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.

 

 

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.

 

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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.