, it, it sometimes feels like it’s easier to do the easy thing. But I think with Baubles + Soles, we’ve tried very hard to do the right things and, we’ve had some really great wins.

Jennifer Chua: Are there any other ways that you use Baubles + Soles to affect social change?

Lisa Nguyen: We do make a donation of our profit back to a charity. That’s not something that I like to talk overly about just because I feel like that shouldn’t be the reason why people buy the brand. That’s not the marketing message for us over here for us. It’s about the sustainability and about the one shoe from playground to party and then anything else that we do above and on top of that is, it’s, it’s something that we do within our family. Oh, and you can match with your little girl, we have a partnership. So then there are these mommy and me shoes. How cute is that?

Jennifer Chua: From the beginning built into this business, it looks like giving back was always going to be a part of Baubles + Soles. I was just wondering if you wanted to comment on the heart and souls fund.

Lisa Nguyen: We, make a donation to a charity that educates children. I have always been involved with the education of children. I know that sounds so fru fruit, but, Senhoa is a charity that I helped found it and it’s still very close to my heart. It’s something that we still work on as with my board of directors. And so we do donate a percentage of our profits, to Senhoa In our efforts to educate children who are at risk of sexual abuse and human trafficking.

Jennifer Chua: I think that’s a really big problem that people don’t understand. And I applaud you so much for giving back in that area.

In your journey through Baubles + Soles, have you encountered any really big challenges that were like huge learning lessons for you?

Lisa Nguyen: When we came up with the idea we were looking for Like an engineer, a designer, an industrial designer to help us with it. And we met a person who I guess. We were going to hire him to do the design of the Twistlock. But he was so enamored by the idea that he wanted to be an investor, turned into an investor. Looking back, I think that it would have been much easier had we just paid for him to design the shoe just because, getting an idea from idea to execution. It’s, it’s a lot of hard work and there’s a lot of , Falling down before you stand up. It was very difficult those early days of trying to get the project off the ground.

I think the message definitely is like, believe that you can, don’t think that anybody else is going to be the answer to your problem. No, that you can, with enough determination. The learning lesson there definitely is that, you can, and you will, and like there’s no Knight in shining armor coming to rescue you. You are your knight in shining armour.

Jennifer Chua: Was there ever a point in building Baubles + Soles where you didn’t feel so confident about this? Like, was there ever a point when you felt really differently?

Lisa Nguyen: Yes for sure. I mean, there would definitely that’s when you were like, okay, we had never going to be able to engineer this. Twistlock like, it’s never going to happen. And I think Jen, you also witnessed a lot of the early stages of that, when we did make it happen, but it was just a lot of back and forth about, about getting this product right. I feel like we are definitely there now where like, we’re at a point where, okay, it’s right. But for a long time, there that was a challenge because we needed this mechanism to be cheap enough to produce so that we can price it accordingly. I didn’t want the baubles to cost as much as a new pair of shoes that would go against the purpose of this company. It needed to be affordable so that you can pick up a few baubles and then just use that one pair of shoes. But then at the same time, it was like, it needs to have the clearance so that it’s not so high. So the bauble doesn’t sit so high from the shoe. And then it needed not be dangerous for the kids.

So for example, everybody’s like, have you ever used magnets? Yes, we have thought about magnets, but what, if that magnet detaches from the shoe and a baby eats that, it was just, it wasn’t a risk that we were willing to take. So yes, there was definitely a time when we were like, we had never going to be able to make this happen.

Jennifer Chua: Could you just give me a little bit more insight into what the Twistlock is? Just in case someone doesn’t understand.

Lisa Nguyen: The baubles, the decoration on top, is attached to the shoes using a push and twist lock mechanism. So very similar to a medicine cap. Basically, it’s got a rubber spring for you to push down and then you twist it into place. And then it goes into a cavity that then locks it into place.

We actually just got the patent issued, which is awesome. And that’s how you detach and attach a bauble to the shoe. That took a long time to design and get right. And luckily we had another engineer who’s Canadian who helped us with the final prototype and he actually helped us in a friend capacity. And I always say to myself, one day when I sell this company, I need to make sure that I compensate him and give him a percentage of it, because like, he was very much instrumental in helping us realize this dream of a Twistlock.

Jennifer Chua: So oftentimes speaking with the owners of product based businesses, I hear that they feel that it’s going to be cost prohibitive to manufacture domestically or manufacture close to home. And while definitely the costs are going to be different. If you choose to manufacture somewhere like China, there has to be other considerations taken into place as well. I was wondering if you could speak to things that you’ve learned from choosing the American manufacturing over Asia.

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 Chua: And I wanted to bring this up because of other small business owners that may be listening to this, to take that into consideration because if you have 50,000 units made or this massive amount of product made overseas and they’re shipped here and then they’re sitting in a warehouse they’re defective or degrading or not selling, and you have to dispose of them that needs to be taken into consideration as well. Like what’s going to happen to your goods that aren’t selling financially or otherwise. Like, what are those costs?

Lisa Nguyen: Without, feeling like this is bashing off shore produced products, I do know that you need to build in a certain amount of RMAs, like defective Products in your cost of goods sold when you are looking at products that are produced off shore. I mean, We have RMAs for the shoes too. For example, if the injection molding, like if it just didn’t run through the cavity properly, but I can tell you that percentage of that is like, I like a fraction of some of the RMA issues that we experienced with the parts of our products that are made overseas.  It’s just a reality of, mass manufacturing. To the extent that it is when it’s done off shore, you don’t have as tight of a quality control. And like, by the time it reaches America, it’s like, well, there’s no recourse for you really. You’ve already spent that money, and it’s, definitely . Something to keep in mind.

Jennifer Chua: Some really fabulous publications have featured Baubles + Soles, and everybody is focusing on you and your spirit of never giving up, which is amazing.   But I had noticed that in the Shark Tank episode, when I watched it, they did not mention the sustainability or recyclability of your product. Do you know why they made that choice?

Lisa Nguyen: We were in the tank for, I believe an hour and a lot of things were discussed during that time. I actually wanted to spend some of that air time talking about postpartum depression and bringing just a little bit of light to that because I did struggle for a little bit there after I had my first baby girl with just my identity and like, who am I? And I’m this different person from, I was before, but then I also wanted to do the things that I was doing before. So it was like definitely going through an interesting period. And I, I spoke about that in the tank that I had hoped would be picked up in the final edit. In the end, it was eight minutes, that they took of the one hour that we were in the tank. And we definitely talked about sustainability. I think though, my episode, the spirit of never giving up was probably strongest of all the things that was discussed when we were in the tank. And so that was what they really focused on when we were there. We spent a lot of time. We talked about my past. We talked about like living in a refugee camp. They were really interested in that. We talked about, my grandfather and how he shaped, a lot of things that were talked about. And They, in the end there was just a time. And I think that the, the Shark Tank message is obviously the unwavering spirit of an entrepreneur.

And what came out of our episode just fits that messaging so perfectly. So that was what was in the end, the final edit not to say that, that they don’t care about sustainability, I know, obviously people feel differently about Shark Tank and especially those who have been on.  I loved the experience and every single minute of it, I am so grateful and like it’s definitely a claim to fame for my husband and my little daughter. She got her first paycheck at a Shark Tank because they had to pay all of the extras. So she had like, I dunno, a hundred dollars or something for her time. It’s it was an incredible journey for us. And honestly, if you get to work with the producers, you’ll find that they are definitely there for the American dream for the entrepreneur. And it’s very obvious  when, when you’re working with the producers and when you meet the sharks, Like, they’re actually not that as scary in-person as the editing makes it out to be. I have to tell you it’s, I mean, that’s drama for TV, but they’re actually honestly quite nice. I mean, we experienced obviously rejections when we were in the tank, but they were generally overall very nice to us. So we had an we were very grateful for the journey and the experience.

Jennifer Chua: Getting a business off the ground and getting it to the level where you’re now, you won’t be able to do that on your own and well, I’m sure that you’ve had blood, sweat, tears, DIY in your journey. I was wondering what you chose to outsource who you brought in initially, or where you found the support that it took to move your business to the next level.

Lisa Nguyen: I think that when it comes to making things like tooling and, and. Like extremely technical things like assets that you really have to invest in that I think it’s best to go to the the experts in their field to do that. Other than that I think that you are capable of anything that you put your mind to. So there are now a million outsource Outlets or platforms, that you can really find people to help you with areas that are not your expertise.  But what I think is important to realize is that you are in the driver’s seat. You, are the answer you’ve been waiting for. As long as you have the determination and the will to execute on your idea. Then there are tons of resources out there, not crazily expensive, like an Upwork or Fiverr that can help you, cover areas where maybe you don’t have skill sets.

What is something that the world needs more of and what is something that the world needs less of?

Oh, goodness. I mean, this is just setting me up for giving you that world peace answer. I mean, how can you not, but honestly,  you know, definitely love and kindness. I just feel like if we just put out into the world, the energy of more love and more kindness. That’s definitely going to just move the world in the right direction. What does the world need? Less of? I think it’s negativity. I’m sick of the negativity. I think that the message, there are two, the first is, always inspire towards good, aim for good, and for kindness, and for better than what is currently existing. And then the second is that you are the answer like you are it, and you are enough. You are the person who’s going to make that happen. And if you have the will and the determination, then you will.

Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Lisa and her sustainable and adorable footwear for toddlers, visit baublesandsoles.com.  Looking to buy a pair?  Through the heart + souls fund.  Lisa donates a part of proceeds to support women and children vulnerable to trafficking in the developing world.  You can follow along with Lisa on her mission to create shoes that are as practical and fashionable  as they are sustainable  and to make #momlife that much easier  on Facebook at baublesandsolesUSA  or Instagram and Twitter at baublesandsoles. 

 

 

 

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Kimberlee West, from Kids Swag. Kids Swag is a brand built on the idea of mindful representation. We learn what she looks for when sourcing products for her shop. About the social cost to conventional toy curation and the lasting effects of not seeing yourself represented in the toy aisle, how you can diversify your playroom and why diversity, empathy, and inclusion need to be carefully considered in the product design phase.

Kid swag is an e-commerce store dedicated to helping raise confident kids. Confident kids that appreciate difference. The founder of Kids Swag is Kimberlee West an intentional curator. Her e-commerce shop is stocked with accessory items, toys, things like that, that are reflective of the diversity that we have in our world.

if you want to learn more about Kimberlee, Mindful Representation, or to pick up a gift for a confident kid in your life, visit KidsSwag.ca. You can follow along with Kimberlee on her mission to help parents raise confident kids that appreciate difference on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @kidswagco

Links from this episode

• Bigotry Encoded: Racial Bias in Technology

Episode Transcript

Jennifer Chua: Hello, everyone. And welcome. You’re listening to Cost Of Goods Sold with Jennifer Myers Chua episode 03.

In today’s episode, we chat with Kimberlee West, from Kids Swag. Kids Swag is a brand built on the idea of mindful representation. We learn what she looks for when sourcing products for her shop. About the social cost to conventional toy curation and the lasting effects of not seeing yourself represented in the toy aisle, how you can diversify your playroom and why diversity, empathy, and inclusion need to be carefully considered in the product design phase.

Kid swag is an e-commerce store dedicated to helping raise confident kids. Confident kids that appreciate difference. The founder of Kids Swag is Kimberlee West an intentional curator. Her e-commerce shop is stocked with accessory items, toys, things like that, that are reflective of the diversity that we have in our world.

Kimberlee grew up in Canada. She’s first-generation Canadian, like many of us here in Toronto. Her parents immigrated from Jamaica. And it was an opportunity to study in Jamaica that led Kimberlee down the path to building the business. (But more on that later.)

Kimberlee’s very honest about how difficult building a business can be, how draining it can be when times are tough, but also how deeply rewarding it can be knowing that impact that you can make on your community. Kimberlee gets emails from her customers that validate everything that she’s done to build Kids Swag. One mother of a black son found Kimberlee’s shop after her son kept trying to scrub off his skin because he didn’t want to be dark anymore. It’s heartbreaking.

The mother told Kimberlee that she had to become very intentional in what she bought for her son and how Kids Swag had helped her with this process. She’s even now more mindful about ensuring that her son is comfortable being who he is and letting him know that he is beautiful and loved. The goal of Kids Swag is to be a resource to help Kimberlee’s customers raise confident kids that love themselves and appreciate difference. So she was particularly moved by this moment.

Kimberlee West: And it was amazing to be a part of that. Cause she was like, I didn’t even realize that I had to take an active role. I took for granted that he’s black and he lives in a black environment that he should just love himself. And like moments like that, I’m like, all right, there’s a reason I’m here.

Jennifer Chua:  Everything in this store is about representation, but there’s this other piece about inclusion that’s sometimes missed. Kimberlee has been so intentional with the products that she sourced.  And while some of the products stand out as favorites, she feels that the most important product in the store are the Swimma caps. They are allowing a lot of young girls and adult women of black descent with a certain hair texture to get into the pool.  Honestly as a white woman it’s something that i never consider.

Kimberlee West: One thing culturally is that there’s a lot of black women who do not swim because one, their hair doesn’t fit in a standard. Swim cap, but two, the chlorine is very damaging to their hair. And so then it feels like this entire experience of having to worry about hair that you then say, you know what? I don’t want to learn how to swim. And then you are not enjoying the full gamut of all the things that you can do. Surfing, canoeing, kayaking, because of the fear, what will happen to your hair. And so that one to me holds a special spot because even my girls and I wear it and being able to get out to the water and not feeling limited to this idea of, let me just put my feet in. I think that’s really important

 Jennifer Chua: Five years ago, Kimberlee was on maternity leave. She had just had her second daughter. And faced with returning to work in the commercial real estate world. Kimberlee was feeling unfulfilled. But more than that really? She was incredibly sad. She had a good job. She was leading a team, but she felt like something was missing. She didn’t have the freedom to focus on her own goals and her own life. And after spending time at home with her children, Kimberlee had the space to reflect.

Kimberlee West: Life before Kids Swag was me trying to check boxes and doing all the things that seem like you’re supposed to do, like get married, have kids, have a good job, et cetera. And with Kids Swag, it was me really saying, you know what’s actually meaningful and important to me. And what type of change can I hope to try to drive through the work that I do?

Jennifer Chua: I had the chance to meet Kimberlee when she was starting this business. And it’s been incredible to watch Kids Swag grow. The business was built on one clear core principle that guides all of Kimberlee’s decisions and she has a vision, she’s on important mission and she knows how important this work is to our world.

 Kimberlee West:  The world needs more  listening, like actually taking the time to understand, hear other people’s narratives, their stories, their perspectives, and trying to process it through a lens of not all of my past experiences, but really what’s a new way of looking at the world. What  we need less of is this  knee jerk reaction of just wanting to judge. There’s a lot of times where the first step is really understanding.

I remember coming across a quote that I live by and it’s like, it’s not that you necessarily don’t like someone it’s that you haven’t gotten to know them yet. And I was like, Oh that’s fair because you probably had this initial reaction based on past experiences, how that person looks, the context that they’re within, that you assume that they’re going to be someone that you don’t like, or that you won’t get along with, and then as you start to learn more about them and just see them as the individual, you realize, Oh, that’s interesting. And now you’re so much better off because of it.

Jennifer Chua:  Kids Swag is focused on representation. Do you have a moment that stands out in your mind when you decided that you wanted to focus on that?

Kimberlee West:  So many, there’s so many moments. My background, I, I am from Jamaican immigrants. So identify as being black.  Growing up in Canada. It was very. Few and far between that, I saw myself in any sort of professional and just socially structural environment that was positive. If I watched the news, it was negative. The way that I got some positivity was being Jamaican and of Caribbean culture. There were times through just music, food, family gatherings, and that was the positive images that I was seeing. But overall there is this feeling of being othered and not good enough and not belonging to the Canadian identity.

I had the opportunity in university to do an exchange program. I actually chose to go to Hong Kong, but my sister, my older sister was planning to study law and she was going to Jamaica and she was like, wouldn’t it be cool if we were both in Jamaica? And I was like, Oh, that would be cool. So I was like, all right,  I’ll make to make a first preference. If it doesn’t work out, then I’m going to China. And that’s fantastic. It worked out and studying in Jamaica was transformational when it comes to representation because all of my fellow classmates were black. All of my teachers were black. I studied political science. They brought in special speakers. So the politicians that came in to speak were black and they were all phenomenally well-spoken educated, their perspective, how they carried themselves. It was just all so foreign to me because I had grown up in the world where that was considered. Almost non-existent and if it did exist, it was the exception to the rule of what it actually meant to be black. When I was in Jamaica, I no longer was black. Really. I was Canadian. I was Kimberlee, I was that girl that likes to dance, but I wasn’t identified just based on the fact of my skin tone. And that was exhilarating and freeing and completely changed the way that I show up in the world and have so much more confidence in who I am.

A pivotal moment in my development when I was then pregnant with my first. And this is in 2011. And really excited to start her toy and book collection. I went to my favorite store, which is Chapters Indigo. They’ve made a lot of progress since then. And I couldn’t find anything. So the only books that I could find in the kid’s section were about Martin Luther King and slavery. And I was like, I’m going to be reading this book to my zero month old. I don’t need them to be brought down by this idea that this is the only narrative when it comes to being Black. I just wanted books of little girls or boys going to the park, going to school, just doing regular things. And so that put me on the trajectory of knowing that I was going to have to be very intentional of finding products for my daughter and now daughters. It was really through friends and family that said, well, you’ve already done the work you’re already doing this naturally. Why wouldn’t you turn that into a business? And I was like, that’s not a business. I’m like, that’s like a service I can, like, I can throw something together and just make it easy. And then low and behold, it’s a business and people are really just personally touched by the idea that the story exists, that I’ve made it easy.

And for me, it wasn’t about, I need to create a bunch of products. It was really the discovery piece. I wanted it to make it that much easier for parents to be able to discover. There’s an amazing assortment of brands out there that are dedicated to this idea of representation of all types. It’s just that the mainstream store is not making it the easiest for you to access. I’m going to try to make it easy for you.

Jennifer Chua:  that’s amazing. I’m glad you took on this work seriously.

Kimberlee West:  I appreciate that.

Jennifer Chua:  I seem to think based on what you’re talking about right now, that you’ve always been the kind of person who is interested in creating change. Is that correct?

Kimberlee West:  It’s always that piece. And I think we’ve all heard the quote be the change that you want to see. And so it’s that feeling of if there’s a problem and that, I think this is also my Caribbean upbringing and having parents that were just like, and like, why can’t you figure it out? So I think, and in a positive way, so it was always that feeling of like, if there’s a struggle or a problem, there’s no reason because of your age or whatever limitation you might have in your mind, why you can’t have some positive effect on it.

Jennifer Chua:  So you had this idea and then what happened?

Kimberlee West:  So I think this is like the funny part because my background was in marketing, but I didn’t really consider myself a marketer, especially not in this world of digital marketing of like Instagram and all of that type of stuff. And so in the early days of starting the company, I knew some very minimal basics where I was like, well, I need to create a website. And then I should have probably create an Instagram account. I didn’t even have an Instagram account. I even a personal one at this point. It’s like, I think I should do that. And then I was like, do I need a store? Like it was like, it was honestly this feeling of I’m on mat leave. I’m trying to be a good mother to my two girls and manage all of that. I was also looking for a full-time job. So as I mentioned, I came from the commercial area, commercial real estate space, realizing that it was just draining on my soul. And I could not go back into that industry,  the industry itself was just draining. And I knew I couldn’t exist in that space positively.

And so I was trying to make a huge career shift and say,  I knew through a couple of reasons that I wanted to work in the tech space. So I was going through a lot of work, just trying to interview and find the right jobs and coffee dates and all this type of stuff. And at the same time, and my husband always thinks that I’m crazy and continues to this day.

I was like, I should start a business. And so the early days was starting as small as I could.  I ordered a bunch of shirts from a printer. They didn’t really come out that great. I ordered some stickers. So I used just artist’s work that I found on Etsy that I felt was good for what the store is going to be about. I was like, all right, I’m going to use that type of character on these different products. Because the products I had found up until this point, weren’t the full assortment. Like when I think about Kids Swag and why I created it, it’s because. For the most part, it was becoming easier to find children’s books that had different black, Indian, Chinese characters. It was really hard to find accessory type items since the term “Swag” that had representation.

When I had my daughter, and I was on mat leave, she was nine months. The older one was four years old. The older one was starting to feel that she wanted to have blonde hair, blue eyes.

That was becoming her sense of what beauty was. And it made me kind of question, what am I doing wrong? Because as I mentioned, I was trying to be intentional representation. But when I looked around the house, I realized the little art table that she had, the curtains, the bedding, the backpack, like all of the other stuff that you don’t really think about, all had Disney characters that were giving her a OneNote sense of what it meant to be beautiful. And so I was realizing that as much as I read books with her every day, the accessory items and those everyday items that children actually interact with when it comes to this building, their own cognitive skills, building, their sense of understanding of the world also needed to be representative.

So like in the early days it was just small things, like little activity books or notebooks and things like that. And I wanted it to be stuff like t-shirts cause you wear that to school. I wanted it to be items like backpacks and lunch bags. I did actually find some of that, which was good. But I was really thinking about what are all the ways that I could find items.

And if I couldn’t find them create items to try to set up this store because the main message I wanted to have come across, and that was really hard was that it wasn’t about any one product in the store. It was the idea of here’s this almost. Guide get started kit on how to ensure that you’re changing your mindset around the different types of items. And so whether you buy a t-shirt or you buy a backpack, that’s one step towards you now thinking more intentionally about having representation in your overall world. Of course you want to embrace a lot of cool storylines and characters, but then you have to try to figure out how to balance it.

Jennifer Chua:  So how are you different from other retailers that are curating children’s products?

Kimberlee West:  I would say the biggest thing for me is one working with small business owners, small creators, but looking for people that are, really intentional. The first thought in their business was I’m creating this particular product line, be it jewelry box swim cap, et cetera, because I acknowledge that there is a pain when it comes to kids not seeing themselves. And so when it came to curating, that’s what I was looking for. The first part of it was of course, black representation, knowing how important that was going to be for my girls to see themselves and for them to have this expanded view of wait a minute, Yes, I’m interested in hockey, but it doesn’t mean that only white people can play hockey. There’s so many different types of people that can play hockey or whatever it is. It was really thinking through how do I ensure that I’m finding creators and finding brands that are on the same wavelength of me. When it comes to trying to create these products. And then on top of that, that they are highly quality products.

As much as I’m an e-commerce store, I think of it as being a brick and mortar store in the sense of if someone was walking through the store and if they picked up this product, would they have that initial feeling of like, Oh, wow, this is a high quality product, or would it be the feeling of like, ah, I’m not too sure because I also have to be mindful of it’s different. If I was creating the products myself, And I’m just the small little handcrafted creator, but it’s because the storylines easier for me to share it with the person that’s buying it, et cetera, but being a reseller of a product, there’s a higher bar that I need to meet, where my consumers are expecting that I vetted the product and I’ve tested it out and tried it and have a sense of the quality level.

And it also minimizes risks that I ensure that if I’m sending something out in the mail, that I don’t have to worry about returns, et cetera. And so those were really the two key things was that it’s not only that you have products with black characters on them it’s more so. So what was your intention behind them?

That’s fairly easy to find most websites. will give you a story. And about us page, I also connect with the actual owner of the company just to understand sort of their mindset. And then the other piece is what’s the quality of products and that happens through two ways. One me actually getting a sample of the product and then two looking to see, well, what are the reviews, comments on social media, about the product? Just to affirm that, it is something that is of interest that people are enjoying. They’re getting the benefit out of it and kids actually like it.  Most important is always thinking with the child in mind. I have the benefit of having two girls. So when I get the products, they’re usually I call them like my product testers,  usually, their reaction helps me know whether I should carry a product or not.

Jennifer Chua:  You touched on the fact that you’re looking on people’s websites for, cues on how they’re intentional or how they have the same values that you have. Are there any tips that you’d give a small business owner who is on the other side of this? So like a product creator. Is there anything that you might specifically look for that they should be mindful of to include on their site or in their social media?

Kimberlee West:  The biggest thing is story. So it always strikes me as odd. And I get advertisements sometimes from some businesses where. They have a product that looks intriguing. It looks really good. I go to their webpage and there’s not even one page that is about us or our story or anything that gives you a sense of like, who actually owns the store. And that to me is usually a red flag, unfortunately, especially when it comes to children’s products, a lot of them are mass produced. They’re produced in China. There’s an incentive to try to jump on the bandwagon of a current trend. And so it’s like, well, is your intention just to source money or is the intention to actually add to the value, the local good of, society?

And so I look for that because also it helps me when it comes to telling the story of that product, because a lot of the products that people are buying, they’re buying it because of the story. So not only the initial gut of like, Oh, I really love what this looks like. They are also looking at this story. When I look at my analytics on the backend, they’re looking to see what is this product about? Where did it come from? Who created it? Because all of that factors in to them being willing to actually take out their credit card and make that purchase and bring it into their home.

The hardest thing that we always have to recognize with children is that the visual video effect really has a strong impact. Like why does Elsa or Mickey mouse or any of those characters’ do really well it’s because your child can easily access animated ways of actually understanding the characteristics of that particular character. When you’re bringing in a character from one of the products in my store. So let’s say it’s Nia ballerina doesn’t have a cartoon. Nia ballerina doesn’t have a book. Or so the story that the child gets is whatever the parent can tell the child about that character. And so it makes it that much more important to ensure that you’re arming parents with the ability to introduce products, there’s a lot of times where you’ll introduce a new product and they’re not really that interested. They’re like great. You want me to have this product? Because she looks like me and that’s not enough for a kid.  One of the reasons that I always talk about this idea of mindful representation and the main premise behind it is being intentional about the images that you share with your child.

But you don’t need to always talk about race. You don’t even need to talk about the similarities and features between the new product that you bought in them. It’s just the idea of like, Oh, look at this really cool toy, introduce it into this, the regular play cycle. And then over time you can start talking about it like, Oh, was in this little cool that her hair is curly, like yours old when I’m doing your hair, why don’t you pretend to do your doll’s hair, et cetera, because it makes it that much easier for the child to want to play with it. It’s similar to like you teaching a child’s about math versus turning it into a game. Kids don’t really want to be taught to. They want to interact with things.

And a lot of the tips I get aren’t even direct from the industry that I’m in with toys, et cetera. It’s also learning different things from how my children do other stuff like the perfect example. The youngest one is now five. At three is the age where you’re like, I want them to learn their letters and spell their name, et cetera.

She was defiant. She was like, I do not want to sit by a table. I don’t care to hold a pencil. I do not want to learn letters. So we came up with a game just called alphabet hide and seek. And it was the idea of if we turn it into a game. And so like she would hide and seek, they will all play that game. We had little magnet letters. We hit them around the house. And now if you found a letter, she wasn’t able to keep it unless she identified its name. And so it made it easier because she was like, Oh, this is so much fun. So you’re always thinking about the fun factor with different things.

Jennifer Chua:  This might be a product opportunity for you. You might want to workshop that. So when you began to explore this industry a little bit more, or just the children products industry, not necessarily mindful representation or anything just children’s products in general, when you began to look at conventional toys, did you find anything that was surprising?

Kimberlee West:  No. And people might think, of course you’re surprised. No, I grew up in Canada. So I think if anything, what was surprising was that as my girls got older, I started to see a little bit more representation. So growing up, all I saw were white dolls. Like Barbie was like the be all end all. And that’s what you saw.

 I remember one year, actually Christmas time, I was stunned to see a wall of dolls. It was downtown. So really you have to go to certain places. It was downtown Toronto. And they had dolls from every single background. I forgot what they were celebrating, but it was like dolls of the world. And they had dolls from Mexico and India and just everything. It was just beautiful. And I was like, Oh, those types of things shock me. But on a regular everyday basis, when I go into the stores and I’m looking at the doll aisle, even when they have variety. So you think about like the dolls that have come out, the American girl, my lifestyle, our generation. You go into your regular big box store or whatever store carries it as much as online, those dolls come in a variety of different types of backgrounds, more often than not, the store carries a very small selection of the dolls that are there. And it’s basically the same doll. It’s like three white dolls, but maybe different hairstyles. And you’re like, Oh, you could have carried the wider selection, but you decided not to. And so I think that’s what always stands out to me is that it’s always so hard when it comes to the convenience part of it, or even the expense a lot more times often than not the doll that is of a different origin black, indian anything is more expensive. And so you look at that and you’re like, well, why is it more expensive? It’s because it was probably a little bit harder to sell that company’s thinking about their turnover time to sell a particular product. They’re trying to have some sort of profit margin on it because they didn’t buy as much. They probably put a higher bet in buying, let’s say a hundred units of the white Barbie doll, 50 units of the black Barbie doll that brings it to a certain price point. So that, that could explain why the price is higher, but there always seems to be a more premium price on those dolls. And you’re like, Oh, okay. That’s interesting.

Again, making it a little bit harder when you’re thinking about I’m trying to diversify my space and I’m just talking about dolls. If I think about. On the accessory side. Or even toys activities. When I think about puzzles, if I think about blankets, if I think about ballerina jewelry boxes, I think about all that stuff, all of that is still extremely white.

I think it’s more visceral to be like, Oh, wait a minute. Why is it that black girls can only play with white dolls? And if a white girl has a black doll, it’s like crazy. There was things that came out. Oprah did a series in her own magazine where there was a little white girl standing in front of a wall of black dolls. And she was asking the question. Does this feel odd to you? And it was really to elicit that feeling like why should it feel odd to you because black kids have done the opposite for generations?

In the doll space, you’re starting to see more diversity, but if you think about all the other spaces, like I mentioned, that are so important when it comes to just every day that your child being able to be exposed to different representation, still very one note and still very hard to find.

Jennifer Chua:  If we just kept up with the all white Barbies in the toy aisle and all of our books and our blankets and everything that are representing only white families, which is really heartbreaking, to be honest. What are the costs  the children of the future? If we just keep up the way we’ve been going?

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.

It’s very similar to the experience I had in Jamaica when I was in Jamaica. I was just Kimberlee or I was defined by my cultural background in this case being Canadian. So I didn’t have to think about being black. My hair wasn’t even a topic of conversation. It was so easy to find anywhere where I could go to get my hair.

If you live in a world where it’s only that one note, you’re completely alienating bunch of children from feeling like they’re also part of that society. And then there’s the emotional impact. One of the reasons that Kids Swag representation is so important to me is that now, if we look at the corporate side of things, as an example, and people are stunned by stats where they’re looking at it and they’re saying, Oh, there’s not that many visible minorities and director level, et cetera, what’s happening.

The emotional impact of feeling like you’re less than. It makes it feel like you don’t even, you shouldn’t even apply for certain jobs, you start to think, well, do I actually qualify? Like I love this is not even an official quote. This is just something that my friend tells me and I’m like, Oh, that’s interesting.

And she’s always like, well, do you actually have imposter syndrome? Or is it  a symptom of the people around you who are negative? Is that a symptom of negative people around you? And a lot of the times it’s both the fact that you’ve grown up in a world where you didn’t feel like you were part of it. And then on top of that, you’re around people that are reinforcing that idea and making it seem like not even necessarily because of your race, but just because of your way that you carry yourself, how you talk, all these different things that exist in that space that you don’t belong. And then you self-select out and you think, well, should I apply for this job or even worse? Should I even ask for that promotion to get into those senior levels? And it becomes that much harder when it comes to society progressing and getting to a point of equity, even economically for individuals.

Jennifer Chua:  I’m wondering about these transformative years of yours in Jamaica. Did you visit any toy stores there? What was the toy experience like when you were in Jamaica?

Kimberlee West:  I think what’s funny and a lot of people and may not even realize that this, is where I think I got the shock moreso. Is that when I went to stores, or toystores, in Jamaica, they mainly carry white dolls  . And even in Africa, I haven’t had the pleasure of going, but I’ve had friends that have come from there and they tell me when you go into their stores, it’s mainly white dolls.

As much as you’re in a society that looks like you, again for a child, how you’re interacting with the world, you’re interacting with toys that don’t look like you, and don’t have the same hair texture as you. And this is more anecdotal evidence, but I know for my husband, he grew up born and raised in Guyana. And then he came to Canada at a later age. For him, he said that he always knew that white was better. And I was like, how did you know that? Like you grew up in an environment where it was predominantly black and then they have a large Indian population and he’s like, well, through TV, you just knew that the way that your world was less than a white world.

And I was like, well, that’s crazy. And again, it goes back to the idea of representation and so many different facets. I’m tackling the space of toys and kids, but it’s so important in so many different areas because, and I think we’re seeing it more and more. If you don’t see it, it’s really hard to believe that you can actually exist in that space.

So I now am in tech. I work full time, as well as run Kids Swag. A lot of people hear the terms, artificial intelligence or machine learning, and they feel like big terms and complicated and something that you know is obscure to their life. The main thing to be aware of though, is that the individuals that are creating these tools and creating machines that can self-learn over time that self-learning is based on patterns. So basically what that machine is doing is saying well, because A and B keeps happening all the time. I can predict that A is going to come after B for example, very simple example. I bring that up because it means then that it’s only as good as the individuals who are programming it. And so what’s happened is that there’s one where it comes to facial identity software, and the technology is supposed to identify or predict to a certain, within a certain accuracy, who’s a criminal, who’s not a criminal. Well, it’s filtering through a bunch of pictures of people who are not criminal, but, and this is a particular study. What it found is that more often than not the system, the computer alone was identifying black individuals as being criminal at a three or four times rate higher than any other. And the individuals that it was running through weren’t criminals. This was just like a test of the system, but it was like, well, based on certain factors, I think this person’s a criminal. And so if you think about what’s the cost? If you have systematic racism, that’s been in place. If you have this issue of people mentally thinking that, a certain type of group acts a certain way and then, or even opposite. Cause some people always think racism is this negative, like active act of, trying to exclude people. The opposite of it is the act of pretending like it doesn’t exist because that’s just as damaging. And if we’re honest with ourselves, tech is just the future where everything, what we’re doing right now is based off technology. If those individuals are then programming systems, a lot of it’s based off of their own bias.

So I gave the example of the criminals, the other one, that’s more, I think even more damaging wasn’t even a negative. It was more so the exclusion where the person had set up a very simple system where the soap should pump out. This is a popular one. People might know this one, but when you put your hand under the soap should then come out. It would not come out for the black person that tested it out. And the people who had set up the soap dispenser to work were shocked because the only reason it worked is that he put a white piece of toilet paper in his hand and then put his hand under the soap and it came out and what happened there, that’s a perfect example of being completely oblivious and excluding an entire group of people because you didn’t even consider them.

That’s the social cost. That’s the cost of not even being willing to accept, acknowledge the idea of difference. And that’s why you hear the term “being color blind”. I do not like the idea of being colorblind. Because colorblind means that you’re being complicit in the act we’re trying to erase. Someone’s complete identity, their ethnicity, their culture, everything, because you feel basically that the standard, and I don’t think people realize this when they say they are color blind, you’re making the standard white. And you’re saying, well, I see everybody through this white lens and I don’t even want to take the time to see the other stuff. Whereas I like the term “color brave”. And I think it’s Melody Thomas that coined that where it’s the idea of let’s actually be willing and excited to celebrate the different types of people that are out there. Let’s encourage us to actually acknowledge difference. Difference is a good thing. Why are we afraid to talk about differences? Let’s actually embrace that. I think that’s the most fun experience to say, Oh, wow, look at these different cultures. It’s like, you do what? You act this way? And it shouldn’t be in a negative way. It’s more in this curious, trying to understand, trying to recognize that the way that you live is the only way that you should be living.

Jennifer Chua:  It’s that curiosity? Isn’t it? It’s like the most interesting part of life

Kimberlee West:  I remember talking to a friend she’s from India actually. And I was like, well, I want to travel to all these different places, but I just can’t afford it. Now this would be for COVID. So COVID wasn’t even restriction. And she gave me the best advice that I really love. She was like, well, living in Toronto, living in the greater Toronto area, you have exposure to so many different cultures. She’s like, why don’t you just do like mommy daughter dates and you can bring them to different places so you can bring them to a restaurant. At one point, my daughter was obsessed with Russian culture. So it’s like, you can bring them to a Russian restaurant. You’d have them try the treats or different types of food. You can then look at the different types of accessories and toys that they have. And it’s a way it’s that experience piece where it’s not just like open a book. and let’s read about Russia. It’s more so you can be immersed even when you don’t leave the country. And again, people are really happy to share with you like little anecdotal stories of their world. And so I think that’s the piece that we always have to be aware of is like how often I go through it, actually every once in a while, even through Instagram where I’ll go through my Instagram feed and I’m like, it feels like I’m following all the same people. And then I’ll try to find just different people. I’m like, I just need different perspectives. I need people from other countries just because it makes it fascinating to see how other people view the world. And you’re not just viewing it through your own singular lens.

Jennifer Chua: So when you started this business, do you have a memory of a moment where you felt really proud?

Kimberlee West:  I think the moment for me was, so I started in December 2016,  I really started in that month because I went to a pop-up.  My sister had told me there was a place that I could, I didn’t even know about pop-ups to be honest, it’s like, what is this thing? place that I could go, I could have a little table, I could set up the products. And I remember that day. So many people coming by the table and they didn’t even have kids with them. They had come in. I was the only kid booth there, like the demographic was a little bit younger.  They were in their twenties. But having them come up and seeing their reaction of like, Oh my gosh, I love everything here. Where was this? When I was growing up, this is amazing. And then in their mind you could tell them thinking, like, I don’t necessarily need this, but I’m going to buy something.

And I remember that feeling of like, wow, like you fallen in love with an idea. Cause I had the idea. It was October of that same year. That I was like, all right, I think you should start a business. So then within like six weeks, I then built the website and I was like, all right, let’s see what happens. And so to have something that was in my mind, turn it into something that was actually like a physical thing people could engage with. And then to get that reaction of like, This is something that we need really made me feel like I was on the right path. For me, that’s the moment because I was like, wow. And I say it all the time on our Instagram account. I say Kids Swag community because that’s the time when I realized that there’s going to be people that are willing to support.

The reason that we’re chatting. It was because I was like, well, let me just try. And I messaged you on Instagram to ask you some questions and you were amazing. I was like, thank you so much. I’m in this weird world. So I think that moment for me having that pop-up and realizing that it’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to ask for help and to have the validation that I’m doing. Something that people emotionally are triggered by felt really good.

Jennifer Chua:  When it comes to building a business, is there something that you have done right? Or something that you wish you had done?

Kimberlee West:  I feel like I have more answers for things I could have done the other way, but in terms of what I feel I did right then I, it goes back to even how I go about sourcing products for the store is that I was very clear in my intention. Just with myself, talking to myself, thinking through his idea, very clear in my my intention of what I was trying to build.  It was really about how can I actually try to drive some change that will help kids for this generation and to continue on. And so I would say for anyone, and I hear this advice all the time, but I think it’s so important for anyone starting a business, really thinking through what is it is that “why?” What is that impact that you’re trying to drive? Because then on the flip side about like, what are all the things you wish that you didn’t do? And you have to then try to figure out how to get out of the problems that you’ve created. It will help sustain you through those moments.

And if I think about things that I wish that I did, I think it’s like, One, I wish that I was better at the same time. I’m happy I went through it because it was a point of learning. But I guess the biggest one was the social media piece. I really. Was completely not knowledgeable about social media. And so the first, like two years or so of Kids Swag was mainly just bringing everything that I had to these popups, setting up everything. There was the risk of damage. There’s a risk of loss, all of that type of stuff. It’s hard to capture customer information, to build any type of continued engagement through email or Instagram, et cetera. And so I would say definitely value the importance of digital marketing and understanding that space. Like if you’re just starting out, start off with  I want to connect with people it’s so it’s like I’m posting, I’m ensuring that I’m emailing because I actually want to connect with individuals and in the long run, it saves you so much more time when it comes to actually building your business as well.

Jennifer Chua: Are there any costs to your family life or your mental health? Like how tough was building this business?

Kimberlee West:  That’s like a whole chapter. It was really hard. It was really hard. The other piece in starting this business was I felt like I was starting the business. I didn’t really think about the impact on my family initially. I was like, well, I think I have some time I can start this business, but. The time that I was putting into the business was time away from my girls. It was time that my husband had to pick up the Slack and do different things around the house that he just wasn’t doing before. It was time with me just being gone for like eight, 10 hours on a weekend when you’re supposed to be doing a family thing. So that was really hard. It was balancing, I was working full-time as well. It was balancing trying to work full-time and be a good employee trying to run this business. And so I would say it’s always hard to juggle and I think the biggest sacrifice was family. It was my husband, it was my girls. And so one of the things that I’ve learned through that is asking for help.

2018 is when I brought someone on to do social media, I was like, you know what? This is highly time-consuming. And in terms of the full gamut of all the things that I have to do, it’s something that I think I can outsource and I did. And then it wasn’t until 2019 that I was like, okay, I think I actually need someone that can help with the whole email side of things, et cetera. So the piece of building a business. It’s extremely hard. There’s times where you feel like you’re not getting the traction that you thought that you were going to get. There’s the feeling of, am I spending time on the right things because you have family or you have your full-time job, or you have your husband. I talk about sacrifice, it wasn’t just family time. It was my own mental health time as well. So that time of unwinding, I barely had, I didn’t give myself space to actually just do nothing. I didn’t even remember what that was anymore. It was like, I was always on, it was like, keep going. And really the realization came to me at the end of 2018. I was completely burnt out. That I ended up in 2018 December any December doesn’t matter. What year is the best time for retailers to be open? I closed the store in December because I mentally knew that I couldn’t handle it. And so that for me was a turning point where I was like, you know what, success I define success differently now. And it’s like, success. Isn’t just sales. It isn’t just revenue. It isn’t even people with positive feedback. That’s all good. Success has to be me being very mindful of my own mental health and taking time for myself.

Jennifer Chua: This is one of the questions that always comes up. What does success mean to you? People talk about this all the time and it means a variety of things to everybody else. But I agree with you. Like, I feel like it’s. Living, according to my values and sticking to those at all times makes me feel successful.

Kimberlee West:  Whenever I have the platform to speak, I always take the opportunity to talk about representation. Even if the person doesn’t bring it up. A perfect example was I was on a panel where they were talking about generation alpha. When I was like, I didn’t know what generation alpha was, kids born after 2010. I should probably know that cause that’s my target audience, but the panel was about generation alpha and about technology and retail and marketing. And there was going to be no talk about representation, but I always take those opportunities to say, well, yes, it’s great. We have this view. And I think that’s always the hard part when even when we talk me in generational terms, we talking in terms of a single narrative most of the time where it’s just like, Oh yeah, all of these kids are in this generation and they’re doing the same thing. And so it’s like, no, let’s actually think about the nuance of, well, what’s the diversity of people who actually have access to technology. As much as all of these kids are born within a certain time. They’re not all living at the same level of income and are having access to the same levels of service. So it’s always thinking through like, how do I ensure that I’m using my voice to advocate and help people acknowledge the recognition that there is more than one narrative to be shared. Having the company, and I’m very transparent, wherever I go, I’m very transparent about my commitment to representation. And I think almost disarms people. It makes people more comfortable to be vulnerable and talk about, what I do actually need help in this space on the corporate side especially with everything happened with George Floyd last year. It was conversations within the corporate space of. What could we be doing better? Do you have suggestions? And I always give the advice. I’m not an expert in diversity equity inclusion, I’m an advocate and supporter and trying to push the narrative, but it’s, I would then give them advice of different people that they could bring in to actually, facilitate consults in that area.

Kids Swag is an embodiment of what’s important to me, just period in my life, which is always thinking about how do we ensure that we’re constantly aware of the inequity that exists the lack of representation that exists, especially in marketing, being in marketing and thinking about the visuals that we use in different things that we are advertising, whether it’s in the business to business space or the business to consumer space, being able to advocate and point out opportunities to actually change things is always important to me.

Jennifer Chua:  You have a really incredible story and you can tell you’re very passionate and I think this is going to help a lot of people. What should I have asked you that you would like people to know? Is there anything that I missed?

Kimberlee West: Starting a business is extremely hard. It’s really important to know that you are going to make mistakes, but if you have a clear sense of why you’re actually doing it, and you’re humble enough to acknowledge that you’re going to need help along the way, and you seek it out, you don’t just do in sadness and just want to give up. I think it’s really rewarding. And you can really drive a lot of really good impacts. And I think that’s what really  pushes me forward.

Jennifer Chua: if you want to learn more about Kimberlee, Mindful Representation, or to pick up a gift for a confident kid in your life, visit Kids Swag.ca. You can follow along with Kimberlee on her mission to help parents raise confident kids that appreciate difference on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @kidswagco