Kendall Glauber from Lonely Whale and the NextWave Plastics Consortium went from summers in Southern California to the non-profit world, keeping plastic waste from entering the ocean. In this episode, we learn how her efforts through Lonely Whale are helping to drive recycling systems change and how NextWave’s member companies are using ocean-bound plastics to create new goods. We discover the impact of ocean-bound plastics and explore how informal workers in developing countries are a critical part of the system, and why waste is being mismanaged. And learn how multinational corporations and small businesses can help prevent plastics from polluting our oceans and how the circular economy supports social change. 

If you want to learn more about Nextwave, the member companies and how they are making waves by choosing ocean-bound plastics visit www.nextwaveplastics.org. You can follow along with Nextwave on its mission to keep plastic in the economy and out of the ocean on twitter at nxtwaveplastics. Want to support Lonelywhale as a business? 1% for the planet members, you can find them listed as a non-profit, and they are always looking for new brands to join Nextwave’s consortium. 

Links from this episode

• NextWave Plastics

• Lonely Whale

• Forbes: The People Who Collect Most Ocean-Bound Plastic For Recycling Are Getting A Hand Up From A Group Of Companies And Brands

• Marine pollution. Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean

• UN ocean treaty is ‘once in a lifetime’ chance to protect the high seas

Episode Transcript

[00:02:22] Jennifer Myers Chua: Across the world, 20 million waste pickers, salvage, reusable, or recyclable materials, and are responsible for 60% of the world’s recycling. These people, considered informal workers are collecting ocean bound, plastics that would otherwise end up in the ocean. And this waste is considered mismanaged. There’s no formal waste management system in place in these developing countries. And for discarded plastic to be considered ocean bound, it’s found within 50 kilometers of the coast. Close enough to be washed into the ocean with the next storm.

And the unfortunate reality is that the ocean is already filled with plastic. It’s nearly impossible to collect and damaging. 8 million, tons of plastic is entering the ocean each year. The equivalent of one garbage truck, full of plastic being dumped in the ocean every minute. And the plastic pollution crisis has only accelerated and continues to intensify around the world. Today’s guest Kendell Glauber works at Lonely Whale. A nonprofit on a mission to keep plastic waste from entering the ocean. She’s the director of next wave plastics, a consortium of companies supported by Lonely Whale who are working to keep plastic in the economy and out of the ocean. integrating recycled ocean bound plastic into their products and to help support other businesses in doing the same and drive systemic change

[00:03:43] Kendall Glauber: I was tracking the progress of NextWave from the beginning because I had a existing relationship with Dune Ives, the CEO of Lonely Whale, who has been a mentor of mine throughout my career. It was fairly serendipitous because my background professionally was In consulting, but primarily focused on sustainability. I have a masters of environmental management. And so I had done a lot of work around behavior change, particularly when it comes to sustainability, things like energy efficiency, climate change, and how people can move through the process of change to actually help to benefit the environment, change their behavior, things like that.

When I was growing up, I grew up in Southern California and spent every day of every summer at the beach. My summer camp was called junior guards and it was on the beach. And I was my happiest when I was swimming in the ocean. But it was in long beach, California, which is the port of long beach and the port of Los Angeles. Connected to each other. And also the Los Angeles river flows out right around that area. And so I was having the time of my life swimming in the waves, but also like couldn’t help but notice how much plastic there was in the ocean. Every summer, we would have red tides, which were algal blooms in the water.

There’d be dead birds or dead fish on the beach. So even from like a pretty early age, I had this really clear understanding of the connection between urban systems and the city that I lived in and the environment and, and the impacts to the environment, because I knew I’d been in other places where even maybe a few miles down the coast, I could see that the beaches were cleaner. I could see that, that they didn’t have the same issues with plastic pollution. It was less intense because it wasn’t as close to some of these like urban outlets. And so I understood that really, there was this large impact, but it wasn’t any one person fault. Like it wasn’t any one person who doing it.

It was a lot of people doing a lot of individually, potentially harmless things that then all kind of fed up into this broader systemic problem. That I think actually drove a lot of my curiosity throughout my career in terms of solving systemic problems and figuring out like how do we think about this, how do we come at this from a way where we can actually change what’s happening at a larger scale to meet these goals that help protect our environment as well, but that also don’t make it so that we can’t live our lives and have our businesses and make money from the things that we’ve invented and that people feel really passionate about. And I truly believe that there’s a balance there. And so I think that kind of bringing together those pieces really positions me well to someone that can help do something like convene a consortium that helps position these conversations.

And I think that what’s really great for them, the business people and the companies who are trying to figure out like, okay, how do I make this work from a business perspective is, being a part of something like a consortium or having, key advisors that are helping to guide the work that aren’t just your like investors or your peers in the business that have some more of a, especially if you are working into sustainability and environmental impact or any kind of impact social impact, all the things like there are incredible experts that are doing this work that have the scientific or Process understanding of what the ideal might be. And then you can understand as a business owner, how your business can then help support those goals, whether then explicitly working against them.

I have this opportunity and it could likely be a business differentiator, like my sustainability or my social responsibility, or, the way that I’m investing in new supply streams and innovative materials. This is something that can differentiate me as a business. And at this point, consumers are not putting up with any greenwashing. Like there is, they’re very invested in wanting to know the truth. And so having that transparency, having that knowledge like seeking out those inputs, is something that’s, that’s really interesting.

[00:08:28] Jennifer Myers Chua: When we go back to your junior guard days and you’re playing in the ocean. Do you remember any other moments where you became interested in sustainability? Is there anything that stands out in your mind of like this happened in your life and it led you on this path?

[00:08:43] Kendall Glauber: There’s definitely a few, I think. It’s everything from when I was in college, I was at an event and there was a booth from a local environmental group and they had these jars full of water with these things in them. And they looked just like jellyfish. Like it was, it was almost like a cartoon version of a jellyfish. And I was like, this is weird. And I talked to the people there and they were like, this is what happens when balloons get released and go up into the atmosphere and they expand and then pop and they. Part of it gets shredded, but it stays connected at the part where the knot is. And then when it ends up in the water and it’s bobbing, it looks just like sea life. And that broke my heart. And that I think was actually the moment that took me from the kid being like playing in the ocean, thinking about that, this stuff shouldn’t be here to, oh my gosh. There’s something that I need to do about this. so then I think that, that was a huge moment for me, in terms of just recognizing. How the unintended consequences of the things that we don’t think about and how something like a huge celebration that is, commemorated with a balloon release is something that’s actually really creating so much more harm than good.

And understanding that we’re all connected. I think for me, that was a big piece of it. Connection for me has been a big key value in my life in terms of my connection to my family and my friends and my community and the places where I’ve felt the happiest and most fulfilled have been the places where I’ve had that deep sense of connection and community.

And so I think that brings me back to the idea of How I was talking about systems, thinking like, that sounds like such a buzzword, but really it’s about like how we’re all connected. Like it’s all part of this broader system and everything’s impacting each other. And so like, how can we be more intentional about understanding the impacts that our systems are currently having and ways that we can continue to improve them? Through NextWave. I get the opportunity to do that by helping to continue to grow and deepen this community of brands that have a desire to do good, and help them figure out the way forward together and the way that they’re connected rather than trying to all scrape by and figure it out on their own.

Ocean bound, plastic is really the plastic that is most vulnerable to ending up in the ocean. As many of us know, there’s a bit of an issue with the plastic that we use on land, ending up in the environment, and then in the ocean affecting Marine ecosystems and Marine animals. That plastic is continuing to enter the ocean on a regular basis. In fact, there’s about 12 million metric, tons of plastic that are entering the ocean every single year, that is equivalent to about one and a half garbage trucks being dumped into the ocean every minute. All the time it’s just constantly happening and this is a huge problem.

And so there’s been this development of an industry around how do we stop the flow of this plastic into the ocean before it gets there by setting up systems that help to capture this plastic, in the places where it’s most vulnerable to being in the environment. that gets us to ocean bound plastic. So ocean plastic is defined based on some scientific research out of the university of Georgia. It’s defined as plastic that’s collected within 50 kilometers of a coastline, generally in areas with little or absolutely no waste management. So there’s no truck coming down the street to pick up their waste on a weekly basis. They don’t really have any other recourse. Like this is people in neighborhoods, maybe businesses, companies in places in the world where no one is coming to pick up the trash.

So next wave plastics is a consortium of multinational brands who are all invested in helping to change the trajectory on ocean plastic pollution by sourcing this material, demonstrating that it has commercial value and should be collected and recycled, and that they’re investing the time and energy into using that as new material in their products that they’re putting out on the market. And so our consortium includes a number of brands that you’re probably familiar with. It includes Dell technologies, HP Inc, Herman Miller, human scale, who are more in like interior design and office furniture, Ikea, interface that makes carpeting, Trek bicycles. As well as Shinola, a lifestyle goods company, variative, which makes a number of different packaging applications. CPI card group makes credit cards and soul guard is a startup that makes backpacks and travel goods and other lifestyle goods as well. So just even listening to that list, you can hear that it’s a whole array of different types of products, different industries. There’s really not a limit to what you can do with recycled plastic content, because you can put it into all the things that we make out of plastic.

And so the idea here is this commitment to come together as a consortium to share information so that no one of these companies has to figure this out on their own. They all recognize that this is an issue. They have the ability to help provide at least some level of a solution and so in doing that Each within their own product development, as well as then collaborating together to be successful in doing it, then they’re able to create much more impact and, and help to really turn off the tap on plastic pollution.

[00:15:11] Jennifer Myers Chua: And I mean, these are really household brands. Like I’m talking to you right now, sitting in a Herman Miller chair at an Ikea desk using a Dell monitor. It’s interesting that these brands would want to get involved in this. I’m wondering. How did they come together? What is the benefit for them of joining? why would these brands commit to this? Other than that shared knowledge?

[00:15:31] Kendall Glauber: Yeah, that’s a great question. The consortium itself was founded in 2017, but the conversations really started in 2016, between lonely whale and Dell technologies. And there was this idea that Dell really wanted to be using ocean bound, plastic as a material. Products and packaging. But that they could maybe have an impact on a few beaches and Indonesia. But that, that wasn’t necessarily going to reach the scale of the problem. And so there was this acknowledgement from the beginning that this wasn’t something that they could do on their own, that it was something that they need that other brands and other companies needed to join in on the fight.

But it isn’t easy. I mean, the whole reason that plastic in these areas is ending up in the environment and in the ocean is because the systems there are broken. We have a linear system that pumps just immense amounts of plastic packaging and goods to places all over the world. But there’s no real feasible way for it to get back and to be disposed of properly or reused. Ideally. And because of that broken system, it means that the systems aren’t necessarily set up to incentivize just turning the ship around and getting the plastic back to where it can be used again. So the idea of setting up Ocean bound plastic supply chains really takes an additional layer of investment and additional layer of knowledge around how to work with recycled material, particularly material that may have been exposed to the environment, maybe more degraded or dirty, maybe being collected and recycled at facilities that aren’t as advanced as some of the recycling facilities that are processing the stuff that comes out of our homes in the U S and Canada. There’s just more to it. And there’s fewer incentives that are just making this super cost-effective, really quick, easy to plug and play. But that doesn’t make it less worthwhile to do. In fact, I think it makes it more worthwhile to do, because it means that the products that these companies are then producing are not only just cool products.

They’re not only made with sustainable materials, but they’re also made with sustainable materials that are having incredible impact in places that are left behind by the existing, like systemic structures that exist across the globe. That is not the fault of the individual people in Indonesia. It’s this whole large system.

So basically the whole point then of joining and being a part of this larger group is really that these companies are breaking down barriers for each other in terms of recommending one of the biggest parts of this is that we’re, developing a network of a global network of ocean bound plastics suppliers. And so the idea there is that they’re being able to understand where there are. Recyclers and suppliers of material that actually have good potential to deliver a product that they can turn into something that’s useful. So a lot of it is understanding who’s out there. What’s the network who’s doing this work, where are the needs? As well as connecting to the experts, whether those are the scientific experts that are figure, understanding the problem. Or the implementation experts who understand how to go in on the ground and set up a system that is socially responsible, but also, you know, environmentally beneficial in, in places with limited waste management and more. There’s the financial side. There’s a lot of that. So a lot of it is bringing all the right people together into the space and breaking down those barriers to success with working with Ocean bound plastics. Now the consortium has been around for four years and these companies are in many cases, the leaders who have charted this course.

And so we’re now turning that around and working more to develop thought leadership and, helping to guide others in navigating this space as well. We’re adding that credibility and that knowledge and kind of paying it forward as well, in terms of NextWave and our member companies contributing to additional thought leadership that grows the pie in terms of the ability to actually continue to expand and scale this industry around ocean plastic recycling.

[00:20:02] Jennifer Myers Chua: So these member companies, is there a collective goal in terms of impact?

[00:20:07] Kendall: Absolutely. In 2018, we set out with our eyes on the prize of hitting 25,000 metric, tons of Ocean bound plastic from the ocean by the end of 2025, that is equivalent to 1.2 billion single use plastic water bottles. So Yeah the scale is big. We’re aiming for a large amount for these companies to actually use. In the grand scheme of things. It is a drop in the bucket, but the idea is really. Trying to be the catalyst for then these greater systems that can kind of be up and running and continue to grow and grow and grow from there.

[00:20:46] Jennifer Myers Chua: I just had a thought, which is outside of creating things with ocean bound plastics, the NextWave member companies, are they working in other ways to reduce their use of plastic? I’m just wondering if that’s in their consciousness as well.

[00:21:00] Kendall Glauber: It’s one thing to be replacing the plastic with recycled content, but it’s another thing to be thinking about how we reduce that overall impact together in the first place. So as part of signing up for membership, each of the member companies agrees to reduce their overall use of plastic by making an assessment. What their current footprint is and then ways to reduce that overall. And many of them have been doing this even before being next wave plastics members, or are continuing to deepen their commitment to that. We don’t have a specific goal that’s based on that, but helping the member companies share that information so that they can also learn from each other, similarly, in this same forum where they’re sharing information and learning from each other about ocean bound plastic. They’re also doing that about ways to reduce their plastic overall

one great example, Trek bike ran a pilot to reduce the amount of plastic that was in the packaging for their bicycles. That goes to a bicycle store where they’d assemble the bike and then you’d purchase the bike. But it has to get there first. And there’s a lot of components that need to be properly protected in order to get from their manufacturing site, their warehouse, and then to that store. And so, they did a really comprehensive look at how do we try and get rid of every single piece of plastic in this thing that we can. And I think that they were successful down to maybe a couples, zip ties, and they were even looking into some alternative solutions and, and they’ve even really heard from many of their partners in the actual stores saying that the amount of plastic that they’re throwing away has been reduced as a result of that. And so they ran the pilot with one bike model, but it was so successful that they’re expanding that across a number of their other, bicycle models as well.

These are like wonderful companies that are doing good work. And also the delay on bicycles during the pandemic with the supply chain challenges. It’s been very real. I think what’s really a Testament to the commitment of some of these companies, is that even with the level of challenges that they’re facing in their supply chains with the pandemic and, global shipping issues, in the cost of goods going up, is that they’ve continued to be committed to their ocean bound plastic sources, the relationships that they’ve developed with suppliers and the products that they’re putting out there. We’ve continued to grow, the amount of plastic that the member companies are diverting year over year. Basically doubling each year. And that hasn’t slowed down. It’s actually accelerated since, since the pandemic. So it’s really great to see the level of commitment coming from these number companies.

[00:23:58] Jennifer Myers Chua: Do you have any other insight into the ways that we either humans or industry or small business? Just, we collectively use plastics? and how it. Existing use of plastics, maybe less than ideal.

[00:24:12] Kendall Glauber: The biggest thing is it’s not that plastic itself is bad. It’s an inert material or it’s a material out there that, serves a purpose. And so there’s many places where absolutely it makes sense to have plastic. It helps us create a lot of things that we maybe wouldn’t have invented. Otherwise it helps us ship a number of things. Further, the safer, lighter. And so there’s a lot of reasons that it makes sense to, to have plastic, to continue to use plastic. It’s more about why we’re using it. And then really what the plan is at the end of the day for what to do with it. And the biggest problem there is single use plastic hands down, across the globe. That is a problem is the single use plastic that is used once and then it never degrades. It doesn’t go away. And so, it ends up, even if it’s in a landfill, it’s taking up a ton of space in a landfill for the fact that someone was using it for a moment. And so the biggest issue. It’s really then how do we reduce the plastic that isn’t helpful.

That is more detrimental than it is useful. And like remove that from the economy in many ways, and then be able to really focus on how to be using plastic in a way that is more responsible. So. plastic packaging or reducing the use of things like the stuff you hear, people harping on all the time, plastic bags, plastic straws, plastic utensils. For example, utensils can’t be recycled. They can’t be properly captured in a municipal recycling facility and recycled into something new, uh, Exist forever and they’re just trash. And so it’s rethinking those things and how can we be creating alternatives? And then revisiting the need for single use plastic. In the meantime, it’s also about creating more robust systems for capturing and recycling the plastic. That is out there and designing products to be recyclable so that they can be captured, they can be recycled. And they then can actually be part of a more holistic system that keeps the phrase that we use all the time at next wave keeps that plastic in the economy and out of the ocean.

[00:26:52] Jennifer Myers Chua: So it should the onus beyond the brands then, or the governments that are developing these recycling systems. What do you think about that?

[00:27:00] Kendall Glauber: Absolutely. I think that the onus should definitely be on brands in many cases, that there should be a deeper level of accountability around the plastic that is being sent out, what it looks like, whether it’s recyclable and then what happens to it. It’s at its end of life.

There are many policies across the globe. We’re kind of doing the hashing out what this will look like around extended producer responsibility and having it be that the brands are more responsible for that material that they’re putting out there. But that can’t be the only thing. It’s easy to point the fingers at the big mean corporations and say, you fix the problem. There needs to be more of the system. So absolutely the governments need to be engaged in terms of creating good policy around plastic and good systems and, everything from the municipal level up to the, federal government and then consumers need to be engaged as well and take responsibility for their trash. Understand how to dispose of what they do have or return it to wherever it needs to go to get into the proper return stream at some point. So there is a role to play. I think that historically that’s been pointed towards consumers and we need to shift this to a more brand government centric and then holistic system.

So that. It’s something where everyone’s bearing some responsibility for making sure that this happens. And the thing that’s most promising about that is that the UN just released a mandate for creating a treaty on plastic and how we treat plastics as a global economy. And so I think there’s a lot of promise there in that mandate in terms of really driving for how we look at plastics and its full life cycle, not just what happens at the end of its life, once it’s been used, but really from design through use and into reuse. There’s going to be a lot of changes over the next few years in terms of how. I handled that as a like globe, and also at the state level. So lots of that? is coming so positive developments there.

[00:29:20] Jennifer Myers Chua: And someone with a design background, I am just completely enamored with these innovative ways that some of these companies are using ocean bound plastics. Anytime I see this, I just, I love to see what they’re creating. Do you have any examples that you can share from maybe businesses with the next wave, maybe without the have like use cases for products they’re creating with these plastics.

[00:29:45] Kendall Glauber: The member companies have been working on their products for anywhere from two to six or seven years at this point. More than 330 products on the market that are made with ocean bound plastic, just from these 12 companies. And so many of the products that I think are some really great examples are from HP. They really invested in this inspiring collection and recycling operation in Haiti where there is almost no waste management systems and really started. Integrating recycled bottles into ink cartridges, which is a core part of their business. It’s not like something that’s off on the side. That was like a one-off thing. They really went and integrated this into something that is a core element of their business. But they’ve really taken that commitment deeper and are innovating with this material to ensure that it can perform in a technology application.

And they’ve been able to integrate ocean bound plastic, into components that are in a huge number of their laptops, their monitors and other technology as well. So I think that that’s a really great example. I think some of the iconic ones, even that you mentioned earlier, you said you’re sitting in a Herman Miller chair, Herman Miller, just in 2021, they launched a suite of products that are made with ocean bound plastic, most iconically the Aeron chair just last year they launched these chairs and they’re in the process of rolling them out and soon all Aeron chairs will be released with Ocean bound plastic as the standard, this iconic piece within their product line. They were really looking at how do we really make an impact in something that, will make a difference. And that will really help tell this story to our customers as well.

One other thing that we haven’t talked about but that I think is really interesting is that fishing nets are also a big component of this conversation. So a lot of the plastic that we think about is the single use plastic, the water bottles, the baggies. But fishing nets are the most dangerous. type of Marine plastic pollution. And so a number of our member companies have been working with reclaimed fishing, net material in their products as well. Human scale really stands out in terms of that. They were actually the first to launch an office chair made with ocean bound plastic, they have two chairs currently, and are working to develop more products made with recycled fishing nets. And the idea is that there’s about two pounds of recycled fishing nets in each of these chairs, but these chairs are designed to last for 50 years. It’s trash. This was like going in the ocean and now it’s locked up in this chair will be around for the next 50 years at least. And so the idea really is there’s lots of different ways to go about this. There’s lots of ways to get this into packaging and other things, but what NextWave member companies have really been able to demonstrate is that it can also go into these really premium products. Whether it’s a Shinola watch or Solgaard backpack, or interface, carpeting, there’s all these places that it can go that are really designed to be these iconic products that you have around you in your life and that you live with that are making the most of, what, otherwise just would have been pollution.

[00:33:26] Jennifer Myers Chua: In terms of social impacts, like how are these communities all around the world that are, ocean front communities, how are they getting involved? And what you’re doing with NextWave… how is this impacting them?

[00:33:39] Kendall Glauber: That is a huge component of the work that we do working in the environmental space and in climate change. I think one of the things that I’ve really realized is that. That a lot of this stuff is really about people. And I think that the social component of this cannot be extricated from the environmental component. The people who are living in communities, where they don’t have waste management or oftentimes living in trash. And so what’s great about these, this work is that. In many cases. The ocean bound plastic supply chains are relying on networks of informal workers who are going out collecting plastic that’s recyclable. And selling that material to an aggregator or a recycler who we’ll sell that material on, into an ocean bound plastic supply stream, but they’re relying on that income of collecting plastic for their livelihood. What’s incredible is that waste pickers across the globe in 2016, it was estimated that they were responsible for 60% of global recycling. So at a global scale, this is our most successful recycling system. These people that are living in poverty. Oftentimes they’re part of marginalized groups, but are carrying our recycling system on their back and are the heroes of protecting the ocean from plastic. So one of the things that we focus on at NextWave is really making sure that as ocean bound plastic supply chains are being developed, the social component is absolutely central to the work that is being done. And that we’re ensuring that those workers are receiving fair pay, that they are also receiving benefits like health benefits and other support systems that can help them have better livelihoods, be able to educate their children. All of that, have it be so that their children can go and be in school and don’t have to work.

 I think some standout examples are HPS work with their partners first mile and work in Haiti where they’ve provided work over a thousand workers with jobs and have really helped to create a support system in Haiti for these workers. That then has transcended even things like the earthquake that happened there recently, they were able to help provide resources directly to many of the workers in their system to actually ensure that they were able to get whatever support they could provide. Dell technologies is doing incredible work in Indonesia and supporting communities there. And all of this within NextWave coming together to compare notes on what has been successful, what the needs are and how to ensure that social responsibility goes beyond just the factory level and down into those networks of informal workers.

One of the things that we did as a consortium was created a working group specifically on this issue. And what came out of that was a framework for what a socially responsible ocean bound plastics, supply chain looks like and it really runs through how to understand what the issues in a supply chain and then really how to lay the groundwork and the foundation for supporting a more socially responsible program and system, so that we’re really helping to articulate what are the actual challenges that are out there. And then how do you do it in a way that doesn’t just replace the systems that exist? It doesn’t just come in and say, okay, we’re going to set up our, what a, whatever a Western waste management system looks like, but really works to center the workers that are there doing this work already. And helping to improve their lives, helping to improve the systems, helping to bring more resources so that they can do that better. And that that’s can be beneficial to those that workforce and to those communities in these areas.

[00:37:53] Jennifer Myers Chua: And if you own a business and you want to create impact. Are there opportunities for businesses outside of the NextWave members to become members or interact with you in some way or benefit from your learnings even.

[00:38:07] Kendall Glauber: Absolutely. So we are constantly walking, welcoming new members to come and join this work. Any company who is interested in sourcing Ocean bound plastic. Getting it into products. Whether you are interested in trying to figure it out, and don’t really know where to get started or maybe. There may be some who are further down the line and have already been testing material or developed products, but want to be a part of a group that can help to continue to scale what they’re doing or maybe you’ve come up across specific roadblock that you need to work through, and it might be helpful to have some folks who can help you kind of sort through the challenges that you might be facing to figure out a way through, to be successful with using this material. That’s what we’re here for. We’re looking to grow and to scale this and to expand the impact that we’re able to have to get. And I would say though, that there are a number of resources that are coming out of NextWave. If you maybe aren’t ready to make the leap for membership. things like the framework for social responsibility are really useful tools for navigating some of the ambiguity of this space.

One thing that we have coming out this year is a series of case studies that we’re calling our changemaker series and that’s going to come out in april and may and June of this year, it’ll be a running series with one coming out every week. That’ll focus on a particular topic where NextWave member companies have had key learnings or found particular success or work through a particular challenge. And so just keeping an eye out for those and, taking a look at what information might be most useful for you there? I’m always happy to talk to companies who are trying to figure out how, how do we have better impact is Ocean bound plastic, the right thing for us. And if it is where do we go next? And I’d love to help on that.

[00:40:14] Jennifer Myers Chua: So if I’m a small business owner and I’m creating a product you think there’s an opportunity for me to access ocean bound plastic waste, or would this be an option as this community grows? Like what can a small business owner do in terms of creating this impact in this way?

[00:40:31] Kendall Glauber: Yeah, it’s a great question. And there’s a lot of really incredible small companies that I’ve talked to, who really are invested in being able to do that. I think the biggest challenge is that there is a issue of scale and needing to have a certain level of scale that you’re operating at for it. Then to make economic sense to. Be able to buy the material. And also there’s the challenge sometimes of finding manufacturers who can make a product that you might want to make for your business, that know how to work with ocean bound plastic, or have that in their wheelhouse. There are definitely some that can work at that smaller scale. But I think that it’s going to be the best fit for kind of small to mid-sized businesses who are able to start with kind of a larger investment or that have existing products and are already operating at scale and then want to integrate ocean bound plastic into some existing product lines.

 If you’re really starting from something new it can be challenging, but it isn’t impossible. It really is about finding the right partners. And so I think that in terms of finding the right suppliers out there who might be able to connect you up and provide the right information. There’s some that I would maybe point you in the direction of, and I’m happy to be a resource for anyone who’s interested in that. As well as really just seeking out information from others in the space who have done this, finding out who they’re working with and then piecing it together from there. The one thing I would say is. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes or potentially getting push back. As I said, this is about creating a system where systems don’t exist. So it isn’t as plug and play as it might be nice to have it be. But that doesn’t mean that it’s impossible and that it doesn’t mean that it’s not worthwhile. Keep seeking information, seeking champions who do know this space and continuing to push forward to try and see what you can do.

After your work with ocean experts and Lonely Whale. And now all of these heads of businesses that are working with plastics. I can only imagine that you have a lot of insight into how we as a society are changing how we interact with plastics. I’m just wondering if this has made you more hopeful for our future.

A thousand percent. So much more hopeful for what we can create. I am also scared. I will say that there’s a lot of things that can, and absolutely will go wrong in terms of creating a more sustainable future, where we use materials and natural resources more wisely. Where we treat our natural systems with respect and dignity, and. I can see it. And I think what’s sometimes really difficult is knowing maybe an end destination that feels like this utopia and looking at where we are now, which is that plastic producing is, is plastic. Production is increasing and plastic pollution is increasing and all of that. It’s those data day shifts the little incremental, tiny things that people are doing every day, um, that are moving us more towards that utopian future. And that’s a lot of what we work towards at lonely whale as a organization. But really what I see come to life through NextWave is , I’m not talking to Dell technologies. Like I’m talking to this specific individual who is instigating change in this organization and helping to figure out ways to really articulate why it makes sense for a huge company like Dell to invest in this project to help communities in Indonesia who have too much plastic waste. And the fact that they’ve been able to go from this nugget of an idea to launching products out in the world, that they’re able to tell this story to their customers. is an upswell.

That’s something that’s growing and that can continue to grow. And so I think that in walking through that, like sometimes slow, excruciating process of change. That doesn’t seem like it’s going anywhere. I see that it’s going somewhere and I can understand that, like that is how change happens. It doesn’t happen in like this huge. Sweeping change. It may happen sometimes in leaps and bounds, but a lot of it is about that, like that preparation work and the individuals who are committed to not being afraid to be like, I see this opportunity. Let’s go get it.

[00:45:40] Jennifer Myers Chua: If you want to learn more about NextWave, the member companies and how they’re making waves by choosing ocean bound plastics, visit https://www.nextwaveplastics.org/. You can follow along with NextWave on their mission to keep plastic in the economy and out of the ocean on Twitter at next waves, plastics without the first E. Want to support lonely whale as a business. 1% for the planet members, you can find them listed as a nonprofit, and they’re always looking for new brands to join NextWave’s consortium.

Monique Chan from Bruized takes scraps destined for the compost bin and creates delicious treats. In this episode, we learn how time spent in restaurant prep kitchens led Monique to look at food waste differently. And explore the economic and environmental costs of what gets thrown away. We discover how she sources imperfect ingredients that would otherwise be discarded from local groceries and farmer’s market vendors. And upcycles these and to healthy plant-based snacks. We chat about how she feels about food insecurity and the need for systematic change. What shifts do we need to take to deal with waste, how she plans to grow her business with local hubs over distribution. And how she’s hopeful that others will join in to find innovative ways to make our food systems more sustainable.

If you want to learn more about Monique and how she’s embracing imperfect to make feel-good food for the planet and the people around us or order some of her delicious pulp crunch visit bruized.com. You can follow along with Monique on her mission to upcycle imperfect produce into wholesome eats on Instagram at @bruizedco

Links from this episode

• Bruized

• UNEP Food Waste Index Report 2021

• Where are grocers in the war on food waste? Canadian Grocer

• Scrappy Cooking ‘Tok

Episode Transcript

[00:02:19] Jennifer Chua: This may or may not come as a surprise, but a lot of food is wasted worldwide each year. 17% of the food produced in 2021 was wasted globally. That’s 931 million tons. The United Nations Environment Program Food Waste Index Report 2021 suggests that the worst offenders are consumers with 61% of the waste happening at home. It’s easy to envision that. You make the Tik TOK salad. It was too much to eat. And after a couple of meals, you throw the rest in the green bin along with the broccoli stems or that forgotten spring mix in the back of the fridge. 26% comes from food service, and we’ll be talking about how all that waste comes to be in just a bit. 13% comes from retail and grocery, but there is a misconception here. You may immediately think spoiled or rotting food is all that is tossed, but plenty of it is still edible.

An article in Canadian grocer. Which I’m putting in the show notes, suggests that this waste takes a huge toll on the environment. Produce rotting in landfills releases methane of course, but wasted food also means wasted resources. Water, energy, and the greenhouse gas emissions that occur along the supply chain. From production to packaging shipping and then disposal. This article is really worth a read. It also highlights that we waste enough energy to power 274 million homes. Which personally I found a little surprising.

[00:04:36] Jennifer Chua: Healthy, delicious, and fully sustainable meals can be created upcycled from food that would otherwise go to waste. Organizations along the food chain are tackling food loss and waste or making efforts to do so, by procuring ingredients, not fit for human consumption. Or just not fit for sale. By using things like unused fruits and vegetables to create new products, innovators are finding ways along the supply chain to minimize food waste and create positive environmental impact.

Innovators like Monique Chan.

[00:05:06] Monique Chan: My name’s Monique Chan and I’m the founder of Bruized and Bruized is a women-run startup from Toronto. All about upcycling imperfect ingredients that are discarded across our supply chain and creating healthy plant-based snacks from them.

[00:05:21] Jennifer Chua: Monique studied international development and nutrition with a focus on food waste in her last year at the University of Guelph. And in that time, she had also fallen into a social circle that hosted vegan meetups and bonded over plant-based potlucks. This period of her life left her profoundly changed. And this newfound knowledge sparked inspiration to create a change in the current food industry. With her complimenting passions of plant-based cooking, sustainability and health, Monique envisioned a business and community that could highlight all of these topics and thus Bruized was born.

[00:05:55] Monique Chan: Our main product is called pulp crunch and it’s a high fibre granola cluster that is made with a base of organic juice pulp rescue from a local Juicery. And we take this juice pulp. That’s usually just thrown in a composter or ends up in a landfill and we take all those nutrients and fibre to create a really wholesome snack that’s filling but light at the same time. We sweeten it naturally with ripe bananas we get from retail stores and also feature imperfect apple chunks in our original flavour from a local farmer. And then that’s all dehydrated with oats, coconut and sunflower seeds. So it’s all. Gluten-free nut-free vegan. And it’s really filling and fueling for your day.

Before Bruized, I was mainly trying to figure out my life. I still am. I think everyone goes through that. Fresh out of university and. Finding like part-time jobs. I ended up working a lot more with food as a line cook in restaurants and, I really had a passion for food and cooking and I, I could see my future somewhere in that industry. From learning more about food waste and then seeing the, the waste in my everyday jobs, I made that connection that I wanted to create something that helped to solve this problem.

[00:07:16] Jennifer Chua: Do you remember when you first became interested in sustainability? Like, is there a moment that stands out in your mind?

[00:07:23] Monique Chan: Right when I entered University. I, I decided to take the international developments course because I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew I just had this inner nature to help other people. And I saw myself as an environmentalist and was interested in just caring for our earth. And then I didn’t notice that a lot of the things in my lifestyle didn’t line up with those beliefs. So. I think a key point in my life was when I was literally hauling up plastic water bottles up to my dorm room because they didn’t have like filtered water. There would always be this huge flight of stairs up to my room and I’d just haul like these huge, my dad would help me and it was just something I was so used to at home, drinking plastic water, bottles. And then a lot of my friends that I made in my first year were like super environmentalists. And they were like, like, why don’t you just get a Brita filter or something just to reduce your waste. And they would literally like try to hide my plastic water bottles. And then it was just one day that I realized I was like, yeah, that really doesn’t make sense.

And I need to let go of this ego that like, just because I’ve been doing this for, majority of my life doesn’t make it okay, or good for the environment. So I made that switch. I started eating more plant-based started with being pescatarian and eventually became vegan mid university. And yeah, after that, I just was really interested in cooking and started that plant-based journey from there. Posting more on Instagram and sharing my, my journey with other people.

[00:08:50] Jennifer Chua: Can you tell me a little bit of the story of coming up with this idea and then moving it forward into an actual business?

[00:08:56] Monique Chan: So it was actually in the course where I was studying food waste, where we had to think of a service or a business idea that helped to target food waste. And that was the main project of this semester. So as I was thinking of this, I was at the time really interested in cooking. And also working as a line cook. Why not merge those two passions together and create like a snack bar of some sort that utilizes my skill to be innovative with new ingredients, but also helps the social problem of reducing food waste. So I just kind of merged those two together. I didn’t really have any product ideas at the time.

It was literally just a vague idea that I would work on it and would pitch to my teachers at the end of the semester. over some years, like, I started actually doing recipe testing, connecting with local retailers and farmers to get to understand the problem more on an individual level. And then from there grew into what it is today.

[00:09:53] Jennifer Chua: now I spent a period of my life being a line cook as well. So I do understand kind of the relationship that you’d have with waste, but can you explain a little bit more about how that period of working in restaurant kitchens maybe influenced how you see food waste?

[00:10:11] Monique Chan: During my time working in a restaurant, main places that I saw waste being created was, mainly due to no systems being in place. So if I was working on the line and someone ordered no red onions in their meal, and I accidentally added in made a mistake and added red onions, it would be so busy that people would usually just throw that meal out. But I’d be that person just like hoarding all of the mistakes underneath the fridge and being like, oh, I’ll eat that for lunch later. Or I’m like, I’ll, I’ll bring that home. And people would be frustrated. They’d be like, who left this? burrito sitting here from like 9:00 AM. Do you know? So, uh, I saw a lot of food waste happening on the line.

And then also during just prep. I would observe a lot of employees just, I guess not being taught an efficient way of reducing waste. So I remember distinctly like this one guy would always be the guy in charge of cutting the sweet potatoes to prep sweet potato fries. And he would literally get boxes of sweet potatoes, cut around them to make them cube so they fit perfectly in the cutter and throw everything in the garbage bin. Almost half my height, full of just sweet potato sides just because it’s, it was faster doing it, that he was doing this really fast. And I was so tempted to just throw that big bag and haul it home and like make something out of it.

And it was surprising to me because this restaurant specifically, lot of the production for the sauces were done in a different facility. So every day they would pick up, drop off sauces for the day and then the truck would go back empty and they kind of already started giving the middles of onions from onion rings to the truck, so they could use it for soups and things. And I was so surprised that they didn’t implement this in other produce. So it was like the system was in place. There was just a lack of education, a lack of direction and support with reducing waste and something else I noticed too, because I was the one to make sure all the produce came in and, and check everything. I noticed how much things were costing. So a box of sweet potatoes was 40 bucks. If the guy’s cutting her off around half a sweet potato, he’s wasting $20 a box. We get around three to five boxes on average. So, four boxes and I did the calculations that came up to around $14,000 of just waste from sweet potatoes from that one location. I think when a, you make that monetary connection too, if you multiply that by how many restaurants you have, it’s quite a large amount of money being wasted, resources, energy, labor. I think all of that could have been avoided if there’s better systems in place and more education from the beginning for the employees.

So these are a lot of things that just stuck out to me. We even had a juice bar in the front, so there was a lot of opportunity to even just, bring the kale stems to the front, to put in the juice. Different things like that. I think there was just a lack of priority for those kinds of projects. That’s kind of where my frustration, but like where my drive started by just seeing something like happening and no one really doing anything about it. And then really wanting to see a change.

[00:13:29] Jennifer Chua: Are there any other experiences that shaped how you feel about natural living and environmental responsibility? Like, is there an event that shaped how you see the world this way?

[00:13:41] Monique Chan: I think it’s just an accumulation of a lot of different experiences. I think my influence is mostly from seeing other everyday people doing their best to reduce their waste. Cause I think the most powerful way we can combat these issues is to first reflect on ourselves and see what we as individuals can do.

So I was very influenced by my sustainable friends in university who were like eating plant-based and going to all these like climate event talks and plant-based events and, that it was really inspiring in itself because I got to learn more about how this has an impact and what else I can do as an individual to reduce that. So I got more interested in also trying to be more zero waste and, and how our plastic waste has an impact on the environment, uh, and where it goes at the end of the day. So how to minimize that and sharing and the creative process with other people. I loved to host dinner parties and attend parties when I was in university. And it was just a great way to challenge everyone, to make a dish and be able to share it at the end of the day over the table. I think those experiences were just really inspiring and showed me that like, you really don’t have to sacrifice anything like that to, in order to live a sustainable life.

[00:14:55] Jennifer Chua: So I’d like to chat more about what’s going on with our food what’s going on within our current food system. Like, what is it that the general public isn’t really aware of?

[00:15:04] Monique Chan: So it’s quite a tucked under the rug kind of issue. it’s also very, multi-faceted where there’s always waste at different levels of the food system so whether it be on the farms, restaurants like I described and also in grocery stores. So there’s varying levels to it. It’s very, it’s not like a one solution fits all kind of problem.

What I came to discover is that 58% of all food that is produced is either lost or wasted. And with that also comes wasted resources, water, energy, transportation, land, labor, that’s put into that food. So I kind of like to look at it as, an example, like an apple, not just being an apple, being wasted as like the product itself, but also all of the resources that are encapsulated in that apple that allowed it to reach where it was. And for it to just be thrown out at the end of its life cycle is a huge impact on our environment. When you look at all those, factors that create where it is today. So, yeah, it’s a huge problem. I think we see it more in Western countries like Canada and north America in general. And I really believe we have the resources to, to reduce this waste. And it’s just about educating people on why it’s important and how it affects them and what we can do to reduce that.

[00:16:31] Jennifer Chua: 58%. Sounds like a lot. I’m just wondering why do you think that businesses haven’t taken that next step? Like what do you think the barrier is?

[00:16:39] Monique Chan: I think it’s just the lack of education, to be honest, you know, like if you don’t know what you don’t know, like you can’t really do anything about it. And if people aren’t aware, like when I was doing those calculations for the, just the sweet potatoes alone. When people see it in a different form, like in a money value.

I think people will be more receptive to making changes in their businesses, but when they just see it as like a normal, everyday, cost of waste, um, they just think it’s normal and then it’s normalized for everyone. And no one’s really doing anything about it. So I think it all starts with, it’s just rooted in the education. Of people and, and if they don’t know why it’s a problem and how it affects their business and how it can improve their business, if they actually implement something to help reduce waste, then they’re not really going to take that action to, to fix it.

[00:17:31] Jennifer Chua: But then there’s people that come along that are upcycling food waste like yourself and, and there’s products being created like yours at Bruized. How does all of this contribute to food insecurity? Like I know that food insecurity is hugely top of mind for us. A lot of people are really struggling after the last couple of years as well. How do you think that upcyclers can help contribute to alleviating food insecurity or even the climate crisis? Like why is this so important?

[00:17:58] Monique Chan: That’s a tricky question. I, for me, personally, on a business level, I’d love for us to be at a point where we can make our products more accessible. Creating a closed-loop system of reducing food waste, but also being able to give that food back to people, and to share that with a larger audience. But I guess yeah, ways that you can help reduce food insecurity is just, you know, understanding the problem more. I know a lot of more community fridges are opening up. Our local communities it’s open to anyone who needs it. So even making donations there are grocery runs, like getting together with your friends, baking, cooking meals together and sharing it with non-profit organizations I think is definitely a way to start more locally. But yeah, food insecurity is kind of a big one to tackle and I think you really just got to start more locally. And see how you can create that ripple effect. Once you notice what the problem is in your, in your own community,

[00:18:59] Jennifer Chua: And when you begin to look into creating your products, did you find anything surprising?

[00:19:04] Monique Chan: I didn’t really think that we would have access to, uh, as much product as we, we usually get. Usually what we pick up for our supplies is only a percentage of how much is usually thrown out and wasted. So we’re doing our best as a small business, but it was definitely surprising to realize like, wow, It’s definitely more than enough to go around and there’s opportunity for other businesses to take part in using upcycled ingredients and for this to become more of a mainstream supply of ingredients. And something else I noticed too, was just. Also, I mean, it was kind of expected, but not having consistency of certain ingredients and, and being very flexible in how I created products to ensure that we could have them on a consistent basis and not be short on any products.

[00:19:57] Jennifer Chua: And these relationships that you have with grocery and Juicery that are giving you these less than perfect or by-product really. How did that relationship start? Like did you just go into the grocery store and asked to speak to the manager? And I’m just wondering how you managed to get these other businesses on board.

[00:20:16] Monique Chan: It was pretty much like, cold calling and also I think what was more effective for us was actually going into stores and being. Where’s your manager. Like, I want to discuss some things because a lot of people don’t reply to their emails and. I think it was most effective to just talk to people in person and, and show them what we do as a business and what we’re passionate about and how they can be a part of that. lot of businesses, if w if we just make it easy for them, say we’ll pick up everything, we’ll just message you when we’re picking it up, we’ll provide the, buckets or like whatever resources or materials you need. As long as we made it easy for them. willing to do it. And especially if it was something that was just going to be wasted, like, retail stores that had ripe bananas, a lot of the times they just don’t have time to, or any use for those.

They would end up on discount racks. And if it was a large amount, like it usually wouldn’t sell, it would end up being thrown out. So we kind of help them move a lot of their products. So they would have more space to bring in a new produce and supply. So it was like a win-win like they get to, I guess, move product. We pay a discounted price for it as well. It’s just a, it’s a good exchange and they know that they’re helping to reduce their own food waste. So I guess it’s also a personal win for them.

[00:21:34] Jennifer Chua: Something that’s just occurred to me is I follow some of those dumpster diver people on Tik TOK. I don’t know if you’ve seen those. Have you seen these videos?

[00:21:42] Monique Chan: No, I haven’t, I have dumpster-dived in my, in my lifetime. So I do know what it’ll look like.

[00:21:48] Jennifer Chua: Particularly the ones I’m following based in large urban centers. And I think New York city is one of them and they’re going to, think of a really large grocery store and they’re going in the back and they’re finding all of these perfectly good foods that are maybe close to their sell by date, but not expired by any means. Do you have any comments about those kind of systems? Like the sell by dates, the expiry dates. How can we create change there?

[00:22:17] Monique Chan: That’s definitely a tricky one because I know it is, you know, I’m sure there’s a lot of regulations with who food expiry dates and what you’re allowed to say, and it’s just a liability issue. So it is tricky. I think. What we can do on our part is just to educate people that when it says best before, that’s not necessarily like the day it’s going to go all moldy or, or go bad, I think it’s to teach people how to use their senses and use their own judgment to be like, okay, like it says best before this day, but you know, I opened it on this day and like kind of getting an understanding. Smelling it, I think is the first step. And it’s just using your best judgment and not. Kind of using that specific data as a guideline of what to throw out and what not to throw out. I don’t know if there’s a lot we can do about the regulations around necessarily best before dates and expiring dates. Especially if it’s something that’s like yogurt or something that’s cultured.

In terms of dry goods or like crackers or anything like that really. Just use your own judgment, smell it. And if it smells fine, most of the time it’s usually okay. And our bodies are very resilient, so it’ll take a lot to really do some damage. So I think, yeah, just use your best judgment. And, and I think that’s where we can start.

[00:23:35] Jennifer Chua: Are there any other choices that you’ve made with Bruized in order to make sure that your goods are good for the planet as well?

[00:23:41] Monique Chan: One thing specifically that we do is we try to source as locally as possible before we were kind of. When we first started, we were trying to just, source things from big grocery stores because they had so much waste that we actually saw. But then, after, being more in the farmer’s market space, we realized why not use this as an avenue to also support our local farmers, our own community, and like make it a food full circle on a small scale and be able to first target the problems on our local lands versus tackling like these mass production facilities that are imported from the USA.

That’s also an issue, but I think we want to focus more on just being local to start with also just coordinating our pickups to be at farmer’s market. So we vend at farmer’s markets mostly and, For that to be a pickup spot helps to reduce our carbon emissions. Also it’s just easier to communicate with farmers at the farmer’s market because a lot of them are very busy and don’t reply.

So just being able to coordinate with them in person is the best way. And, we also started using, Glass jars when we first started, just so it could be a way to reduce plastic waste. Now we also introduced like a bulk version of our product that we sell at the farmer’s markets. So it’s completely zero waste option. People can bring their containers in, we, we tar them and then just fill up how much they want of our pulp crunch. Even our cookie. I love when customers just bring their own container. Take out containers. It doesn’t have to be fancy like stainless steel ones and they just pick up our products and it’s like complete zero waste transaction. Those are the small things that we try to do too, as a small business to just reduce our waste. Hopefully as we grow, we can, we can make more impact in terms of how much waste we’re reducing in other aspects of our business.

[00:25:32] Jennifer Chua: So when you did start the business, what was your big dream in those days?

[00:25:36] Monique Chan: My dream was to just, I guess, have something that really resonated with other people and, and created impact in other people and something that was unconventional and not seen on the market. So another reason aside from reducing food waste, Why I started Bruized was because I was very interested in natural food and eating healthy and finding food that fuels.

And a lot of times I would browse, especially the granola section. And most of them would look healthy, like have all this beautiful, eco- packaging. And when you look at the ingredients which is like number one thing you should do when you pick up any product, because at the end of the day, ingredients don’t lie. You would just see a lot of these products are filled with cheap ingredients, fillers, sugars, oils, and nothing really that is fueling for your body. So I really wanted to first start off by making a granola that I could eat every day and feel good after eating it. That’s where I came up with pulp crunch because I also was into juicing.

I had all this juice pulp leftover and I was like, wow, this is a great like base full of fiber. There’s so many nutrients still intact in that fiber. Why not use it instead of throwing it out? So I think that’s another reason that drove my passion for starting Bruized. Create products that were unconventional, helping to tackle food waste, but also tasted good at the end of the day. And weren’t just the gluten-free option or the vegan option, but was the good option. Genuinely people liked and we’ve gotten so much good feedback. Sometimes people don’t even realize that it’s vegan or gluten-free and they usually just surprised or let alone made with stuff that would have just been composted.

That was my big dream and I think we’ve reached a point where we, we have reached, I see the vision, you know, playing out and I still see a bigger future where Bruized can grow nationally, even internationally and start growing its own little hubs locally. That’s another way for us to be more sustainable too, is just keeping Bruized as not a one location, distribution kind of center where we shipped from Toronto all the way to Vancouver. But starting our own Bruized community in Vancouver, in Montreal. And making it more of a local collaboration and collective where people can get together, learn more about food waste. We share good food and have more discussion on how we can make a difference. That’s my big dream. And I’m putting it out there into the universe right now.

[00:28:07] Jennifer Chua: So, what was the first thing that you were proud of though? Like, what is the first thing you were proud of in this business and why did it fill your heart so much that you made change?

[00:28:17] Monique Chan: I don’t know if it was just one thing, but I guess it was just the general response that we got when we first started selling at farmers markets. I think a lot of business owners can relate to this, but having that first sale is like, it kind of just doing your happy dance behind the table and they’re like leaving. I think that just gave a lot of validation that like, yeah, people like this product and they’re willing to pay money for it and support it. I think a lot of that was rooted from us giving out our product very generously, we always were all about sampling because it’s a new industry, a new product, something that they haven’t seen on the shelves before.

We were very generous with always giving samples, always talking about the product and how it benefited our planet and your, your health. And, I think at the end of the day, we also want the product to speak for itself. So we were very generous with samples. And I think to see that response from people and support over the years, has been so fulfilling and that’s truly what brings joy to me in my everyday work.

[00:29:18] Jennifer Chua: and building this business and where you’ve gotten so far, has anything just been like, I can’t believe this worked out this way.

[00:29:26] Monique Chan: Yeah, I guess, I think a lot of times, I haven’t really put a lot of action. I’m going to be honest and to seeking out press or any sort of media coverage, I’ve just been focused on like the everyday grind and any podcasts that we’ve been on or any like interview or grant that we’ve been featured in. Or panel. Literally everyone has just reached out to, to us. And I was just so shocked at how people found us and how they were interested in what we were doing. Even just being here. I was like, wow, this is amazing. Like, people want to know more about what we’re doing and want to be a part of it. And I think that’s, that was the craziest thing to me. I was like, wow, I really don’t even need someone to do PR for me, I’m literally just getting all the emails myself. So yeah, that was a huge shock for me. I’m always happy to, to be a part of other people’s own journeys and storytelling and sharing what we do at Bruized.

[00:30:22] Jennifer Chua: Have there been any moments though that you felt like maybe the odds were stacked against you?

[00:30:26] Monique Chan: I guess usually on like my stuck days where I’m trying to figure out things and, you know, being a small business and doing the roles that I’m usually not that great at. There have been those days and at the end of the day, it’s about taking it all in, not, not valuing the wins more than the lows and like just continuing to move and just going . I think at the end of the day, whatever problem it is, like it’s temporary, we’re going to find a solution and that’s usually how I get through it. We’re going to work it out. We already got here so far, so, nothing’s can really stop us so.

[00:31:08] Jennifer Chua: So if you’ve inspired someone to start their own food waste, upcycling business, is there a common reason that they might give up or walk away?

[00:31:17] Monique Chan: Yeah, I mean, thinking about when we first started, the main barrier for me was just finding consistent supply of things, because this is a very new idea where there isn’t much demand for imperfect ingredients or byproducts that weren’t even seen as ingredients like juice pulp. A lot of people it’s like creating your own system. So I had to really build my own way of sourcing things. And it was really difficult just to find a consistent supplier of ingredients that we used and to also build products around that. It’s very easy to just. order whatever you want. If you already have a product that you’ve developed. But for our business plan, it’s kind of the opposite where we want to help reduce food waste, and we want to actually make an impact.

So understanding how food waste plays a part in different organizations. So using byproducts that are usually discarded specific to those companies is what our business is surrounded by. So. It’s hard when it’s something that you’ve created yourself. And that could be a huge barrier that is discouraging. But I would just recommend keep going. Usually how all new things start. There’s always going to be that friction in the beginning and something that I found helpful to overcome that is just to always have a backup plan. We have like a very long list of suppliers. So you know, that we always can rely on getting the ingrediants that we need, the volumes that we need, because we have different resources and people to source it from. So yeah, I think that could be a huge barrier, but it’s not impossible we’re doing it and you can do it too.

[00:33:00] Jennifer Chua: So how can we avoid food waste? Maybe not in our business, but maybe at home, is there anything that I should be mindful of when I’m looking towards those vegetables that are in the back of my fridge.

[00:33:10] Monique Chan: The first thing I always tell anyone who’s trying to reduce waste at home is to just first. Look inside your garbage or your compost or whatever your waste disposal unit is at home. Take a look at that because that is literally a mirror of what you need to work on. Right? So if you see, like different scraps in the compost, carrot ends, onion, skins, kale stems, maybe looking up different ways to reuse those ingredients.

So whether that be making a, my go-to is just a big pot of veggie stock, you freeze those ingredients anytime you’re prepping your meals. Put them in a bag in a freezer and then just keep filling it up until it’s full. And once it’s full, you take one day to make a big pot of stock. You strain it and then you can make soup, you can freeze the stock to use for future meals. And it’s just a great way to get those extra last bit of nutrients from that produce that you’re paying for. Another way that I like to reduce waste is also to make Grocery lists before I go to the grocery store. I’m trying to improve on that.

I’m not perfect. Sometimes I forget, and I go a little crazy with buying things, but I think that having that structure before you buy your food too, is very helpful. So you don’t buy things unnecessarily or buy things in large amounts. A lot of times I think people have excess because they think they’re getting a deal by buying that big mega family pack when their a family of one or two. And after that, going by the expiry date, they end up throwing away half of it. So they’re not actually saving that money. So I think being aware of like the marketing tricks that are out there and, and realizing that buying what you need and doing more runs to the grocery store is probably better than buying everything in a larger amount. And then letting it sit in your fridge, uh, until it’s gone bad until you forget about it. Buying what you need and, and using it and getting innovative with how you use those ingredients is your first step for anyone just trying to reduce waste at home.

[00:35:15] Jennifer Chua: And what about the future? How do you think what you’re doing now is impacting us or the people around you? How hopeful are you for the future?

[00:35:25] Monique Chan: I’m a very hopeful person. I really do believe like we are early to this type of market for imperfect ingredients. And. I want people to just jump on this and to realize that, oh, if we’re doing it as a small business, there’s so much potential that this can be incorporated into every business on a different level. I really believe like the future holds just the idea of renewing and, and reducing waste because we’re already low on resources even with COVID there’s been food shortages, global warming, climate change. A lot of this is affecting our food supply and we need to just be more mindful of how we’re using the food that’s already being produced versus trying to find ways to create more food, to supply the growing population.

I think the future is going to be all about renewing what we have, finding more sustainable ways to go about, our systems, especially within food. And I hope to be the company that is the leading example for that. And I’d love to be able to connect with other businesses that are interested too, and be able to share anything I can offer to help support them in that transition.

I think we can’t do this alone and real really need to start building our relationships with the people around us and together we each have something to offer and we can put together a solution to help tackle these huge global issues. So it’s all started in ourselves, but also in the collective and collaborative minds of our community.

[00:37:02] Jennifer Chua: Are there any other ways that you affect social change with this business?

[00:37:06] Monique Chan: We are a women of color business and we want to try to be as inclusive as possible as we grow. So, you know, being able to hire more marginalized people to join our team. And also once we were at the stage to be able to donate to more organizations that are making an impact Socially. So we can be able to play a part as a business as we grow and, to support other . Organizations that are . Doing good for that.

I think for our business too, what we hope to offer in a few years is just to be able to expand our line of products. And to also, like I mentioned, be more accessible and where we offer our products so that more people can take part in our mission to reduce food waste and also get that inspiration of why food waste is important and what they can do to help alleviate that. Stay tuned for another upgrade to our range of products and what we can offer to our committee.

We’re in the process of just sorting out the business and having a little restart, just with COVID that really just. What we want to focus on is really just growing our business, making our production more efficient, being able to grow our team. So it’s literally not just two women running this, but having other people that are passionate about food waste to join us. and partake in that. What we’re just focused on is how can we scale this idea and how can we make it also accessible to people?

[00:38:34] Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Monique and how she’s embracing imperfect to make feel good food for the planet and the people around us or order some of her delicious pulp crunch visit bruized.com bruised with a Z. You can follow along with Monique on her mission to upcycle imperfect produce into wholesome eats on Instagram at @ bruizedco

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

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

Links from this episode

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

Episode Transcript

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concerns about climate change led Katherine Ellison from Bright Planet Pet to look closely at the environmental impact of pet ownership and create a line of 100% plant-based dog treats that taste and smell like real meat. In this episode, we learn how consumer behaviour has shifted in the pet product space, chat about the humanization of pets and what this means for sustainability. And learn how you can make an impact in this area by sourcing alternative proteins or switching to plant-based treats. Which may help lower your pet’s carbon pawprint.

If you want to learn more about Katherine and her 100% plant-based pet treats visit brightplanetpet.com. In Canada? These sustainable, vegan, allergy-friendly treats are in-store at your local Pet Valu. You can follow along with Katherine on her mission to save the earth together with your pet one treat at a time on Facebook or Instagram @brightplanetpet.

Links from this episode

• https://brightplanetpet.com
• Carbon Pawprints: How Our Dogs & Cats Contribute to Global Warming
• Dogs, Cats And Climate Change: What’s Your Pet’s Carbon Pawprint?
• Ono Pet Bowls / Non-Skid, All-in-One Silicone Pet Bowls & Placemats

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:14] Jennifer Chua: If you consider yourself a dog person, you are in good company here. I’m a proud new puppy, parent, myself. And worldwide more and more of us are bringing pets into the home. Pet ownership is trending, increasing in countries all over the world -particularly in developing ones. And how we view our pets is also changing. They’ve become like members of the family. And as pet owners become more invested in the health and wellbeing of their companions, owning a pet may come with some more significant environmental impacts. The choices that we make in terms of our pets’ diets? Well, our dogs are no longer eating meat by-products and table scraps and bone meal. Consumer behaviour has shifted towards feeding higher quality meats in food and in treats. And since meat-based foods use land, water, and energy to manufacture, up to 64 million tonnes of carbon dioxide is emitted in the production of pet food alone. Forbes magazine reported that it’s even been estimated that owning a medium-sized dog can have a similar carbon footprint to a large SUV. Love your pets and the planet? There may be some alternatives worth exploring.

Bright Planet Pet was founded on the principle that dogs and their people deserve a truly sustainable dog treat that is delicious while being 100% plant-based and vegan. Their treats create 90% fewer carbon emissions and use 68% less water than a comparable meat-based treat.

 And just a couple of years ago, Katherine, the founder of bright planet pet was working for large-scale pet food and treat manufacturers. Helping large retailers and national brands manufacture and launch new products. And in her personal life, Katherine and her husband, Dave, were finding themselves, talking about climate change.

Her husband is a scientist. He’s very concerned about all things related to the earth and the pair are very connected to nature. Being out in nature, and going on hikes with their animals. They’re often awed by the natural beauty of our planet. And as they were becoming increasingly concerned about the crisis at hand and their own carbon footprint, they began to make small changes in their personal life. Recycling more, driving less, becoming more conscious of these choices that we make in our everyday lives. And one of the biggest choices was around the food that they were eating. And what kind of impact that their diet could have. So they began to add more plant-based meals, reduce meat. And Katherine soon became a full vegetarian. But it led her to think. What if we could feed our pets this way.

[00:04:59] Katherine Ellison: Even though we don’t have children of our own, when we think about setting the planet up for the next generation, I mean, there’s a huge concern there. And so we just want to do what we can on our part to make those small changes.

[00:05:15] Jennifer Chua: Katherine and her husband live in a beautiful area, surrounded by the nature that they love. The area of 10,000 lakes, Minnesota. They share their life with two cats and three dogs. One pug and two bugs, Boston terrier, pug mixes. Her days revolve strongly around her pets, feeding, walking, and exercising them takes up a lot of her time. But once everyone is taken care of Katherine’s dogs join her in the Bright Planet office space. (She lovingly refers to them as her coworkers) as she fulfills orders works on the business. And takes plenty of opportunities for treat breaks.

[00:05:55] Katherine Ellison: And then it’s always nice to have them to have little mental health breaks and give them some hugs and kisses. And remind me kind of why I’m doing all of this and why Bright Planet is so important. And of course we give lots of treats throughout the day. We treat them with all of our Bright Planet plant-based treats. They also are my taste testers for any product development. So right now I have a bag of biscuit samples, and they usually have those when they go to work first thing in the morning, and then for their afternoon snack.

[00:06:26] Jennifer Chua: So why do you think you are such an enthusiastic pet parent? Did you always have pets growing up? Or why are you so in love with our little furry friends?

[00:06:33] Katherine Ellison: I’ve always loved pets. I grew up with cats and we always had cats my whole childhood, actually, my first word was ‘kitty’, not even mom or dad or anything like that. I’ve just always had a really strong connection with animals. I think it’s the feeling of them just providing us unconditional love that was really something that I embraced and connected with. So I’ve had pets my whole life. I got my first dog when I was 25 and now I definitely love dogs and I love cats equally. So, we have both in our household. I started working at veterinary clinics when I was younger. And when I started working at vet clinics, I found my people. Like the people that love pets, want the best for them, understand them. And a lot of people that are, have strong connections with pets have strong empathy. And so that’s definitely one of the personality qualities that I think I relate to with my pets.

[00:07:38] Jennifer Chua: So you had this opportunity to start a business and create a product, create something, but when did it go into your mind that you had the opportunity to create change?

[00:07:48] Katherine Ellison: I came up with the idea a few years ago when I was at a trade show and I was talking with some colleagues and first I realized that there was a big opportunity to make treats that were specifically created for millennials. And now gen Z consumers. And one of the big things that were trending in the human food industry was the really the huge impact that beyond burgers and impossible meat, they were really like every single grocery store.

And there was so much press about it and they had a strong sustainability mission as well. So first I saw an opportunity to just make plant-based treats and market them as such because there weren’t any products like that on the market a few years ago. And then more so based on my experience and my knowledge about trends in the pet industry, we know that the human food trends come into the pet industry in about three to five years and so more.

So I saw a much bigger opportunity to actually create a plant-based treat that was kind of modelled after the concept of the impossible burger beyond burger and make a plant-based treat that actually tasted and smelled like meat so that our pets would actually really enjoy eating that. While the owner would understand that they were making a more sustainable choice.

So once I had that concept, everything fault fell into place as far as the impact that we could make, because we were going to be able to make treats that were super tasty and delicious with sustainable ingredients that removed meat from all of the formula. Which would, reduce carbon paw prints, reduce the amount of carbon emissions, reduce water usage and land usage. And also we decided to start an initiative where every time we sold a bag of treats, we make a donation to plant one tree. So it’s not just for us. What’s in the treat or what is not in the treat. It’s also the fact that every time you buy a bag you understand that somewhere in the world in an area of deforestation, a tree is being planted because you chose to buy a Bright Planet treat. And so that just goes along with our whole mission of really trying to combat climate change? in the pet industry, by making these small changes for our pets.

[00:10:14] Jennifer Chua: I’d like to talk about the pet industry. Because a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a brand called Ono and it is a non-slip pet dish, but it’s made responsibly with silicone. And I went to one of these large industry trade shows for pets and our brand and this other brand that were making treats, I believe out of cricket flour. We were the ones with the press coming by and people were excited and Ono actually won the innovation award of that particular show. But the response from the retailers, wasn’t what we had expected. So they were very nervous to take on these new brands. And I’m just wondering in the last couple of years, since I had that experience, how is the market responding or the retail market responding to innovations like this that are sustainably minded in the pet space?

[00:11:09] Katherine Ellison: Yeah, there’s definitely been a shift. There are large key retailers who have made commitments to sustainability, like Petco. They made a statement earlier this year that they wanted 50% or more of their products to be sustainable. I believe by 2025. And so that’s a really strong statement from a very key player in the marketplace saying we understand the importance of sustainability when it comes to our pets.

We want to support sustainable companies. We will not have stock sustainable products because that’s what our consumers are asking for. And that’s what is the right thing to do? And so would we go and talk to retailers, we’re able to tell them about our sustainability mission, which oftentimes lines up with their own goals and it makes the transition easier for them to say, Hey, yes, we are going to take in your products because you are aligned with our goals and our vision for the type of products we want to stock. And that’s because the consumers are asking for it. We know that especially the younger consumers are willing to spend more money on sustainable products. And if they can find those unique, sustainable products at a retailer, like Pet Co. That gets them in the door and makes that retailer much more competitive.

So I think that there’s been a ton of really wonderful innovation. Both on the consumable side as well on the hard goods side, as it relates to sustainability, there are great plant-based and sustainable food choices for our pets now. You mentioned insect protein. That’s a huge sustainability play that is becoming much more mainstream.

We’re also seeing hard, good companies using recyclable plastics to make things like toys. And. Even clothing and things of that nature. So, there’s a huge opportunity for startups right now who are really able to make those innovative products and find a market for it. Potentially first, find that market online and then bring that into retail and partner with these retailers that are looking for sustainable products.

We started our company online. We actually started with a Kickstarter, to help fund our first production run. And we raised $10,000. We were able to take pre-orders and then ship out for our first production run. We do have a presence on Amazon and we do sell direct to consumer. That is part of our strategy, but our strategy always first has been to be at retail. We feel like there is a huge opportunity to bring plant-based options to pet specialty stores, as well as to bring plant-based options for our dogs to stores where we, as humans are buying our own plant-based meat. So our goal is to be in pet specialty stores where that consumer is looking for those unique products that meet maybe some, demands that their pets need, like allergen-friendly, low-calorie, things of that nature. But then also we want to be at grocery stores so that you can go buy your impossible burger and then you can go over to the pet aisle and you can also find a treat for your dogs that is a similar type of product. We do feel like there’s a huge opportunity for us online as well, especially to reach our target customer. So we’ll continue to grow that portion of our business as well.

[00:14:39] Jennifer Chua: You began to look into creating dog treats and you began to really explore the pet industry with kind of a different lens, now that you were going into this as a business owner. Could you tell me about the day that you realized that our conventional pet treats might’ve been, less than ideal? Why did you choose to do the a hundred percent plant-based route and what motivated this decision?

[00:15:02] Katherine Ellison: A lot of our pet treats today that we feed our dogs are primarily meat-based. So we have on the market, a number of different types of meat-based treats. You can see treats that use, whole meat as the first ingredient, like chicken or beef, or there are a lot of very popular brands that use byproducts and the main purpose of using all of those products is to get a delicious flavour.

The most important thing for me was to figure out how to make a plant-based treat that actually tasted good. And so the way that we could do that is actually by adding in a plant-based flavouring that makes our product taste and smell like meat.

[00:15:43] Jennifer Chua: I’m just super curious. How are you getting that meaty, smoky flavour that is attractive to dogs? How are you getting that with the plant-based product?

[00:15:50] Katherine Ellison: So we work with a flavour supplier and they have a whole team of scientists where they make flavours for both human food and for pet food. And so they have these proprietary formulas and these proprietary methods where they can develop flavours that don’t use any meat. It tastes and smells like meat. They actually keep that very close to them. They actually don’t share some of those secrets. But we do know that all of our flavourings that we use have absolutely no animal products and are fully plant-based. We also have the opportunity with our flavour supplier to create custom flavours that can be unique and special just to Bright Planet. And so that’s something that we’ll be working on in the coming year to come up with some unique, meaty plant-based flavours that haven’t been seen on the market yet.

[00:16:45] Jennifer Chua: Our pets that are enjoying Bright Planet, what are they tasting at this moment? What do you have available?

[00:16:50] Katherine Ellison: We have three flavours available today. We have our better burger, which tastes like a freshly grilled hamburger. We have our better brat was, which tastes like a grilled bratwurst and we have our better barbecue chicken, which tastes like a delicious chicken leg smothered in barbecue sauce. We’re also working on creating a better bacon flavour, which we’ll taste, of course, like the delicious bacon that our dogs absolutely go crazy for.

[00:17:19] Jennifer Chua: And they’re safe enough for human consumption too right?

[00:17:22] Katherine Ellison: We do have a lot of people that like to try our treats to see what they taste like. We often hear responses. Wow, this is actually pretty good, or this actually tastes meatier than other dog treats. I’ve tried. They are made in a pet facility so they’re not human-grade, but they’re made with all-natural, sustainable, healthy ingredients that we recognize and use in our own diets.

[00:17:47] Jennifer Chua: And what are the costs associated with creating something like a pet treat? Like what’s the environmental impact? What do we need to be concerned about? Like you’ve made these choices that are sustainably minded, but what are the costs associated with doing this? If you were just some big company and you’re just not thinking sustainability at all, you’re just creating pet treats.

[00:18:06] Katherine Ellison: There’s a statistic that shows that American dogs and cats eat so much meat, that if they were a country, they would rank fifth in terms of meat consumption. And so the way we choose to feed and treat our pets really does have a big implant impact on carbon emissions, water usage, land usage, and can make a big difference by making small changes.

So our treats at Bright Planet, because they’re plant-based and we use sustainable ingredients. Our treats create 90%, less carbon emissions and use 68% less water than a traditional meat-based treat.

Yeah. it’s really fantastic. Especially just by removing the beef, beef is one of the highest carbon emission ingredients. And so by removing beef, we can really make a big difference. And, when you feed your pet, our Bright Planet treats, they don’t know that they’re not eating that little tiny doggy burger. They really are enjoying that taste and that smell. And you, as the owner are just having that reinforcement that you made a great decision for your dog. You made a great decision for the planet. We talked to some of our core customers about that, and for them, it’s really important that they’re making these sustainable decisions. And a lot of it just goes back to reinforcing their own beliefs and their own values and wanting to be able to have a treat that speaks to those values that they feel good giving their pets. And our treats are full of really healthy, premium ingredients.

We use ingredients like chickpea flour, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and yeast, as a base for our treats. And then we add in those additional flavors to make it taste and smell like meat. So when you compare our treats to some other plant-based treats on the market, our treats are definitely more premium. We use high-quality ingredients. We use ingredients, you can trust, ingredients, you can understand. And so what a lot of times people look at the back of our packaging, they look at it and they’re looking for things to make them not want to buy our treats. They’re looking for things like corn, soy, wheat, canola oil, things like that. And we don’t have any of those in our products. We use coconut oil instead of canola oil. Our treats are great for dogs with allergies and dogs that have sensitive systems sensitive tummies. So they’re really great for all different types of breeds and sizes of dogs.

[00:20:42] Jennifer Chua: So with Bright Planet, you are reducing your pet’s carbon pawprint, which I love that phrase. And you’re helping address climate change concerns. Can you explain a little bit more of what you mean by that phrase?

[00:20:53] Katherine Ellison: If you compare carbon impact of a meat-based treat it’s much higher than the carbon impact of our plant-based treat. So essentially you as a pet owner, have the ability and the opportunity to help reduce your dog’s carbon pawprint by making changes like switching to Bright Planet treats or even, making changes like buying recyclable toys, reusing bags, when you’re ready to pick up your dog’s waste, not buying new plastic bags to pick up your dog’s waste. So there’s a lot of ways that you can reduce your dog’s carbon pawprint and changing the way you treat your pet is just one of them. And so we want to help enable people to do that by treating with our Bright Planet treats.

[00:21:40] Jennifer Chua: Have you made any other decisions in terms of packaging or manufacturing to create meaningful impact?

[00:21:47] Katherine Ellison: Yeah, that’s a great question. So we are based in Bloomington, Minnesota, which is right outside of the twin cities and both our packaging and our treats are manufactured within a 40 mile radius of our headquarters. And so that helps us reduce our overall transportation-related carbon emissions. And in addition, we love to support local companies and family-owned businesses. And so we really do make a conscious effort of which suppliers we’re going to work with and love to choose companies that are local to where we are headquartered. We are quickly transitioning next year into a recyclable bag. So it’ll be a number two recyclable bag that is able to be dropped off at a grocery store or anywhere else that, collects recyclable bags like grocery bags. In addition, whenever we ship our e-commerce orders or ship any of our online orders, we use all recyclable packaging materials. So they’re all padded mailers that just use, paper. You can put them right in your recycling bin.

[00:22:53] Jennifer Chua: I’d love to learn more about this tree planting program that you have. Why did you choose to plant trees? And what does that partnership really look like?

[00:23:01] Katherine Ellison: yeah. So we chose to play at trees because. Our company is really focused on sustainability. Of course, we love our dogs and cats, but there are so many other great organizations that are donating to animal welfare. Right. Our ethos is really sustainability and compounding climate change. And one of the best ways we can do that is by replanting areas of deforestation. And So we have partnered with the Eden reforestation projects. They are a 5 0 1 C3 that’s based in California and they plant all across the world in areas of deforestation and they pay their employees a livable wage. So they actually have a multicomponent mission, which is to lift communities out of poverty and also plant in areas of deforestation.

And so we were really aligned with their mission and what they do. And so we’ve partnered with them. Once a quarter, we tally up exactly how many bags we’ve sold each quarter, and we make a donation. For this year 2021, we’ve been selling our products since March and we’re on track to plant over 15,000 trees this year with Eden.

And next year we’ve really increased our distribution and we’ll be in much more stores. So we really anticipate that we’ll be able to plant even more trees next year. And it’s really a huge part of our message and our organization. We’re really proud of the fact that we’re able to help with these efforts and. Our core customer really understands and appreciates that part of our business. And it really speaks to our customer that again, is really interested in making sustainable choices as a very tangible thing. When you pick up a bag or when you pick up your bag to give your dog treats, you know that like actually one tree has been planted, which is a great trade-off, and it’s just something kind of more physical that people can relate to.

[00:25:03] Jennifer Chua: So back when you were coming up with this idea to create this business and you’re moving it forward into creating an actual business, did you have a point where you went to your husband, your science-minded husband and said, I want to create a pet product. I want it to be focused on sustainability. We want to go vegetarian. Did you have a conversation? Like what did he say? How did that conversation go?

[00:25:28] Katherine Ellison: So he was really open to becoming more of a flexitarian or reducatarian, both for the climate impact, as well as just health implications. We know that it’s healthy for us to eat more fruits and veggies, more legumes, more whole foods. And so he was definitely on board with that. When I approached him and wanted to start a plant-based treat company. He understood the vision and he understood the mission. He was actually the one to come up with the concept of planting a tree every time we sold a bag. And so that was a great idea that he was able to bring to really round out our core values of combating climate change. So he definitely understood the market and he thought it was a great idea.

And certainly, there was a little convincing that needed to happen. We have bootstrapped the company to date. So we have been using our own resources to fund the company. And so it was definitely a joint decision that we had to make as a family to decide to really bet on this idea. And bet that we could be first to market and fast to market. And when we launched it in March, we were the first plant-based treat company that made products that taste and smell like meat. And today we are still the only company that exclusively makes plant-based products. There are other people that have come on the market that are making plant-based treats that tastes like meat, but they also use things like salmon, eggs, other, Meat-based or animal-based proteins in their products. And there are also other brands who have meat-based products that have added plant-based products, but we are still the only a hundred percent plant-based company that is making meaty treats for our dogs. And we also plan to expand into cat as well.

[00:27:20] Jennifer Chua: So you did a Kickstarter and I’m sure you were able to get some feedback there from your customer base or your potential customer base, but when was the moment that you realized this could work?

[00:27:33] Katherine Ellison: We did our Kickstarter. We raised our money. We did our first formulation and we ran our first production. And I received in the first samples. I gave them to my dogs and my dogs absolutely went crazy over them. Like they were begging for more, they were doing tricks. They were really excited about the flavor of the treats. Some of my dogs are picky. Some of them aren’t picky, but just to see that initial reaction from them, Made me think, Hey, I think we have the recipe. Right? And so with our Kickstarter backers, when they would purchase a bag of our treats, we would also send them with a meat-based treat that was kind of similar to ours.

And we sent them home with, testing protocol. So we had them do two different tests. We had them do a first choice test, which is where you put our treats in one bowl and put our competitor treats in another bowl that were, meat-based you take your dog out of the room, you put the treats in the bowls and then you let your dog back in the room and you see what they choose first a number of times to make sure that there weren’t any bowl preferences, some dogs just prefer right bowls some dogs prefer left bowls. So we did that test and we also did just an acceptance test. Simply when you offer a treat to the dog, do they eat it? From our Kickstarter backers, we had over 97% acceptance rate, which means that over 97% of all dogs, when they’re offered our treat, they eat the treat. And then from our first choice test, over 72% of all dogs chose our plant-based treat first over an actual meat-based treat. And that was really exciting for us. The meat-based treat that we are testing with is actually a national brand that has very wide distribution. It’s a burger-flavored treat. And so when we heard that almost three out of four dogs chose our plant-based treat first, we knew that we had the smell right, because dogs make so many decisions based on smells.

And then with our acceptance tests, we knew that we really had that flavour. Because once they were trying our treat, there were wanting to continue eating our treat as well. That’s when we knew we had something that was going to be big. Because if the dogs don’t love your treats, the owner’s not going to go back and buy another bag.

[00:29:54] Jennifer Chua: What other feedback are you getting from your actual customers?

[00:29:59] Katherine Ellison: The number one thing that we hear is just that our dogs are obsessed with your treats. We hear things like our dogs will do their least favourite tricks to, in order to get your treats that they love every single flavour. That we put it on top of their food to encourage them to eat their food. And they gobble it up every single time. That they beg for more. And so that kind of feedback, just that the dogs are really loving the treats is wonderful for us, but more so we also get customers coming to us and saying, thank you for making a product like this, because I’ve been searching for something like this for so long, because maybe that owner is vegan or vegetarian and they want to be able to feed their dog, like they feed themselves. And so now they actually have a sustainable option and they’re excited to see the other products that Bright Planet is going to come out with because they know what’s going to align with their values and their dogs are going to love the taste as well.

Our product and our mission and our brand is really resonating with our target customer who is actually feeding a meat-based diet. Our target customer doesn’t feed beef products because they understand the carbon impact of beef, but they’re feeding like a fish-based diet or a poultry-based diet. And then they just want to have some really yummy treats that they feel good about giving their pets.

[00:31:24] Jennifer Chua: What do you think is the best option in terms of feeding your pet currently with what’s on the market in terms of sustainability?

[00:31:31] Katherine Ellison: There are so many different, great brands on the market. The way we feed our pets is also an extremely personal decision. And so there’s really no right or wrong way to feed your pets, especially from the Bright Planet perspective. We never will ask our customers to exclusively feed plant-based, it’s really just up to them what’s best for their pet and what the best decision is that they make with their veterinarian. We never ask for perfection. We only ask for progress. And small changes, and that really resonates with the people who love our treats. There are great brands on the market like wild earth. They’re a fully plant-based brand.

There’s another brand called Petaluma that they have a baked food that is plant-based, believe it’s a peanut butter flavour. There’s also companies that are trying to use more sustainable protein in their formulas. If you want to feed your dog a meat-based diet, if you look for locally caught fish or locally raised Meat they’re certifying bodies that will certify sustainable seafood. And that is now being used more in pet food. So there’s a lot of things that companies are doing to make even their meat-based products, more sustainable. So there’s really a shift and people are really looking for those types of certifications, if they’re feeding a meat-based diet, or if they feed a plant-based diet, there are so many great brands on the market today as well.

[00:33:02] Jennifer Chua: It says a lot about shifts in consumer behaviour, because even two generations ago, people were feeding their dogs like table scraps or kibble, but nothing special. And now we’re going towards sustainable or certified wild-caught fish. How has the experience of having a pet changed so much that we are now making these decisions about impact and health and everything for our dogs and cats? I just find this so interesting. Do you have anything to comment on that?

[00:33:35] Katherine Ellison: So the humanization of pets has been happening for a long time. We’re treating our pets more like family today than we ever have before. That change has been gradual, but especially with, the millennial generation, the gen Z generation, we are putting off having kids so early and instead people are having dogs. We’re really treating our pets as a member of our family. And because of that, our own values on how we feed ourselves are becoming more important to ourselves on how we feed our pets. And so that humanization trend, I mean, you see it everywhere. You see it in how we feed our dogs, how we dress our dogs, how we board our dogs, some dogs just don’t really just go to the traditional kennel of anymore. We have luxury resorts for dogs because our dogs are so important to us. And our pets are so important to us because they give us such great companionship and love. And so we want to treat them absolutely the best that we can. So that trend has been happening. We, the industry and people who watch trends in the industry, we know that that’s just going to continue to evolve and we’re going to continue to humanize our pets more, which in turn means that we’re going to spend more money on our pets, which is a really important, side of the pet industry.

For each individual pet, the owners are spending more per year than they have in the past. They’re spending more on treats on food, on veterinary care, on toys, all of that. And so that just continues to grow the market size. We also have different types of pet owners coming into the market. Younger pet owners, we have more people of colour that are owning pets. And so the types of people that own pets is actually getting greater. And we have lots more diversity in pet ownership as well. And so the industry will continue to grow and evolve and definitely shows no signs of slowing down and no signs of people reverting back to the way that they used to treat or feed their pets.

We’ll continue to see more innovation. More sustainable products. I mean, some of the exciting things that we have happening in consumables is that we have a number of companies in the pet space that are working on lab-grown meat, which is also something that’s happening in the human food space. And so soon in the pet industry, you’ll be able to buy treats or buy food for your pets, where it isn’t meat, but it’s been growing in a lab and. That’s going to come with a higher price point, but that’s going to also solve an important problem for certain pet owners who are wanting to feed meat to their pets, but they want it to be even more sustainable or humane. Really lab-grown meat is the most humane meat anyone could ever eat or feed their pets. And so there’s a lot of this innovation and a lot of exciting things happening in the industry right now.

[00:36:28] Jennifer Chua: About a decade ago, I worked in an office and one of the guys I worked with would get notifications on his phone. Alice went out for her walk, she really enjoyed her meal this morning. And I remember just thinking that was hysterical and then more so and more so you see these high-end doggy daycares like, you’re speaking about. So definitely we are treating our pets more like family members.

[00:36:54] Katherine Ellison: Yep. for sure. Both of my parents grew up on farms and so, they had a little bit of a different perspective on pets as well. And when we had pets growing up, I mean, they were spoiled rotten of course, but even the way that we treated our pets when I was growing up is very different than the way that I treat my pets today. My pets are my children. They’re our members of our family and their health and wellbeing and happiness is very important to us. And so we do everything that we can to make sure that they’re happy and healthy. That changes the way the products that we want to buy for them and the way that we treat them and all of that.

[00:37:35] Jennifer Chua: So if someone was going to try to make an impact in the pet space, what is a common reason that they might give up or walk away from this?

[00:37:42] Katherine Ellison: I mean, whenever you start a company, there is a monetary side of it that you have to be comfortable with. Especially when you think about creating a sustainable company. So our recyclable packaging is going to cost more than the packaging that we’re using today, but that’s a choice that we’re making.

So actually we will be taking a little bit of a margin hit, but we feel that making the change to a more sustainable packaging will benefit our bottom line down the road and help us gain more customers. So certainly when you think about creating a sustainable company, there are challenges. There are different hurdles. There are also opportunities like being able to be a certified B Corp or have a certification from the pet sustainability coalition that really shows that you’re a sustainable company, but those things also take time and money. And so having the resources to build a sustainable pet company, can be challenging as well.

There are a lot of great opportunities in the pet industry though, that you can take advantage of. This year I participated in the Minnesota cup, which is an entrepreneurship competition that’s put on by the University of Minnesota and we made it to the semi-finals in our division. There are different ways that you can win money. And what we were able to do with the Minnesota cup is we actually won the first evergreen and sustainable chemistry prize. And so that was awarded to us on behalf of the Minnesota pollution control agency. And so we were able to win some cash prizes and cash grants because we are a sustainable company. Also being a female founder. Having our business be women-owned, presents different opportunities for us to be able to apply for different grants and different programs, which we’ve taken advantage of. So while there are certainly challenges, starting a company or starting a sustainable company in the pet space, there’s also incredible opportunities.

And the. pet industry is very friendly. People are staying in the industry for a long time because they love what they do. They care about pets. There’s A lot of great networking opportunities and a lot of people that are really willing to help. And so we’ve been really fortunate to meet a lot of great people that have helped us along in our journey.

[00:40:12] Jennifer Chua: A couple episodes back. We had a chat with Brianna and Kristy from Decade Impact. And they work with B Corp’s or businesses specifically trying to achieve B Corp certification, which is a road that I’ve been going on this entire year. And it’s tremendously difficult. But the interesting thing about B Corp specifically or sustainable businesses is working together is so mutually advantageous, that it just helps lift the sustainability industry up. Are you finding other maybe not B Corp, but other brands in the pet industry in that space that you’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with?

[00:40:48] Katherine Ellison: There are definitely some plant-based brands that we’ve spoken to and we’re able to share mutual information with, there are some great communities of startup companies. So we have a, there’s a handful of great pet care startups in the twin cities that I am networked in with. And so we have a great kind of support system of local companies. I haven’t had as much of a chance to network with other plant-based companies, but really more so just network and find support from other startup founders, other female founders, other local founders, and really find ways that we can support each other and help each other out.

[00:41:29] Jennifer Chua: What about our children? You mentioned before that you’re not a parent of children, but you’re a parent of pets. How do you think that this work that you are doing and this journey that you’re on, how do you think this impacts them?

[00:41:41] Katherine Ellison: Children that are being raised today are going to be raised to be the most conscious generation that we’ve had and they’ll make important decisions, important buying decisions, put important policies in place so that we really can help combat climate change and make our world more sustainable. And so when they see their parents mirroring sustainable behaviour, they’ll be able to do the same and they definitely will understand the impacts and really the younger generation is already having such a voice and speaking out and demanding change and demanding policies. And when we think about how much meat we consume in the world. As I mentioned before, our pets consume so much meat and the younger generation is also going to just continue this trend of pet ownership, pet humanization, wanting sustainable products. And so their choices and their decisions and their voice is going to make such an impact in the way that we choose to nourish our pets, which in turn can better nourish our planet. We want to make these products and build this company and have this company be a nationally recognized CPG brand so that when you go into the store and you say, I want to buy a, plant-based treat, you think of Bright Planet. And that’s really our goal. And our goal is of course to be a profitable company, but we believe That we can be profitable and sustainable and give back and really have a strong message and make the world a better place just by making plant-based treats for pets.

[00:43:17] Jennifer Chua: So if you want to feed your pet, some delicious plant-based treats, where can we find you?

[00:43:23] Katherine Ellison: So in the USA today, you can find our treats on our website, which is brightplanetpet.com. We also sell on Amazon. Next year you will be able to find Bright Planet treats in 500 Pet Co.. You will also be able to find us in Hy-Vee stores in the Midwest. And today we are available in almost 400 Pet Valu stores all across Canada. We have a store locator on our website. You can pop in your zip code and you can find the store closest to you, whether you are in the United States or you’re in Canada.

[00:43:59] Jennifer Chua: And I did use the store finder and I did manage to find some, and my new puppy loves them.

[00:44:05] Katherine Ellison: Oh, wonderful. I’m so glad to hear that.

[00:44:08] Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Katherine and her 100% plant-based pet treats visit brightplanetpet.com. In Canada? These sustainable vegan allergy-friendly treats are in-store at your local Pet Valu. You can follow along with Katherine on her mission to save the earth together with your pet one treat at a time on Facebook or Instagram @brightplanetpet

Romina Kwong from Eco-Friendly Events was inspired to help event organizers and business owners with their green initiatives after being a bridesmaid in a friend’s wedding. In this episode, we discover from Romina what steps can be taken to make larger-scale events more environmentally friendly. We then learn how to realistically green your holiday season at home, with small actionable tips that won’t take away from the joy of the occasion. We chat about where to buy gifts, how to wrap them and find eco-friendly alternatives for the biggest waste producers of your holiday gathering. We discuss the benefits of real versus artificial trees, talk about why you may want to skip balloons for New Year’s Eve and help you reduce waste and environmental impact with practical and affordable swaps to help spread cheer, this year, sustainably.

Organizing an in-person gathering this year? Visit ecofriendlyevents.ca/links to download a free eco-friendly party planning guide to help you reduce waste and your environmental impact over and over again. If you want to learn more about Romina and her holistic, accessible and realistic approach to environmental sustainability, visit ecofriendlyevents.ca. You can follow along with Romina and catch her live on Instagram, on her mission to help event organizers and businesses be eco-friendly on Facebook or Instagram at ecofriendly.events.

Links from this episode

• savethefood.com/guestimator
• FREE Eco-Friendly Party Planning Guide
• After Christmas – Tree Recycling Ideas 

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:28] Jennifer Chua: The holiday season is approaching, and many of us are looking forward to gathering with our loved ones in person this year. Our holiday season celebrations do generate a lot of trash. Household waste increases more than 25% over the period of mid-November to New Year’s Eve with an extra 300,000 tons of waste heading to Canadian landfills during the last six weeks of the year. The good news is there are a lot of things you can do to reduce your environmental impact and make your holiday season a bit brighter. And this year now that extended families are gathering again, you have the opportunity to create even bigger impact.

 It’s more energy efficient to prepare one meal, decorate and heat one home than it is for several. And if you gather with friends or relatives that live locally over traveling by air, your holiday can be even more environmentally friendly. The holidays mean a lot to us, especially this year. And most of us are looking forward to the spirit of the season.

So it’s about taking practical, impactful actions that makes sense. And that mean the most. I asked Romina Kwong from eco-friendly events to join us this week and walk us through some small and actionable tips to green our holiday season.

So if you choose to skip the Christmas crackers or buy gifts secondhand, swap the Turkey for a plant-based alternative, or use your decade old artificial tree for just one more year. Romina has some realistic tips that you can take into the holiday season. And by rethinking waste this holiday, you have the opportunity to get the children around you involved and gently influence your loved ones while creating new, more mindful holiday traditions.

 Romina is the founder of eco-friendly events. She works with business owners and event organizers, helping ensure that events are using best practices in terms of sustainability. She holds a degree in environmental studies and economics and international development studies and is an advocate for environmental and social justice. But it wasn’t until she was a bridesmaid that she ever considered getting involved in the world of events.

[00:04:40] Romina Kwong: I ended up going back to school for event management. And while we were encouraged to volunteer a lot, just to get ourselves out there in the industry, I just realized how wasteful it was. And it sort of just like clicked in my brain that this is something that I could do there. Wasn’t anybody really leading this sort of like industry of connecting both environmental sustainability in the events industry. So. Shortly after I graduated and worked a little bit in the industry, I decided that I wanted to do something about it. And so I started eco-friendly events.

[00:05:13] Jennifer Chua: Do you remember a point in your life maybe way before this wedding, when you became interested in sustainability? Like, is there a moment that stands out in your mind?

[00:05:22] Romina Kwong: A couple of moments. So first was in grade four. My parents work at Panasonic and they had this like competition with energy star. And so every grade had their own like little project that you competed in. And so in grade four, I think we get to write maybe like a one-page document about why we cared about the environment I actually won that competition for my grade. And so it was really cool. And then from there it was just in grade 12 when I did like world studies and it was around the time where we had to decide what we wanted to study in university or what, like path we wanted to choose. And it sort of clicked again there. And so that just kind of has been sort of lifelong, but just popped up here and there

[00:06:06] Jennifer Chua: Did your parents influence this at all? Does your family have any traditions that were like sustainably minded?

[00:06:12] Romina Kwong: We were avid sorter household of like, this goes into recycling. This goes into the green bin and this goes into the garbage and just constantly like reusing or repairing things. So anytime I had holes in my clothing to this day, I still give it to my mom to repair instead of having to just buy something new, just because.

[00:06:32] Jennifer Chua: When you told your family and your friends that you were choosing events to make your impact on the world, what kind of feedback did you get at that time?

[00:06:41] Romina Kwong: It was more of like, huh, I never really thought about it that way. Or it’d be like, oh, that’s really cool, but I don’t think anybody gets it. And even now I think a lot of event planners or people in the events industry just think that I plan eco-friendly events. Whereas I really, I just want to work with event organizers and consult with them. So leave the planning to them and I’ll focus on sustainability.

[00:07:06] Jennifer Chua: When you’re working with a company or a corporation and maybe their event planner as a consultant, what are you looking for in terms of how to make their event more sustainable? Like, what is that connection that you’re making?

[00:07:19] Romina Kwong: So it obviously is dependent on when they bring me in, like what part of the planning process they’re in. So in an ideal world, if they bring me on from the very beginning, it’s figuring out where, which venue, like, where are you hosting it and what is available there? So what is their waste management look like? Do they have a recycling program. And what do they accept into those bins? What sort of energy does that building run on? Is it lead certified or is it green key certified, depending on where it is. And then from there, it’s just like, then we look at catering, so the different aspects of planning and just picking, like where can we make changes and impact that also aligns with your budget?

So also being realistic at the same time. So. Yes in an ideal world, I’d love to change everything over, but I know that’s not realistic. So what are the most important parts or points or values, I guess to the corporation, to the event planner and sort of figuring out ways that we can plan the event in alignment with those. So if it’s food waste, Okay. So let’s focus on catering and maybe we won’t focus necessarily on the venue, even though we could make a difference there.

[00:08:28] Jennifer Chua: When you began to get more into events and exploring this industry and figuring this all out, so you’ve had this experience as the bridesmaid and you began to realize what kind of waste events generate, and then went to school for it. Did you find anything surprising when you began to look at this world?

[00:08:46] Romina Kwong: I guess it just never occurred to me as like a festival attendee or just attending an event, just like behind the scenes, how much waste there actually is. And. Just how tired everyone is. Like you’ve been up or onsite since I don’t know, 6:00, 7:00 AM. And then you come onsite, do the event put on all the various fires that you need to and then at the end, everything just gets tossed. It’s dark outside. If it’s a festival and everyone just wants to go home. And so. With my lens. It just like clicked. You really do need an extra body or person that’s sort of in charge of that. Who can take a proactive approach versus reactive? Because yeah, been there sore feet need to change your shoes and nobody wants to do it. Including myself, if you’ve been there.

[00:09:34] Jennifer Chua: I can only imagine that something like a festival would be fairly complicated in this case, because I have many memories of attending many festivals. Like we live in Toronto and they’re here all the time. And just the amount of garbage leftover at the end and the water situation is usually problematic. Have you had the opportunity to work on any festivals?

[00:09:56] Romina Kwong: there was one. So with the wine and spirit festival, I think it was 2018, 2019. It’s hard to remember time these days. Um, They actually took a more proactive approach and they hired on a green team. So this was just shortly after, I finished school, so I hadn’t started my business yet. So I was part of the green team and I ended up leading the green team and it was really cool that they spoke to the waste management company to say, okay, so the cups that we’re using for all the drinks, they are compostable or biodegradable, and they can go into the green bin and we’re like, awesome. Sweet. And it wasn’t until all the vendors were like setting up and then they had all this garbage with them and we didn’t know which bin it went to, the plastic wrap, carrying like cases of juices or for example, we didn’t know if that could go into the recycling bin. Cause that was not something that was ever discussed with the waste management company, and they, at that point they had already left. And so I was just like, oh Yeah like there are so many other things. All the food vendors, all the things that they were serving food in. You see a lot of those brown containers now or like paper containers.

And we were like, I don’t know if this is lined with plastic, if it’s lined with wax, like can it go into the green bin? And so it was just at this point, a guessing game and. That’s when it really clicked. I was like, okay, like, this is something that people need to understand to really make that impact. And for me, it’s not about just for show, like I do care about what impact are we making? Are we actually doing something better for the earth, our planet and the people. Seeing that was just like, okay, there is something here, but we need to make it better.

[00:11:34] Jennifer Chua: And I find that businesses are becoming more responsive to sustainability. And I don’t know if that is because us as a society are driving that change, but how have you seen a change in business? Have you seen more people specifically looking for services like yours? Are they overall overarchingly really trying to make change in this area?

[00:11:57] Romina Kwong: I think so. I think it obviously depends on the generation. I think all the younger generations definitely care a lot more, it’s on their mind. They’re constantly trying to look for the eco-friendly or greener products. I think the disconnect is people will see all of these things they’re advertised as compostable, green and that sort of thing.

And all of these are just buzz words. Like they don’t actually know the definition and there isn’t really a definition, like, it’s not set across the board. If you say it’s green, what does that actually mean? And does it mean the same thing for your beauty products versus your, toothbrush or cleaning products?

There is no standard. And so I think that’s where the disconnect and struggle is, everyone has the best of intentions, but they’ve lack the knowledge both as a business, who’s trying to be more eco-friendly, but then also as a consumer as well, because they don’t totally understand the nuances.

[00:12:51] Jennifer Chua: And I think green, and compostable and biodegradable, like these are words that all of us have heard now. We all have kind of an understanding of what they mean, but what about carbon neutral? I’ve been hearing carbon neutral more and more. And even in terms of events, can you explain to me what that means? or what’s going on with carbon neutrality?

[00:13:11] Romina Kwong: It is becoming a trend it’s a little bit green-washing. There is a body that does certify things as carbon neutral, and they have a specific definition, to be carbon neutral is basically like the amount of carbon you’re admitting. You’re offsetting so that it becomes like zero, essentially. And for me personally, and my viewpoint, I think it’s a bit of green-washing because. If I’m emitting like a ton of carbon emissions and I’m then offsetting it. You’re not reducing anything. So you’re not necessarily making it better.

Same thing with carbon offsetting, you’re investing in maybe green technology, like a wind farm or solar panels. And yes, you are investing in a different type of technology that will help, but it’s not taking that carbon out of the atmosphere. And so when you hear like Elon Musk and other people in the world talking about carbon capture. That’s what they’re talking about is like taking the carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it back either into the ground or wherever and storing it. All of that is complicated. Um, But not at the same time.

[00:14:18] Jennifer Chua: What are some of the ways that we can reduce waste and green our holidays at home this year?

[00:14:24] Romina Kwong: There’s this website and tool that I love, it’s called the guest-imator. And you can input the amount of people, um, that are attending. What kind of eater are they, are they a light eater or a heavy eater, like average? And it’ll tell you how much exactly that You need. you can even account for like a couple of leftover meals or no leftovers, and then that way you’re significantly reducing the amount of food waste you might potentially have, or just like leftovers that you don’t want to continuously eat for weeks on end. So that’s one. Second, at least in my family, we gather so much and we have so many people that were never really using disposables, which is nice. But if you are that household that maybe only has like six sets, think about renting or think about asking family members to just bring their own.

I know it’s kind of like weird, but that’s where it starts is that shift in mindset to be like, Hey, we would love to just reduce the amount of waste. Do you mind bringing the set of plates for your own family? Like just your immediate family. It’s not like lugging a bunch over and, making sure you do have the proper bins at home and you are sorting and recycling and composting if you have that in your area. And also looking up what can and cannot be accepted into those bins as well. So that’s, what’s important. Just because it’s certified compostable doesn’t mean that the municipality or waste management company that serves your area will accept it. So like, for example, in the city of Toronto, all of those compostable materials, bamboo things, and all of that, They don’t accept in the green bin. So at the end of the day, you do have to throw it in the trash. So that’s something to be mindful of.

And then with decorations, is, are you reusing your decorations from years past or are you constantly buying new ones or can you invest may be in something that’s a little bit more expensive than you can reuse over and over again? Or maybe you just forgo the decorations, maybe you don’t need them. It really, really depends. And so that’s just a few key areas. I think that we can all think about reducing environmental impact.

[00:16:29] Jennifer Chua: So next weekend, we will be with my family, going to select our Christmas tree for the year. I was wondering if you had any input on whether an artificial tree is a better choice than a natural tree, or how do you feel about trees?

[00:16:42] Romina Kwong: It really just goes back down to something called the life cycle assessment that they do for products. And so it really depends on how long you’re going to be able to reuse that, um, fake tree. And you have to do that assessment and figure out which one lasts longer. From what I’ve read, the natural tree is better because most people don’t keep the fake one long enough for it to be worth it. So, um, that’s my 2 cents on that topic with regards to the tree. Like I know we have an artificial one, but we’ve been using it for years and years since I was a child. And so for us, it was just, my mom just didn’t want to deal with the hassle of having a real one. So I’ve never had a real one, which is, um, something that I might look into changing what I felt when I’m out on my own.

[00:17:29] Jennifer Chua: I will look into the product life cycle of the artificial tree. But yeah, I think it was 20 years.

[00:17:35] Romina Kwong: Yeah. It was like 15 Or 20 years. Yeah, we’ll definitely have to look it up. but I think if something like that, where if you, most people don’t keep it that long. So then it negates it being better than the real tree.

[00:17:47] Jennifer Chua: What kind of sustainable swaps can we make when considering Christmas tree decor?

[00:17:52] Romina Kwong: There’s a lot of Pinterest ideas of using like dried fruit and that sort of thing, which I think is cool. Cause then at the end of the day, yes, you can put it into your green bin. At the same time, I’ve heard people argue that while you’re just wasting fruit, which I’m like, okay, like it’s a bit of both. And so again, it comes back down to the same sort of conversation we had about the tree. How long are those decorations going to last you, are you going to keep reusing them? Or does the natural actually work better? I’m all about really what works for your lifestyle? Are you in a house? Do you have a storage locker? Can you store these things? And if you can’t then go with the natural. And if you can, amazing. Then keep reusing it for as long as you can . As a kid, we had these candy canes on our tree for years and years. Like nobody ate them, but it was just something that we kept and just kept reusing. It’s just figuring out what works for you. So not necessarily swapping everything out, all of a sudden, it’s just, what do you have? Can you continue using it and not buy new things?

[00:18:53] Jennifer Chua: I mean, my mom used to do that. Change up the Christmas tree theme every couple of years.

[00:18:58] Romina Kwong: Which is nice aesthetically, but not so much for the environment. If you’re tossing everything out.

[00:19:04] Jennifer Chua: This is one area too, where we like to keep traditions and joy. Like if you, if you do purchase an ornament from, I don’t know, a big box store or something, but it’s meaningful to you and you remember what year this was and it’s impactful on your life. That’s wonderful. But you’re just suggesting not to, do a complete tree decor overhaul every single year. Right.

[00:19:27] Romina Kwong: exactly, exactly. Use what you have. If things get broken, like if a pet bumps into the tree or your cat climbs a tree and things get broken, obviously after a while you only have so many ornaments that are left. So yes, if you are buying new ones and you’re going to keep them in good condition. Then yes. But Yeah also those natural swaps are a good idea as well. It really just depends. I won’t do it. It’s just too much effort for me. And I know that. And so you have to figure out yeah. What works for you, what works for your holidays? Cause it’s already stressful enough.

[00:20:00] Jennifer Chua: And our tradition around Christmas cards, sustainably speaking. What are some swaps we should make there? Should we be going to e-cards? Should we still be doing the glossy family photo cards and sending those out? What do you think we should do with cards this year?

[00:20:16] Romina Kwong: I think it really depends if you are doing the ones with the photographs, digital is a little bit better, but I don’t know if it’s for your grandmother who posts it on her fridge every year. Maybe send her a physical one. And I think you can always do a combination. I think it depends. For the older folks who are in your family. Maybe they want the physical because that’s what they’re used to. So send them the physical. And then maybe all your cousins and siblings, you can just send them an electronic one because they’re okay with that. They’re like, great. We’ll just like put it in an album or one of those like digital picture frames.

Figure out always that work and then just mixing and matching. Like you don’t have to do one or the other. It’s not an all or nothing. And that’s never, my approach. It’s just, maybe you try a couple of electronic. Maybe it’s two people you send electronic cards to, and then everybody else gets a physical one or vice versa

[00:21:09] Jennifer Chua: Then when you sit down to actually wrap all of those presents that we have acquired , are there some pretty easy, sustainable swaps that we can make when it comes to wrapping our gifts?

[00:21:19] Romina Kwong: I’ve started using like the brown craft paper. If you’re ordering anything online, starting now start saving those boxes and just reusing them. I know last year, because our family gathering for Christmas was a lot smaller. Nobody wrapped gifts in like proper things, they just like use newspaper, just like put it in a box and like tied some string around it. Because they knew that I wouldn’t want wrapping paper. So. Things like that, Or is there like a gift bag you can reuse, or wrapping it using like a scarf that you’re also gifting to them? Or maybe it’s like a tea towel and stuff like that.

Again, trying to be creative and you don’t have to do it for all of them. I know, like for kids, especially the joy of actually like ripping open a present is part, is part of it. And so, yeah, maybe it’s using newspaper or it’s using that craft paper so that you can recycle it at the end of it.

[00:22:13] Jennifer Chua: it comes to gifting or sustainable giving, really have you come across any really great gift ideas that we could use this year when it comes to looking how to maybe reduce our carbon footprint or make our gifting strategy more eco-friendly?

[00:22:30] Romina Kwong: Gifting services or just like helping out a friend. I actually saw a post recently on Instagram that made me rethink some things, as well is, maybe your friend doesn’t need, I don’t know a thing, like a physical item, but they need, they want a night off. And so you can babysit their kids for a night.

[00:22:47] Jennifer Chua: can I just interrupt and say that it’s the best gift

[00:22:49] Romina Kwong: Yes. Yeah, I’m happy to babysit Jennifer.

Maybe it’s a gift card, cause there’ve been saving up to buy something that they, they really needed. Think acts of service, when you think of like, the five love languages acts of service is what can you do for the person that will actually be such a huge help, that won’t cost you too much money, maybe a bit of your time. And you’re not just giving stuff for them to just pile on in their house.

[00:23:19] Jennifer Chua: I’ve received some really interesting gifts lately. And one of them was a box of frozen scones. So someone had taken the time to make scones in various flavours and then froze them. And then I get to put them in my freezer and then, bake on a whim as I feel like I would like one. And that is a really beautiful gift idea that is not coming from a store it’s really heartfelt and really, there was no plastic involved in the actual packaging and gifting it to me.

[00:23:49] Romina Kwong: Yes. Yes. And gift cards. I know they’re not the nicest or whatever, but, um, like I love that I get an electronic gift card. It just sits in my inbox and then I delete it once I use it. And instead of having now this plastic card and it’s like, what am I going to do with it after I scanned it. Right. I think the services are the best. So it’s like maybe it’s buying somebody a gift card to their favourite salon or the salon they go to or where they can get their hair and makeup done and maybe their nails done and things that people actually use or even grocery gift cards. I think those are the best because everybody needs to buy groceries and those are the best because it’s just useful. I’m the type of gift-giver that likes to find things that are unique, but also useful to the person that they’ll actually use rather than just be like, oh, thank you and then just set it aside. Are the most wasteful.

[00:24:42] Jennifer Chua: I think when it comes to children’s toys as a business owner, I’m looking to stock my shelves with multipurpose toys that are battery free, that are ethically made, all of those things. But as a parent, I am very much going to Facebook marketplace and Kijiji and going for used options for toys and because my child is used to it, she really doesn’t mind. She’s still asking for this plastic toy inside a plastic toy with batteries that I am resisting very hard this year. But overall, what do you think about buying used gifts or upcycling gifts for the holidays?

[00:25:26] Romina Kwong: I love that idea, especially with sometimes with toys, especially where it’s like, they want the thing, cause they’ve seen it on TV. And then it’s like, after a few months you don’t want that toy anymore or they kind of moved on. And so I think getting things second hand, whether it is from Facebook marketplace, which not everybody loves, it’s not the best experience all the time, but it is a good option, or going to your local value village or Goodwill or secondhand or thrift store, where you can buy things second hand, or is there anybody in your family? With us, for example, there’s a lot of female cousins and so all the clothes continuously get like moved around and same thing with toys. And so, I think that’s a great idea. I think it’s just, you need to shift that mindset for people to not think it’s weird. Because you’re like, why would I give somebody something used? Well, do they really need it new? Do they need all that plastic? And Packaging with it, or can you just wrap it nicely in a scarf? And that’s also how they carry around that set of toys or that set of whatever it is you’re gifting.

[00:26:31] Jennifer Chua: Are we as a society making shifts there, like, do you think this is becoming more accepted?

[00:26:37] Romina Kwong: I think for certain things we’re getting there. So for clothing, for example, like thrifting is now trendy, which I’m not mad about because it is a good thing, but, I think we still have a long ways to go with like gifting and things like that.

[00:26:51] Jennifer Chua: And what about regifting?

[00:26:52] Romina Kwong: I don’t have a problem with that. I just, I feel like if it’s going to be a better use for somebody else, I think again, it’s that shift in culture and with all of us if you’re going to be offended that somebody regifts something… as long as it’s not regifted back to the same person, I think you’re good. I think you’re ok. If we’re more thoughtful and purposeful with the gifts to begin with, then we wouldn’t necessarily have the regifting problem or issue to begin with. Right. Like if you think more carefully about it, okay. So, and so needs this, or maybe buy something edible, then that way, you know, it’s consumed and somebody will eat it. And that’s such a great idea. I think even like at weddings for the party favours, like just give them a cookie with your name on it or something. Cause then somebody will eat it, whether it’s that person or somebody in their family. And so, Yeah. edible gifts.

[00:27:44] Jennifer Chua: Favors is a really big one, I think, in terms of waste, any kind of party favours.

[00:27:50] Romina Kwong: all those loot bags from kids’ birthday party.

[00:27:53] Jennifer Chua: In episode one of this podcast, we had a conversation with Rebecca Saha from tiny toy company and she has a reloot bag. So she collects toy debris and toy garbage, and then creates these loot bags with upcycled toys. It’s Amazing.

So you’ve chucking your tree down and you’ve lovingly stored all of your ornaments that maybe you bought at the local Christmas fair. You’ve put those in your basement. You’re packing up your tree. So Every year we trim the branches off and put it in the backyard and we drill holes in it. So the bugs can live in it. And then in spring, we compost it and I’ve actually seen some like Christmas tree bits, put in the ravine, which I don’t know if it was a good idea, but I think it’s better than just checking it at the end of the season. Do you have any comments what to do after we’re done our trees?

[00:28:47] Romina Kwong: I think that’s a great idea. Again, I think it depends on where you live. Like I’m in the heart and core of Toronto where there isn’t a ton of greenery. And so I think, you need to pick and choose what works and what doesn’t. So for you, Jennifer, it works because where you live has a ravine. And so maybe yeah, you can leave it outside in your backyard. And for those people who don’t, then you can’t. I don’t have a huge, like thought on it. I think if you figure out what the waste is, if the city, like what they do with it, with their trees, like call them and ask them, or email them and see like, what is it that you do with it? And figuring out that I think is always good, a good option as well as like, where does it actually end up? I think, yeah, figuring out where it ends up in if there is an alternative. Maybe it is cutting it up and putting it out in the back, or maybe you use it as firewood. Or like kindling, it depends. When you’re rethinking things in events, it’s what do you care about and how can you reduce where it aligns.

[00:29:47] Jennifer Chua: I think city dwellers too. We have a different issue there. In that, for example, I’ve heard use potted trees, but then where are you going to plant them afterwards? If we live in this urban environment, we have to get a permit to plant a tree. Where are we going to plant it afterwards? And then if you live in a condo, for example, might be a better choice to go for an artificial tree, because once you then have to wrap the tree in plastic at the end and bring it down the elevator. Now you’re putting out a big, huge plastic bag every year as well. Maybe it would be worth going on Facebook marketplace or Kijiji or whatever, and finding one of those trees that someone’s getting rid of that’s artificial but still perfectly good for use.

[00:30:32] Romina Kwong: Or if you’re buying it new, you’re keeping it for that 15, 20 years and, keeping it the full life cycle. I think in my condo specifically, they don’t even allow, the natural trees like you have to go with artificial. So something to keep in mind as well. It’s just, yeah, you have to adapt to where it is you reside.

[00:30:50] Jennifer Chua: One of the things that I think of when I think of Christmas is that movie, Christmas vacation with the Griswold family and the dad completely blanketing the entire house in Christmas lights. And a lot of us have switched to led lights. But what do you think about holiday lighting? Is that impactful on the environment?

[00:31:10] Romina Kwong: Something that helps is putting a timer on those plugs or having it on a smart plug and where you can set a timer. So maybe it’s on for only a few hours at night, and then it shuts off. But it’s also, thinking about more of like a fire hazard too, is just don’t necessarily want to maybe leave it on all night. Now that most people already have led lights. It’s like, that’s great. And that’s a huge switch, just even like from an economic standpoint, like, does your electricity bill go up, significantly during the holidays? Make it a game. I like to make it a game to try and keep our bill as low as we can. And so figuring out ways. Either set it on a timer or maybe only during certain days, um, and figuring out a schedule that works

[00:31:53] Jennifer Chua: You mentioned before the guestimator, which I think is absolutely brilliant, but when it comes to holiday meals, I can just imagine the amount of waste that is generated in every home. Right. Do you have any tips on how to reduce our waste when it comes to actual food waste over the holidays?

[00:32:11] Romina Kwong: yeah. So figuring out how many people you’re actually serving using that tool as a good, just gives you a rough idea of how much you actually need. Not making the whole bag of potatoes. For example, maybe you make like half, I don’t know. If there are any leftovers that is actually consuming it, give it away. I know with my one aunt, whenever we gathered at her house, she puts all the leftover food in Tupperware containers and sends it home with every person. So first it’s figuring out, like, what are you going to make? And it starts really from the very beginning from the prep is at the grocery store. Do you need all of those things? How many people are actually coming over? Will they eat everything or are you just making it just so you have a nice spread for Instagram. So it’s rethinking that from the very beginning and then cooking and then storing the food properly as well.

So. Not leaving it out for hours and hours, and then it goes bad and then you can’t eat it. Another thing you can probably do is actually just donate the food. Can you pack it up? Can you give it to people in shelters or can you give it to, people who are unhoused, for example, in the city of Toronto, we have so many, unfortunately at this time? And so can you gift them things that from the leftovers or even on Christmas day Christmas eve.

[00:33:26] Jennifer Chua: So once you’ve packed up your tree and we’re looking forward to New Year’s Eve, I have some specific thoughts on balloons and glitter. And I was wondering if you could walk us through how sustainable balloons and glitter are, and maybe what our choices are. If we want to make better choices in that area.

[00:33:44] Romina Kwong: They aren’t they aren’t sustainable or green, especially the latex ones. Once you use them, that’s it like they have to go in the garbage, there is no other alternative. With the foil balloons. You can reuse them, you can release the air, reuse it. So I’ve actually had some friends, like message me, cause I’ve liked their photo on Instagram. They’re like, it’s been reused. Like we’ve reused these numbers and it’s like, okay, good to know. I’m not trying to guilt-trip you. But, it’s just funny that they know that people think of that. So, if you can use the foil options and you know, you’re, going to reuse them. I’ve seen people give them away or trade them on like buns or pals on Facebook. So those groups, where people are trading. Good for good. So you can look into that and specifically for like birthdays. Once you’re done with like those big celebrations, you can give them away and reuse them. So that’s one.

With the glitter, I would say try to just avoid like that. Those are tiny pieces of plastic, that we don’t necessarily think about. We just think it’s fun. I mean, I know for my mom and I’m sure other mothers don’t love the glitter clean up. So I think for both reasons, maybe not use them. I know there’s this company called botanical paperworks based out of Winnipeg and they do see paper and they have actually seed confetti. So they embed wildflower seeds into theirs. That is local to Canada and you can actually plant them afterwards. So I’ve had some friends, like plant them in like a small pot and just see them grow. They will, degrade over time and just in natural air and water or like natural elements. So I think that’s an option. Fireworks and sparklers are not the greatest. You can’t totally say no to everything. Just like, that’s my approach with it. It’s like you have to be a little bit realistic.

[00:35:32] Jennifer Chua: And what about biodegradable balloons? I’ve seen these everywhere. Can you talk a little bit about those?

[00:35:37] Romina Kwong: That is just a whole lot of greenwashing cause technically anything and everything is biodegradable. The headphones that we’re wearing right now are biodegradable. They will degrade over time. But that doesn’t mean that it’s good. Depending on what the object is or whatever it is, it can potentially leach chemicals back into the groundwater, into our earth.

And so it really depends on what they’re made of. So I’ve seen them as well. I think if you can avoid them, avoid them And use the foil ones, if you can reuse them for as long as possible, or just avoid them all together.

[00:36:10] Jennifer Chua: And then I guess choose champagne or sparkling wine from local producers. If you can.

[00:36:17] Romina Kwong: well, champagne is only technically champagne if it comes from the area of France, that champagne. So, maybe if you don’t live in that area, um, and you’re trying to stay local. Yeah. Find something that’s sparkling, that’s local. There’s a ton of wineries, especially in the greater Toronto area. If you’re close to Niagara, like there are so many wineries out there that use like wind power or solar panels. I think it’s biodynamic wines. I think that’s the word. Where they’re yeah. Trying to be as sustainable as possible in all aspects of the wine production process. And so looking that up as well, or just supporting local where it’s not travelling as far, especially in a glass bottle.

[00:36:57] Jennifer Chua: Our parties at home, why are making our events and our parties more sustainable, so important.

[00:37:03] Romina Kwong: It’s an aspect of life, right? Like we want to celebrate lives. You want to celebrate special occasions and anniversaries and if you’re going to be eco-friendly in every other aspect, why not events. Especially with the large-scale productions, like weddings and festivals, where it’s potentially only once in a lifetime or once a year, it has such a huge impact.

Like in those three days that a structure Is erected in, Yonge & Dundas square, or like another park. There’s so much that goes into it. And then so much that gets disposed of. And so that still has an impact because events are not going away. Especially now. I don’t want to say the pandemic is over, but it’s like coming slowly to an end? And we’re getting back to some sort of normalcy events are coming right back. There are so many events that are coming back in 2022 for in-person. You’ve seen a few of them now, a lot of like vendor markets are back and it makes me so hopeful and so happy, but it’s a part of life. And if you’re going to be eco-friendly in other parts, why not this as well?

[00:38:05] Jennifer Chua: And all of these swaps. All of these are like small tips. I can only imagine that these are also saving you financial costs. They’re saving you money as well. Right?

[00:38:16] Romina Kwong: Definitely. So again, not always. And it’s not necessarily a misconception because yes. Some things will cost more, but other things don’t. Like if you borrowed something, what is that costing you? Maybe a bit of gas to go get it, which you would have spent anyway to go to the store. So in some ways, it is saving you money. If you’re asking relatives to bring their own dishes to your house, that’s dishwashing you don’t have to do. You’re saving the waste that you’re tossing out into the trash and you’re not purchasing anything.

I think just resetting and reshifting or shifting your mindset is asking yourself, always, do you need this? Do you need to buy this first and foremost? And then can you get it Second hand, or can you borrow it or can you like rent it from somewhere? That way sort of like going into that circular economy where you’re reusing things and keeping things in use rather than using it and then disposing of it. And then think of like recycling and organics and compostable as sort of your last resort. Can you reduce first, if you can’t get it? Are there ways that you can get it where you’re borrowing it and renting it? So it’s secondhand?

[00:39:33] Jennifer Chua: so with all of this that you’ve learned from working in events and seeing how people are responding to these ideas, are you hopeful for the future?

[00:39:42] Romina Kwong: I am hopeful. I think the pandemic really made us all slow down and rethink how we are living. and I think that’s the most important part. And where it starts is we can’t continue living the way we’ve always been living. And this pandemic has really shown all of us that.

[00:39:59] Jennifer Chua: And we’re craving that connection and really wanting to connect with our loved ones in person again,

[00:40:04] Romina Kwong: Yeah,

[00:40:05] Jennifer Chua: making some of these swaps can only bring us to a brighter future.

[00:40:10] Romina Kwong: So we actually have a planet to live on and continue gathering together.

[00:40:13] Jennifer Chua: Organizing an in-person gathering this year? Visit ecofriendlyevents.ca/links to download a free eco-friendly party planning guide to help you reduce waste and your environmental impact over and over again. If you want to learn more about Romina and her holistic, accessible and realistic approach to environmental sustainability, visit ecofriendlyevents.ca. You can follow along with Romina and catch her live on Instagram, on her mission to help event organizers and businesses be eco-friendly on Facebook or Instagram at ecofriendly.events.

In today’s episode, we chat with Amy Welsman from Paume. We learn how Amy’s antibacterial hand gel was already in development when COVID changed everything. Why she was inspired to create a luxury sustainable and stylish hand hygiene brand, how Paume is addressing waste with their unique and chic refillable pumps, previously recycled materials and plastic neutral certification. We discover the potential risks of white labelling, why Amy has chosen sustainably produced, bio-degradable and plant-based ingredients, what she’s avoiding in her formulations that you’ll want to avoid too. And the challenges of launching during a pandemic when everyone was rushing a hand sanitizer to market.

If you want to learn more about Amy and her nourishing hand sanitizer that’s better for you and mindful of the planet. Visit mypaume.com. Want to show your hands some love? Paume’s refill kits offer all you need to sanitize at home and on the go. You can follow along with Amy and learn more about her sustainable and plastic neutral hand care brand on Facebook or Instagram 

Links from this episode

• Paume
• Knix.ca
• rePurpose Global – Go Plastic Neutral Today
• Health Canada warns about certain hand sanitizers that may pose health risks

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:29] Jennifer Myers Chua: If we’ve learned anything from our experience in COVID times, it’s the importance of hand hygiene. I for one never carried hand sanitizer with me before the pandemic. but now after nearly two years of being reminded to wash our hands and being prompted to sanitize, when going into a public space, it has really become a way of life.

There are arguments for sure, against the over use of products like hand sanitizer, and it’s worth being cautious as there have been multiple recalls in the United States and Canada. We’ll discuss that in a bit. Many hand sanitizer brands had rushed to market. Once we all began clearing store shelves. And some of those hand sanitizers contain some toxic ingredients and methanol. And we’ve all come across those that are sticky or slimy or that smell terrible, and that are packaged in really flimsy containers, guaranteed to leak in our bags.

Paume however, is something else entirely. It cleans and sanitizes. Yes, but it smells incredible. It’s hydrating and the packaging is luxurious. And while disaster capitalists were taking advantage and creating hand sanitizers at the onset of COVID. Amy had already been working on Paume for over a year. And Paume is a hand care brand. They’ve launched with a sanitizer. But more products are on their way soon. They incorporate quality formulations plant-based ingredients. And sustainable packaging. I was introduced to Paume’s founder, Amy Welsman by Megan Takeda-Tully from Suppli. We featured Megan in episode seven and her brand is remarkable. So go back and take a listen if you haven’t heard her story yet. And I was immediately intrigued. Because Amy’s mission is to create really good products to care for our hands, which is something that we often neglect. And our hands, Amy points out, allow us to connect with the people around us.

 And Paume is coming up on the one-year anniversary of launch and launching during this time has definitely proven to be a challenge. Amy really has been the only person dedicated full-time to the brand. And she’s excited to start building a team now that she’s through with fundraising. And only a year into this, Paume is in retail. Amy has benefited from some influencer partnerships and impressive press. And she admits that it all has happened pretty quickly, leaving her to balance the little details in the day to day with the larger, more strategic and longterm all on her own. But Amy, isn’t exactly a stranger to building a successful brand from the ground up. In 2013, she left her corporate job in advertising to join a startup called Knix which is now a well-known women’s intimates brand.

[00:05:21] Amy Welsman: I jumped on board as the first hire to work for Joanna who had this incredible vision for an amazing product and an amazing brand. And I was so inspired and so excited to help grow that business with her. And I spent four years there doing precisely that and I learned so, so much through that experience. I think being in a startup environment from day one but not being at the helm was a really valuable experience because, I felt very invested in the success of the business, but I always knew that the end of the day, if things went sideways, I would be unscathed. Whereas now fast forward, I’m in the leadership position and it’s certainly a whole other level of pressure. But it was a wonderful experience on the last is to really learn how a product, how to take a product from an idea to market. And how to grow it and make it amazing. So that was that was incredible. And then I left actually, too, knowing that I wanted to start my own business at some point, I just didn’t have an idea.

[00:06:15] Jennifer Myers Chua: And when Amy decided to have a child, she decided to leave Knix because it felt like just a natural time for her to move on. And gain some experience in some other areas, while trying to figure out what was next for her. But Amy had this idea for Paume and set out to create a hand sanitizer. Having no idea what was about to happen to the category -or the world around us in only a few months time.

[00:06:41] Amy Welsman: It was actually through the experience of being a new mom that the idea for Paume came to me. It all started. As I became just so aware of hand hygiene having a baby, I think a lot of women and parents in general can relate to this suddenly, or you want to just bubble wrap your world to protect this thing. And I had sanitizer all over my house and I was changing dirty diapers and, not having anything to clean my hands in that precise moment, not necessarily having the time to go like wash my hands with soap and water. So I was using sanitizer a lot. And through that experience, I really saw that. There was a lot to be improved upon in that category. And that’s where the idea started and life before it was pretty quiet during that middle year, middle a couple years, and then sort of chaos ensued.

[00:07:25] Jennifer Myers Chua: Why are using natural products or environmental responsibility or all of these things that you’ve touched on a little bit with your brand. Why is this so personally important to you? Like, has there been an event in your life that has shaped how you see the world this way?

[00:07:39] Amy Welsman: I would say that I’ve always been a conscious consumer. Obviously, like we all go for convenience and I’m, nobody’s perfect by any means, but it’s always been a consideration for me as I choose a product like, and I’m really thoughtful about the amount of waste that we produce just as a household on a micro level. Like I’m just very conscious of how much waste we all produce. I knew that if I wanted to create a product based business, waste was going to be a by-product of that no matter what. So I think it was really important for me that I’d be really thoughtful in the materials that we choose and the sort of approach to our packaging. And of course, the ingredients that we choose. So trying to avoid. you know, Microplastics and all of the things that have really defined the beauty industry for so long. And now suddenly there’s been, thankfully, this huge shift within the industry towards more sustainable packaging, better quality ingredients that are more natural and more friendly in our water systems and is better for our skin in general.

So it was always a top consideration for me, I would say It’s not my number one. I think we have three buckets. The first being the quality and efficacy, I want to create products that work and that actually do what they’re supposed to do. So, I always knew though, there’d be ethyl alcohol in it, which is non-toxic and, obviously then the natural alternative to the chemical agent that is often using sanitizer But I also want it to be really thoughtful about like the moisturizers and like, are they going to be plant-based and how can we find efficacy there too? So that was also really important. I wanted a product that actually moisturized. So while aloe is a great agent for that, it’s very standard in the industry and not particularly efficacious, we’ve added in an extra element of hydration into our sanitizer product. Another plant-based ingredient And it just enhances that.

Number two materials that we’re using. So we’re trying to use previously recycled plastic as much as we can. And also, for us, I would say refilling is our primary sustainability mission. So as while our materials are thoughtful, we’re also really encouraging our customers to buy our dispensers just once, like by your travel. By your home pump and then continue to refill. Now there are limitations with hand sanitizer, unfortunately, there are no biodegradable packaging options. When I started this, I was like, I want it to be all biodegradable. And I had this like crazy vision. And then of course you learned very quickly well, with alcohol, you need a plastic, you need foil. you need things like this. We tried to be as thoughtful as we could and we don’t claim to be perfect. And, I, we just have a, sort of a mission that like every year we’re going to evolve as new packaging becomes available to us as well, because everything is evolving so quickly in the packaging industry. So that’s one of our key goals is to evolve as materials, improve.

And then I would say lastly, I think just to enhance that mission, we have partnered with an organization called repurpose global which has been an incredible partner in what they do really is they work with brands that produce products and they essentially calculate what their plastic footprint is by using weight metrics. Basically, they do a full audit of your business, how much plastic. The materials do we order and how, how much you selling and like, what’s your yearly sort of capacity and production. And they then create a system where they create an offset. So they look at how much you’re producing and then they say, okay, to offset.

That will require a donation of X and that those funds will go towards our various global projects that they have. They have about 20 or 30. They partner you with one in particular, you pick a partner where we’re partnered in a community in Indonesia. Plastic rolls up on the beach all the time. It’s a real problem because they’re in that thoroughfare from Asia to north America, where plastic just piles up and piles up. So they have built infrastructure in that local community. They’ve hired local people. There’s a real plastic cleanup effort and that waste is removed and then repurposed recycled and they help with infrastructure there. So it’s a real community initiative and your funds go directly to that. And through that, your impact is then offsetted. So it’s just an added layer to what we’re trying to do on a more granular level, which is like being thoughtful about materials and really encouraging refilling. Then we have this added layer, so I think we can always be improved and we’re always going to continue doing that.

 but you know, a lot of it too is just the packaging industry. They’re just now starting to really make this a priority. Like a lot around single use. And there’s been a real ban on single use sampling, but now. there are these companies that are making biodegradable options. And it’s really exciting. So there’s lots. I’m really excited about to explore, but that’s where we are at the moment.

[00:12:22] Jennifer Myers Chua: Was there ever a time in your life where you thought like I’m going to create something and I’m going to use something to create change? I’m just wondering if you fell into this or if this was always a part of you, like little Amy did little Amy have a fire inside?

[00:12:35] Amy Welsman: It’s not something that, I woke up one day is like an eight-year-old and thought, though, it’s funny now that I look back, I’m like doing some reflecting in the moment, but I was very interested as a young child, always been very into nature and animals, certainly something my parents really fostered in me.

And my parents have always been, real. I would say like environmentally conscious people. So a lot of my like natural habits and thoughts around waste production and how I purchase and, packaging and all that stuff has stemmed from them. But I wouldn’t say at when I was a kid that I had lofty dreams of doing something like this, it was a real evolution. I went from being very interested in like, Actually like fashion and advertising and marketing. And then when I went to Knix that’s when I got exposed that startup world. And then through this, I never imagined myself starting like a beauty company. Like it was just something that sort of just evolved. And it’s funny how life does that. But I wish I could say it was like a born mission, but no more just sort of inspiration from my daily life and then life just throwing stuff at me. I guess.

[00:13:36] Jennifer Myers Chua: Can you tell me a little bit more about Paume and the system and what that would look like in your home?

[00:13:41] Amy Welsman: As of now we are a single SKU brand or up until this point, and I’ll talk about sort of what the future holds, but we launched with our hero product and that was an antibacterial hand gel. Or hand sanitizer, we just like to call it something a bit different. But it’s all the same thing.

As I said, the inspiration came to me as a new mom in 2019. So this was before the pandemic. And before this category completely changed and evolved and grew and became super crowded. It’s definitely been a challenge and a, a bit of a mental game to sort of overcome. What’s happening around me. I did not launch into the category that existed in 2019. But from day one, I always knew I wanted to create a product that really worked, but also smelled really good and felt really good on your hands. I was so sick and tired of what I was getting at the drug store and how unpleasant it was. And I think now everybody can relate to that experience.

So from the formula perspective, it is a truly different experience. It smells amazing. We use a blend of five essential oils, which create this like woodsy, herbacious, like citrusy scent. And it’s a very indulgent, a lot of our customers say like how much they love the scent. And we use plant-based emollients that really do hydrate your skin. So when you put it on, you don’t you actually feel this like smooth softness which is really different from what we’re all used to. So I think that’s really important to communicate. It’s hard, over the airwaves rather than in person, you have to try it, but that’s the best I can do.

From a packaging perspective. I wanted from day one to do something very design driven. I love design. I love interior design and art, and I’m just really into beautiful things. And I wanted this to be beautiful, which was so different from at the time what we were envisioned as sanitizer. It was basically a clear bottle that sits on your counter and it’s jelly and weird and sticky and gross. And. I want it to make something beautiful. We make this cool travel bottle, which is 90 milliliters. You can take it on an airplane, throw it in your purse and it has this twist nozzle on it, which is totally unique. Most people don’t know that it’s hand sanitizer when they see it, which was my goal at first was just to really like flip it on its head. And then we’ve designed from scratch this beautiful in-home pump because as I was speaking to earlier, I had it in my house to offer guests when they came to see the baby.

And then I also had it on my change table and I thought, oh, that’s cool. Like new moms, they’re changing diapers. They have like poop all over their hands for lack of a better word. And they, they need something immediate to sort at least feel clean. That was the inspiration for the home pump.

 Little did I know that the pandemic was going to make us all have it all over house. It’s so funny when I think about it. But anyway, so we’ve designed this beautiful pump and the whole idea is that you refill them both, so you don’t need to throw them out. The travel bottle was made a previously recycled plastic. 65% and then, yeah, it’s always refillable and we have these refill bags, which use 60%, less plastic than a bottle. And they fill your travel bottle five times or your pump twice. So you get a ton of value out of that bag. I think people, it’s a bit of a sticker shock. I think we’re used to spending very little on this product. When you see $38 Canadian for a bag, you’re like, oh my gosh, It’s hand sanitizer, almost $40, but. It actually fills your dispensers, like multiple times, like that bag is going to last you a couple of months. So it’s actually a lot of value. But that’s a system.

 And now it’s really exciting. We’re moving into hand care is a broader category. I think it’s really inspired me to look beyond just sanitizer. I think this will always be our hero product and like our core. SKU I should say, but we’re really, we’re looking to expand. So we’re going to be coming out with a probiotic, hand cream again, the whole concept being that we’re sanitizing alot we’re cleaning our hands a lot. So to have something that’s going to naturally restore your skin’s natural microbiome while also being hydrating and smelling really good and looking really nice, essentially.

And then we have an Exfoliating hand wash as well or hand cleanser that we’re coming out with as well later this year. Again, the same concept, refillable bottles, you can use your Paume pump if you wish in your bathroom or in your kitchen. The pump is like our core symbol and then, lots of products will stem from there, but I’m excited to get into hand care. I think there aren’t a lot of brands that are really trying to own that. We have the Aesop and we have various body care brands that happen to have a hand cream or happened to have a soap. But we’re really gonna lean into just hand care and it’s synonymous with our name.

[00:18:01] Jennifer Myers Chua: So when you did decide to go down the route and create a hand sanitizer, and you began to look at how that’s made and conventional hand sanitizing products, did you find anything surprising?

[00:18:13] Amy Welsman: Yes. First of all, just to put it into context, I, when this idea came to me, I knew nothing about any, I knew nothing about how to get a product made for a beauty product or, personal care product, literally nothing. I was like Googling manufacturers like I was so green. So I learned a lot very quickly. And the most surprising thing I think at first was I talked to a lot of manufacturers who right away were like, oh, great. You want to make a hand sanitizer? We’ve got, we got lots of formulas in house. You can white-label them, we can be in market in three months. It was like very much like à la carte. Here’s a menu. And that was really tempting because by the time I had moved into the production phase, The beginnings of this phase the pandemic was happening and I felt this real pressure that like we needed to get going and get to market quickly because there was this like arms race happening, but that was balanced with my, staying true to that initial idea, which is, I don’t want to create a generic product. That’s not the purpose here. Like I do want to create something really unique in the formula. Probably the most important thing next to packaging. So I really was adamant. I said, no, we were like, we got to make a formula from scratch. Here’s my vision. This is what I want. And they’re like, oh, okay.

But you realize it’s going to be like four months. And then it’s going to be two months of, health, Canada, and FDA approvals. It’s like, it’s gonna be a long road. I’m like it is what it is. And I’m so glad because it was so tempting. And there were days where I was like, oh, what am I doing with this will be cheaper.

This will be faster. Like. Maybe I’m making a mistake here, but when I tried that product for the first time that we made I was like, oh, this was so worth the wait and so worth the pain. And now that we’re in market even more because I do think this last year there’ve been a lot of brands. That have come to market that made beautiful packaging and they’re marketed beautifully. But the product really is just, if you look at the ingredients, it really is like some version of Purell in a bottle packaged beautifully. And I do think that like, where we really stand out is not only in our packaging, but also in our formula. Like that’s what people really love. I’m really glad that we took that time, but it was a bit painful. Not going to lie. It wasn’t easy.

[00:20:23] Jennifer Myers Chua: So you’ve made the choice to involve yourself with a number of organizations that give back, including repurpose global. Can you speak a little bit more to what repurpose global is and what that partnership means?

[00:20:36] Amy Welsman: Repurpose global is a, a relatively new organization. I think that they’ve been around for four or five years and their purpose really is to help brands like us to minimize their plastic footprint and find other ways beyond, you know, the choices they make in their own supply chains to give back help global communities, but also really look and focus on plastic waste. Their whole philosophy is plastic is actually a very efficient, low carbon material to use. And if it’s managed properly in the whole waste chain and it doesn’t end up in a landfill and it’s repurposed and recycled. It actually is probably one of the best more eco-friendly materials. It’s light. It doesn’t weigh a lot. It’s funny, we explored a lot of different materials there’s a real trend now towards aluminum. A lot of brands, want to be plastic free. That’s their mission that they’ve chosen. That I totally respect, but with aluminum comes, other things that You don’t always think of as a consumer because you’re not like living and breathing like I am, but if you do a little bit more research, aluminum tends to be a heavier carbon emitter. When you make aluminum. Also it’s much heavier. So it’s heavier to ship, which then creates, more waste when you’re shipping. Like all of these things, it’s not necessarily about the actual physical product. You have to look at the whole chain of how it gets made. What’s great about aluminum is it’s very recyclable. It’s easy. We can throw it in our bin. Plastic is complicated, one thing I’ve learned a lot about is just the recycling system. I’ve become a little bit jaded to be honest about what is really recyclable and what makes something not recyclable, like a sticker, for example, or various, mixing of materials. And I’ve learned so much, which has been a great thing, but also a disappointing thing, because I believe. I was very naive before basically, but my original point is repurpose really takes a close look at plastic and doesn’t necessarily want to discourage brands from using it. They just want to help brands use it in a more responsible and eco-friendly way.

So they really do calculate, like they do a serious audit. And you pay a membership fee, so you pay a yearly fee and they do an audit of your plastic production. And they look at everything, not just your immediate packaging, but your shipping materials. For example, like these are little things I . Always say can make such a difference. Like if, for brands out there who are already established and who want to become more sustainable in their supply chains. It’s sometimes it can be a little thing like tape, for example, rather than have your warehouse just use a miles of plastic tape, spend the money, order the gum tape, the biodegradable tape.

We work with an amazing partner called no issue and they make biodegradable tissue, paper, and tapes and stickers. So you can brand and have this beautiful unboxing experience but also not compromise. With the environmental impact. So anyway, tape huge, like they look at that, so repurpose will look, okay. What kind of tape are you using? Oh, cause that contributes to your plastic footprint. And they really do a deep audit and of course they do. Every quarter, actually, because obviously a brand will hopefully grow within a quarter and then that footprint will change. And they also look at PCR content, previously, recycled materials. Are there any in your product?

And they look at reusability. In this bottle, the single bottle is your customer buying that once and then throwing it away or are they reusing it? What’s the life cycle of that. So they look at all this stuff, they have all these metrics and they determine what your offset cost is to offset what you produce. And you have different levels too you can be a plastic neutral brand, which is what we are, because right now we’re new and we can’t really afford the next level, which the next level ultimately is to be plastic, negative, where you actually like donate more. So there’s actually more plastic in the environment being collected and repurposed than what we’re producing. That’s the goal. Right now we’re baby steps. They’re really incredible. And they have tons of resources and like every partner brand has a micro-site on their website. That really is transparent. Like, I think that’s the key too.

There’s been a lot of organizations, give back organizations, that partner with e-commerce brands carbon neutral, all of these things. And it’s amazing what’s out there now, but I think because of the volume. Of these organizations, there’s a lack of transparency out there. I think we’re just inundated with this hate to say greenwashing, it is a bit like, 1% and give back, and this is the standard cost of entry now. So everyone sees it with all the brands. But I think like if you can be really transparent in what those dollars are doing and what this partnership achieves it just adds more legitimacy.

They’re so great at applying, providing all those tools for you to really educate your customer of like, where is that percentage going? So they’ve been a really great partner and I’m excited to grow with them as we grow and it does make me feel a little bit better about our footprint, because to be honest, plastic really does make sense for us. And aluminum just, I really tried to figure out other materials. And because, also, sanitizers so limiting because of its alcohol content, we really had a very limited number of options of the types of materials we could use. So we settled on it. We committed, but now we’re trying to find ways, to, to offset.

[00:25:48] Jennifer Myers Chua: There’s been a lot of recalls I’m just wondering if you have anything to comment on the recalls of hand sanitizer.

[00:25:55] Amy Welsman: First of all, I have certainly kept a very close attention to them though. I will say that I think a lot of the brands that were having issues were there’s two things that were happening. Health Canada was constantly changing rules and regulations, I think prior to the pandemic this product category was fairly shallow and it’s regulatory.

Like, I’m not sure that they had really had an opportunity to see different circumstances and see different versions of formulas. Like it was a pretty standard, easy product that just existed. And the, I think the regulation around it was pretty light. I would say I’m not an expert. I just, this is my sort of thesis. Then what happened during the pandemic was suddenly the demand was so strong. That brands, we’re making products from everywhere and rushing to market and just needing to get people just needed sanitizer in their hand. So there was a lot of rushing happening, a lot of cutting corners, things being made abroad that, maybe under circumstances that weren’t compliant, like. So I think there were some brands that fell victim to to the rush and that’s unfortunate. I also think. As I said, health, Canada, I think just changed their rules are like, oh wait, no, that was made, oh, that actually can’t be made for whatever reason. This is like toxic levels. And then people had to go back to the drawing board and there were recalls.

So I think there was a combination of just, it was a bit of wild west for awhile. And because the product was in such high demand. It, that was the casualty of it. I think now the regulations have been much more like clear and tighter, and I think now brands know how to follow, because I know for us, I engaged with the regulatory agency, like from day one, because I knew I wanted to sell this in Canada, in the U S and I wanted to do it by the book. Like, and if it took longer, it would take longer. You just don’t want to be in a situation where you’re being recalled. And they really held my hand throughout the whole process. And every time I got a recall alert, or saw an article on that, I trust me. I had friends emailing me every day, being like, have you seen this?

Or investors are like, you’re not using this. Are you, it was like it was a, there was a period of time where I was getting inundated and I’d constantly just feed it off to my agency. Are we okay here? Like, can you give me some peace of mind? We really did follow the rules, but I do think it’s, it was a bit crazy for a while and I think that’s calmed down a little bit. It just proves that if you’re going to make a product that goes on people’s bodies, like you really have to work with the right regulatory partners and sometimes it’s as simple as like a mislabel or something, and it’s like, it can be detrimental, hugely detrimental to your business.

[00:28:24] Jennifer Myers Chua: Now that we are sending all of our kids to school with hand sanitizers, like attached to their backpacks. It worries me that health Canada maybe is discovering toxins in our hand, sanitizing products.

[00:28:39] Amy Welsman: Yeah, I think I think what I would recommend people shy away from as any sanitizer that claims to be alcohol free. What that means is it’s using a chemical agent, which is health, Canada approved, but it’s still, if you’re really someone who doesn’t want to be putting chemicals on their children’s or on their own bodies.

 It’s funny. It’s like the opposite of what you think is in so many other categories, people are like, Ooh, it’s alcohol free. That’s a really good thing. For some reason we’re conditioned to think like alcohol free is really good in cosmetics in general. And it’s funny in this, the alcohol version of sanitizer is actually the more natural version than the alternative. And it’s funny because it smells harsher and you definitely like. It doesn’t smell like it would be more natural cause it has that alcohol scent. But the alternative, scent free, alcohol free, means there’s a chemical agent in there. I’ve always been wary of that. Everyone has their own personal choice, but we chose to use alcohol because it actually is the more natural way to go.

[00:29:38] Jennifer Myers Chua: I think most people know that there’s alcohol in hand sanitizer, but I think as just a regular person who may be using it, after I go grocery shopping or whatnot nowadays, I don’t think we think about what else may be in hand sanitizer. You’re silicone free, paraben-free free of artificial fragrance, cruelty-free, I was wondering if you could speak to some of those choices that you made, that maybe we are completely unaware that we are putting these things on our bodies, because we have no idea what’s in hand sanitizer in the first place.

[00:30:13] Amy Welsman: There’s a real range, I would say. I think in your basic drug store, it’s mostly alcohol with some sort of blending agent, which is often a chemical with aloe and then artificial fragrance. And there’s nothing, wrong with these chemicals. They’re all, Approved and regulated and like, but I think for the conscious shopper, that’s really trying to minimize, it’s not about that one product that you’re using that has, parabens in it. It’s the culmination and the combination of like all the products you’re using in your medicine cabinet, it’s like, okay, what am I putting on my face? What am I using on my hands what am I using on my body? What am I using my hair? And I think it’s the combination of that. But I think.

As we get into more premium products in the beauty industry, silicone is like, and it’s definitely on its way out, thankfully, that was a real hot ingredient for awhile because basically you put it on your hand and it would have this feeling of just, it was so smooth and you’d be like, oh my gosh, like my skin feels amazing. And really it’s just a plastic that’s sitting on the surface. Again, giving you this like gummy feeling. And I just knew that if I was going to, make something that was really going to moisturize and really going to feel good we had to do it in such a way that used natural ingredients, but also had effectiveness, but also did avoid, those no-no ingredients.

And I was really also. Mindful of certain retailers. So like now, I there are a bunch of retailers out there that will not take products that have certain ingredients and they have very strict guidelines. And I remember as I was formulating our new products and this one, I was constantly checking their lists because I always knew I really want to partner with these guys. They match our philosophy. Like there are these incredible partners. And luckily we’re actually launching with credo in the U S and the detox market in Canada in the U S and next month. But again, like to get into these retailers, you really have to jump through hoops in a way to show that, your products, you meet their guidelines. And it’s something that’s a big advice for people who want to bring brands, bring products to market and are wanting to be really thoughtful about their ingredients. Like look on those lists. Educate yourself. Because when you’re working with a lab in a formulator, they’ll throw you stuff, oh, we love this we use it in this other product that we manufacture. We happen to have a ton of it here. Why don’t you use this? It’s great.

And you have to be the one to say, and I was so naive in the beginning. Like, I didn’t know anything. I would have said yes to probably anything, but I was like, wait, no, I’ve got to make sure that I’m like taking these boxes. And I was empowered by that knowledge. And I was say, you know what? We actually can’t use that because this is against this and I want to be able to work with them. That’s big advice for people who were starting fresh and working with formulators, with no experience, like really educate yourself and understand what you’re putting in your products, because that’s not necessarily their job. They just want to create a good product that you can afford. You have to keep on them for, certain ingredients and all of that.

[00:33:09 Jennifer Myers Chua: I think that’s the reason that I’m really skeptical personally about private labeling is that people are happy to effectively purchase an already created something. It doesn’t have to be a personal care product. It can be anything. And they really have no idea what went into making that product. What’s really in it. Because it is advantageous for the person who’s manufacturing it to use what they already have. To use the knowledge they already have, regardless of if that aligns with the brand’s values.

[00:33:43] Amy Welsman: We’ve had some manufacturing challenges and we’ve had to move partners actually a couple of times, mainly around actually just the filling of our packaging. We have unique packaging. spout coaches are a relatively new thing out there and because we’re also sanitizer, which means we’re considered a hazmat like dangerous, good crazily enough cause we have alcohol in it. It’s very complicated. And anyway, we’ve had to move a few times and I’ve had to bring formulas to new fillers and you can tell right away their resistance, like, oh, it has that ingredient. Like, we don’t really carry that ingredient. We’re going to have to now buy it. And it’s like, you can see if you lift up the curtain, like, every manufacturer and filler has like their sort of standard list of ingredients they like to use. So you have to kinda like dig at them a little bit and push them to look beyond that, those limitations, if you really want to create something super unique. And they’ll, they come around and they’re like, okay. And they make it work. But it is it’s a good thing to know as you go into it that if you want to create something truly different, like you got to push for it and it’s not as easy as it may appear.

[00:34:47] Jennifer Myers Chua: Now that we are somewhat returning to normal, where are you at and how does this unique experience of the last 18 months influence how you’re shaping the next phase of growing Paume?

[00:34:59] Amy Welsman: I would say that the pandemic was. both a gift and also a curse. I think many people would agree with that. Overall, it was a terrible thing I should say, but from on a micro selfish level, it was the push I needed to take this business to the next level. This was really an idea in my head for a year and a business plan out of PowerPoint. And then when I saw what was happening to this category as the result of the pandemic, that really pushed me to move full steam ahead. I guess that’s a silver lining. But it also presented a lot of challenges with on many levels. We were, we didn’t have any childcare. I had a one-year-old when the pandemic started, she’s now two and a half. It’s crazy. And we didn’t have help. We were on lockdown with her and my husband and I both worked and I was building this business and he was working and it was really challenging. Luckily we’re out of that phase that was a six month, very intense period.

So that was, really a part of that journey. And I would say that another gift I suppose, of the pandemic was that it really put a spotlight on this category for better or for worse. I think, it for definitely for better, I would say, I mean it improved. I think there’s a lot of great new products in the market. It’s a category that. Is really important. I think we’ve all discovered that hand hygiene is not just a, a nice to have it as essential to making our society work. We all need to be clean and we have a responsibility to ourselves and to our families and our loved ones and our community to, be careful and be mindful of our hygiene habits.

So I think sanitizer plays a big role in that. So I think that’s a really positive thing to come out of all this. Hopefully they’ll just be less cold and less flus and hopefully COVID will go away eventually. And as far as the future I do feel like I’ve come out of this. I have, there’s been a turning point. For me personally, and for this business, for all of us. I think we’re all feeling this like renewed sense of hope that life is going to return to normal at some point. It’s now like within our grasp. And with that has come a real hope that I have in this business. And I think I spoke to this earlier. Moving away from a single SKU and moving into like a broader category and what the possibilities are for that. And I think also raising money really opened my eyes to that. Cause I had a lot of investors saying or potential investors saying, we love sanitizer. It’s great. But like, what are you going to do to make this business like blow it up, like in a good way. And I had to really be thoughtful about our product pipeline and what that looks like. And what does the next five years look like and where do we see this brand growing? And I think that was really exciting. And it ties nicely with this like societal renewal of hope in the future.

So it’s funny how it’s been. It’s like it originated in the pandemic. By pulling the trigger and then now as we’re coming toward the end, it’s like this, change in vision in this broadening of our vision. Yeah, that’s my, my, an analysis of the last year and what’s to come.

[00:37:52] Jennifer Myers Chua: I was going to ask you more about hope, but you just brought it up, So with all that you’ve learned now about our dependence on plastic and some of the items that we’re having in our personal care products, which are maybe not as good for us as we originally thought. I’m just wondering if you’ve seen enough of a positive shift in society? And I want to know how hopeful you are for the future.

[00:38:17] Amy Welsman: Oh, gosh. Okay. I’m definitely hopeful. I think when I look at the industry that I’m now finding myself in there’s a lot of hope there. I’m seeing a lot of brands, being forced really by consumer demand, to change their habits and to improve their environmental policies and their packaging.

And, even a brand like Caudalie that announced last year that it’s going to be doing this huge overhaul in its supply chain and packaging, and like that for a brand that established to really incorporate sustainability as like a primary mission is amazing because I know what it takes even just as a small brand to make a change is complicated enough. But to take an established brand with millions of customers to, to make that change. It’s a huge undertaking. And it’s the reason why they said it would take four years, which is fine. What take all the take the time you need. Obviously like don’t take too long, but you know, that gives me a lot of hope.

I think the beauty industry specifically, which is a huge waste producer is making these changes and that, that gives me a lot of hope. And I think also in like the food industry and there’s a lot, to me, the worst culprit is like the, is the grocery store. Not to get all preachy, but I just like all of these single use, especially having kids, I think a lot of mothers can relate to this and fathers who shop for convenient snacks for their kids. And it’s all like, the liquid yogurts in the plastic bottle and it’s thrown out. And from what I’ve learned about recycling, so few of these materials are actually recyclable. You throw them in your recycling bin, but they’re really not getting recycled, not to like shock anyone, but it’s really a depressing thing when you really learn about that industry.

So there’s areas where I don’t have hope because it’s going to take so long, but, and then I also see like the steps we’re taking. So it’s a balance of like hope and a tiny bit of despair. I think if everyone on an individual level, you don’t need to like, go become like a plastic free household or do something dramatic. You can liken this to so many other behavioral changes, it’s a slow evolution and a lifestyle change. That’s not too overwhelming to take on. Like, you don’t have to go change the world necessarily, but just look at your daily habits and make those little tweaks. And it’s amazing the impact you’ll have.   I always talk about the tape thing. It’s like just don’t use plastic tape if you’re an e-com brand, like use another alternative. It’s those little things that can make a big difference. And I hate to get preachy. I do think that like, we’re, none of us are perfect. I certainly am not, I’m not claiming that, but what I do try to do is like, just make those little changes every day in my habits.

I think having been through the Knix experience in those early days, and now obviously it’s such a huge success story and so amazing. I think often in society, we tend to only see the success. We don’t often see the failures because by nature of social media, no one’s really putting out there when maybe they’re having a bad month, or sales are really bad or, challenges are happening. You don’t get to really see that behind the curtain. It’s all the public facing things that you see. And I know for me, I really struggle. I look at other brands on social media. I’m like, oh, they’re just killing it. I think it’s really important that you have to regulate that and understand that what is only the success and you don’t see the work and all the blood and the sweat and the tears that go into making that success. And I just know that it’s really, it’s a really hard thing to launch a business and I never liked to sugar coat it. I. I think that’s unfair to do to people. Because again, I do think there’s this idea out there, by what we see on social media that like being an entrepreneur and a founder is this like kick ass, like amazing thing. Founders have become, to a certain degree, like new celebrities in a way. They have amazing success and we all like admire them for it, but they don’t people don’t always talk about how hard it is in the beginning and just surviving is hard enough. And being able to just take day by day and not let the outside noise affect you. And know that, you have bad days, bad months. Bad years. And if you persevere and stick a stick around long enough, typically like good things do end up happening. I think a lot of it is about survival. Like, can you survive those first three years? And if you can then. I think the possibilities are there, you’ve got to really have this mental stamina and this determination and this resiliency that not everyone has, and that’s fine. I don’t know. I often say like, I feel like on some level I hate myself, it’s like, what am I, why am I doing this to myself? But then the winds are really high and it’s like a drug, but yeah, a lot of it is a mindset as well as as an entrepreneur in the hot seat.

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Anong Migwans Beam from Beam Paints. We learn how Anong’s father taught her to harvest pigment near her home in M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin island, how she’s been inspired by her artist parents and indigenous paint traditions, we explore her deep connection to colours, and discover why she’s made the choice to use beeswax, cotton remnants, cedar and birch offcuts and other sustainable materials over plastics for her packaging.

If you want to learn more about Anong and her plastic-free paints handcrafted from harvested pigments and wildflower honey visit www.beampaints.com Looking to support a 100% indigenous-owned business? You can purchase Anong’s beautifully vibrant paint stones direct or through independent art supply stores across Canada. You can follow along with Anong and be inspired by a life full of colour on Facebook or Instagram 

Links from this episode

• M’Chigeeng First Nation 
• Anong Migwans Beam Artist Site
• Carl Beam in the Canadian Encylopedia
• Ann Beam Galerie du Nouvel-Ontario (GNO)

Episode Transcript

 

[00:02:13] Jennifer Chua: “Pollution is nothing but the resources we’re not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we’ve been ignorant of their value.” This is a quote that Anong shared with me and it’s by Buckminster Fuller, she brought it up during our conversation. And after learning more about Anong and her process. It’s so clear why this quote resonates with her. Anong manufacturers, high-quality watercolours by hand blending together lightfast pigments tree sap gum Arabic and Manitoulin honey, her paints are brilliant and they’re well-loved by her customers.

She uses materials that would otherwise be waste as well from a number of other businesses to create beam paints, including byproducts from mining offcuts, from an indigenous sustainable lumber operation and remnants from the textile industry and beam paints are proudly operating as plastic-free as possible. Her packaging is completely free of plastic and we’ll learn more about what she uses and why she does so in a bit. And constantly evaluating her choices to find more sustainable solutions is something that Anong really enjoys. But what makes the story of beam paints so interesting is that Anong’s business is the result of a multi-generational love of pigment, paint, colour, and innovation.

Anong was taught from a young age, how to harvest pigments in the Le Cloche mountain range near her home in M’Chigeeng First Nation on Manitoulin Island. And it’s her early education in indigenous pigments. The fact that she sources the minerals and the pigments for Beam Paints locally. The influence of this artistic world that she grew up in and how clearly so many of her life experiences have woven their way into this venture. Today Anong operates out of two studios, right where she grew up, she’s raising her sons here. There are a lot of people and animals buzzing around. There are goats and cows and chickens pheasants. And on either side of the property are the studios. Anong operates the fulfillment side of the business, the shipping, the packing in her mother’s old art studio. And the manufacturing of the paint from her father’s art studio. Beam paints, what Anong is trying to do with the brand and the impact she’s creating is so tied to this story. And so tied to this place.

[00:04:43] Anong Beam: We’re here in Mchigeeng first nation on, uh, my parent’s family land. So I’m about half an acre away from where my dad was born in a log cabin in the forties.

Both my parents were artists they were fully self-employed as artists for my whole childhood. They had had other jobs. My mom was the first woman ever employed at the Toronto Star in the art department in the sixties. And my dad is renowned Canadian artist. He was a governor General’s award for excellence in visual arts winner, 2004 or five. And he was also the first indigenous artists to be purchased as contemporary art by the national gallery of Canada in 1986. So big shoes, big, uh, big thinkers.

Really so much of what I do now is really so much like what my parents were doing with me when I was a kid. And, uh, they were both really interested in, uh, traditional ceramics and traditional pigments.

So we spent, I was homeschooled. We spent a lot of my youth driving. All over north America, down in the Southwest in Arizona and New Mexico and in BC, all parts of Ontario and, uh, visiting other artists or their ceramic indigenous ceramic artists painters and all the while my dad is looking for different pigments, different rocks. We were always off on side of the road, off at quarries or gravel pits, rock cuts, different different places, looking for stones that had those particular qualities. And that was my favorite thing. I just loved looking around it, all of the rocks and the colors and the differences that could be found.

[00:06:53] Jennifer Chua: Could you explain how pigments work? Cause I think that this is something that people might not understand, where a pigment paint might come from. Can you us an idea of how that whole process works?

[00:07:06] Anong Beam: Yeah, it’s something that I didn’t really understand. And it’s definitely not widely understood. Probably because the ability to make color and pigment is so, it’s so broad, there’s so many ways to approach it. And historically, it’s been such a journey like the us as humanity, all cultures of really. United in this search for great color, like through the centuries. So you see the history of color, really igniting trade routes between Asia and your aunt. Uh, early explorers being really excited about sources of color and a lot of the color becoming so defining to groups of people to countries.

Rose matter, red was the red that England used for the red coats. So, they had huge industry in obtaining routes to get matter, to make that die, to have that in their flag as like a national colour. And that colour becoming widely used was one of the first, uh, synthetic colours. So the ability of. Humans to synthesize colour, which gave us the ability to have more non-toxic choices of color. I think, uh, even early on, because we’ve been such colour hounds, humans, used a lot of, uh, dangerous substances. I think in the natural world, the most beautiful colours are created most of the time from, uh, toxic substances.

So like lead, cadmium, uh, heavy metals create beautiful colours. So one of the most significant things in this century has been the development of, uh, non-toxic synthetics and manmade pigments. Then I kind of weighed into this in an interesting spot because. I do harness a lot, of pigments and a lot of components for my paint. And I also use man-made synthetics. So my view of it as a child of artists was that the primary focus of paint should be the quality and the safety for the user. So I.

My father, actually, my mother is in long-term care. She has Alzheimer’s and my father passed away when I was pretty young. I was 25. Before he passed away there was, there were blood tests done and collation therapy that was to remove heavy metals from his system. He had a really high load of heavy metals. And I definitely attribute that to the fact that he looking back through his paints, made choices to use those colours that came from those heavy metals. And I think that the term natural gets attributed to colours of the earth, these heavy metal colours. These are naturally occurring. So I think in pigments in paint, there’s an idea that oh, natural is healthy and good, and we want to get back to nature. And I think that’s where the awareness of the natural world and the power of what’s natural is not, I think we’re in a time when people want to be eco and natural. So there’s this kind of cartoon idea of mother earth. all things being from the earth as being, cartoon-ally healthy and edible when the true force of nature is that there are a lot of very, very powerful things that are not healthy.

Just to go back to your original question and answer it a bit more succinctly. Paint comes from so many sources and over time it’s come from so many sources. But what we’re really talking about is a substance that comes from plants or minerals. Or is manmade in a way that we would take a piece of iron and let it rust and then collect the rust to make a, a colour. Those processes create manmade and natural pigments. Really, what we’re talking about is a substance that is going to reflect light in a certain way to make your eyes see colour. And the further you get into all of that, it’s absolutely fascinating because the ability of a substance to reflect colour means. It’s absorbing into it, the opposite colour, and it’s rejecting the colour that you see.

So in actual effect that object, like say, a bright red tomato, it’s rejecting the red part of the light spectrum, but it’s absorbing into the green. So when in and of itself, the essence of that tomato really is a green tomato, but you look at it and you see a red tomato. And so there’s a lot of different ways to look at it. It’s no wonder people get confused about what kind of pigments or paints they’re using.

[00:12:56] Jennifer Chua: So it sounds like your father at least was really inspired in his art by the natural world. And I was wondering how inspired you are by the natural world or what you’ve taken from the natural world when creating beam paints.

[00:13:09] Anong Beam: Uh, A lot of how he approached making pigments was really from the natural world. These stones become these paints and I found a way to hybridize his approach. And in some instances, We have a set of natural colours that are, this is slate. This is graphite. This is limestone. And then we’ve been able to meld that with other synthetic colours. So we have really electric purples, really bright, hot reds, and they’re all non-toxic so that’s been really enjoyable. They’re certified. ASTM D4236, which is the standard for art supplies. They also meet LHAMA and the California prop 65. So we don’t use any of those listed anything under those regulations.

[00:14:09] Jennifer Chua: Can you remember an event maybe from childhood where you really feel like it’s the first time that you made this connection with pigments and paints really became aware of of the process of making paint in general?

[00:14:24] Anong Beam: I have a lot of those actually when I think back. I also have maybe synesthesia or something like that where I really am affected deeply by colour. And, um, one thing that really stands out, I think with, uh, being at a rock cut in Akash mountains is my dad. he’s filing a rock. He’s looking for something and that he finds one that’s not it, finds one. and it’s it. He files it off into my hand and he puts a little water on it. He rubs it into the palm of my hand. And then he shows me that, uh, this one, this is pigment because if we wash it off, it’s going to stay and everything else will just wash away. He was showing me how to discern between those., but I remember it feeling it, and seeing it, and having him explain it and really feeling excited and attached that, we found this amazing capability inside this little rock that looks so much like all the others, but it’s not.

[00:15:37] Jennifer Chua: it’s. almost magical. Isn’t it?

[00:15:39] Anong Beam: Oh, yeah, it is it’s. So every day I’m really amazed at what I get to do, even when there’s something like I can mix the same colour. Many times, but even when I take to say we’re making that an ultra Marine blue and I get to take all of this blue and put it into a great big bowl and sometimes I, I have other people who work with me and I’ll have to stop them and say, Jay, look at that. Wow, that’s a bowl of blue. It’s just so beautiful. So blue.

[00:16:14] Jennifer Chua: Is there anything that you learned from your mother and her artistic pursuits that has influenced your current business?

[00:16:22] Anong Beam: Yeah, she was really like, well, they both worked in watercolour and, but she was the one who probably, was always toting me around. Both in their own ways, they both kind of showed me ways to have an idea and explore it. Or have a possibility and pursue it.

Like, uh, this is avocado it’s very delicious and we can plant the seed and grow this. It becomes a tree and, being present and feeling authority to investigate how things are done and different ways to, to do them. They, they both were very much like that, but, directly from her, I think, making rose matter. That kind of came about from her. That was one of her favourite colors. And she was the one who introduced colour names to me, which I, I still really love because they’re so evocative they’re so, uh, they’re so personal and there is a standard to them, but then there’s also all exist variety. So, each paint-making house will have the rainbow of their colours and there are certain colours they’re kind of still. colours, like an ultra Marine, but if you get an ultra Marine in France then it’s Autremer, beyond the sea. Like you, you have different ways of saying the same thing to describe the same colour. One of the only colours that I’ve made as a, as an ink, that’s not like fast is Rose matter genuine.

It’s steeped out of the roots of the matter plant. And I made that for her because it was just to feel close to her because it was her favourite colour. And when I made it available to the public, I told people, we’re in an interesting time wherein ancient more ancient times, pigments had to be lightfast because there was no photographic ability. So. That art or that writing had to endure because there was no other way. It was the recording of an event. And now I think so many things are made to be consumed and recorded in a digital way that I think it could let us go back to exploring different kinds of colour, that change. and are more ephemeral or don’t have a century of life, but are very tender and beautiful in the moment. So the Rose matter ink, I made, it with paint on a peach, yellow, and as the ink absorbed oxygen returned the deeper pink. It was colour-changing on paper. And it was really, it was really amazing.

[00:19:33] Jennifer Chua: Do you remember the moment that you decided to take beam paints and actually create a business out of these traditions and this love that you have for paint?

[00:19:44] Anong Beam: So this is where things get business is personal. Especially I think for, for women, but definitely for me. I was in a difficult relationship where my partner had alcohol issues and it became really, um, became a dangerous situation for myself and my sons. Before that, and in the middle of that, I had started an art supply store. And it was very small and I only had a season of it, but in that small window of running this little store in a very rural area, people would come in and they loved watercolour and wanted to buy paints. And I felt like because it was such a tiny store and they wanted me to say that I made the paint like they would ask where it was from. And I’d say, well, it’s from China. It’s paint. This is the same paint like any other store. And they always seemed so disappointed that it came from somewhere else. And I remember at first thinking, where do you want me to say, like, you want me to make the paint too? And then that was after saying that, that I was like, I make the paint. I bet you I could make the paint. But at the time I think I voiced it out loud.. And somebody heard an old partner and he said, uh, whoops, you ridiculous? Oh, no, no. So it was kind of shelved and my life went through a lot of changes. We, we left that situation and I actually moved into my mom’s house on her couch with my two kids who are under, under five at the time.

[00:21:34] Jennifer Chua: That’s difficult.

[00:21:35] Anong Beam: Yeah. Yeah, it was, it was, but it was a totally clean slate and it was worse than a clean slate because it was a clean slate with debt. And, uh, I, I ended up being left as the responsible party for debt run-up in my name. I felt really free though, because all of a sudden, I didn’t have to take care of this really messy situation. I cleared it away and I was focused on myself and my kids. And I think at that point you do really think about family. I thought about when I was younger and I started making paint and making more and more paint and it was just so enjoyable. I felt fantastic. And that’s when I started an Instagram page about it. And I started offering paint for people and just kind of continued evolving from

[00:22:38] Jennifer Chua: it sounds almost like therapeutic. Really.

[00:22:42] Anong Beam: Yeah, it absolutely was. Yeah, absolutely. Because I wanted that connection to my family who my father had passed away. I didn’t have all older family to kind of shepherd me through this difficult point. So kind of meditating on that and sharing, I think, sharing with my kids, the actions and that the things that I used to do with my parents. And so we’d go out to little rock cuts. My boys would have their little rock hammers. We’d go exploring, looking at stones, looking at things that could be paintable.

[00:23:23] Jennifer Chua: So when people were coming into your store and noticing that the paints were from China and you were purchasing art supplies from, the places that one purchases art supplies for when stocking their shelves. When you began to look at these conventional artists’ paints, did you find anything surprising or what is the challenge with the traditional conventional artist’s paints that you’re finding on shelves?

[00:23:50] Anong Beam: So this was funny to get to this point where I was spending all of this time to create this paint. And it was so physical. It was so tangible. I was making this paint from these natural materials. And then when it came time to like to nest them and nestle them into a vessel or a container, all the containers are plastic and all of the boxes were, you know, it was just really, really ubiquitous in the market that art supplies are in plastic.

Plastic boxes, plastic sleeves, plastic mailing. And then I started as e-commerce. So all of the default packings is really plastic. And then this is where kind of having a, having a relationship. A lot of people, conscientious people through Instagram really affected me because I got to have that dialogue about materials and what I was doing with a wider audience.

And I remember somebody messaging me, Hey, I love what you’re doing. Do you think you could ever make a tape? And I remember getting that and it was the same feeling as like the art supply question, right? Like, do you make the paint? Make paint. That’s crazy. And, and I heard her say, oh, could you make tape? Because the most tape is just plastic. Isn’t it. And I was like, oh yeah, it is, I guess. And that’s when I started really looking more at like the things, the choices I was making as an e-commerce business and the packaging that we were using. And I really, again, got to look back to my mom and I thought about how she wrapped sandwiches. and use wax paper. she was in her twenties in the sixties, and she was part of the anti-Vietnam war movement. She immigrated to Canada in 1967 to protest the Vietnam war. She didn’t want to pay taxes to the industrial-military complex. You could tell, she talked about this alot. And she was always telling me stuff like, okay, well don’t use tinfoil Alcan? They made napalm!

And she would say, well, oh, plastic wrap? No! Like there was no plastic wrap in my house. I never learned how to use cling wrap until I was like, in my thirties. I couldn’t really ever cling wrap anything properly. So she really brought those more strident values of being responsible with your, your choices and personal ethical responsibility.

[00:26:46] Jennifer Chua: How are your paints packaged? What’s your packaging look like?

[00:26:51] Anong Beam: Our packaging is continually evolving to meet our needs and the customer’s needs. And the, now that we’ve actually, we’ve really grown and developed quite a lot the past few years. So we manufactured larger volumes of paint. And, um, now you’ll find our paints wrapped either in a sheet of beeswax cotton.

This is actually an interesting evolution I’m doing right now. This was the first idea that instead of a plastic cap pan that paint would go inside a piece of wax canvas, and that would be folded in a certain way and have a tie. So that was the first thing. And this struck such a chord with people.

Really. It was really amazing to me, how well received this idea. And then moving forward to now where changing this idea a bit to be the same structure. But what happened was, is we started doing business with indigo, indigo books and music, which is a big chain here in Canada. And one of the requirements to work with them is that you have to sign an affidavit attesting to the sourcing of cotton. So there’s this whole political situation in China and this kind of alerted me to that because it was not on my radar at all. And then I found that it was really. I could say yes. And I did say yes. Um, I agreed to that, but I also found that it is practically impossible to really be sure, or you could ask and people would say, but I wasn’t satisfied with my degree of understanding of the supply chain of cotton.

And then I started kind of thinking about, well, the. The cost of cotton, fresh cotton, new cotton is, is quite high as far as why don’t use land use and pesticides. So

we’re shifting now to paper and it’s done in the same way. It’s the same structure, the same look, but instead of a square of cotton with wax.

It’s a handmade paper and the handmade paper is made out of cotton. So it’s still a hundred percent cotton, but now the cotton comes from St. Alma preparatory in Montreal, and they obtain skids of offcuts from the textile industry. So when a fabric, when a t-shirt company, Has all the little off-cuts that can’t be used, they get bundled up into a big skids of fabric.

Those offcuts get repurposed and sent to Saint-Armand where they use the cotton linen, all the different fabrics, and they turn that into artists’ paper. So I’m really, really excited to be, changing again. It was also, I had a lot of nerves about telling people because I didn’t want to like throw a bunch of shade on cotton users. Right? Like, I’m not saying it’s bad to use cotton. I am also using beeswax, I, became a beekeeper in the past few years and I became aware of more of how. How or beeswax is like how little beeswax bees actually make, when they do honey, they make so much more honey or relatively very small amounts of beeswax.

And we had had a really difficult year. I lost a lot of beehives, it’s been challenging. I had a tough time talking with our suppliers of beeswax and kind of hearing them trying to make an order for the same amount as last year. And they were really like, I don’t know. And there was a lot of stress there, so I still did reorder. We still do use beeswax, but we’re trying to, we’re just trying to diversify as far as different ways that we can make so that we can adjust. And, uh, without saying using beeswax is bad. We just want to have a lot of different tools, especially with supply chains in the past year and what that looks like

________

[00:31:38] Jennifer Chua: When you go on to Indigo’s website and you look for your products, you see these beautiful wood pallets. Can you explain what that is and how you came up with the idea to use wood?

[00:31:50] Anong Beam: So this whole process of my leaving to my mother’s house with the kids and, reimagining life, and during that time I meet my boyfriend and we actually go on our first date to a quarry. Look at, to look at rocks and things, and he runs a forestry operation. So he gives me a space to develop my business. he gives me a garage, 16 by 20 a small car garage, he clears it out and he says, okay, go ahead. And so I’m making paint inside of like in this quiet spot, in the middle of a working forestry operation. So there are massive machines rolling past me every day, six-foot-tall tires going by the window, excavators, like large machines.

And along with that, when the hum of the work is done, then large stacks of, wood that go to keep people’s houses, fire, fuelwood, different wood products. And I find myself so attracted to all of the offcuts and all of the small pieces, the sideways cut pieces, things that just end up, uh, different into the waste stream.

So I ended up, um, Collecting these going around the yard after hours and collecting all the offcut pieces. And then I experiment with different ways that I can put them in offcuts. And eventually, it becomes an agreed-on partnership between our two businesses. And now I subcontract wood production to Corbiere Lumber. Which is owned by my boyfriend. And his company, they produce all of our pallets out of their off-cuts from that forestry business. So it’s been really a really rewarding fight because it’s, it’s fun to work with people who are really passionate about their materials. They’re really passionate about their product and creative enough to look at the waste stream.

I also watched you on Instagram live a little while ago, which was great. You have a really great connection to your community. And you were speaking about language, changing the language on your new packaging.

When I started my business, It was really important to me to name all of the paints in my language, which is Ojibwe. My dad went to a residential school at the Spanish school for boys and he’s a survivor, experienced a lot of abuse. And also people say lost their language like that. He lost his language. It sounds so passive. Like you misplaced it on a walk and. For a child to speak a language and go be forced to go somewhere, to be reconditioned, to have that bridge or moved from them that they are so afraid and fearful that they cannot speak it. Even later in adults, there’s so much abuse and trauma there, but anyway, language initiatives, I’ve have been really close to my heart.

And one of the reasons why I wanted it to use the language is because it’s hard to encounter it anywhere. English is the dominant, it’s the dominant language of our times, and it’s really, it’s prevalent everywhere. And I wanted to give our language a spot to be to be first. So all of our labels will be labelled with the color name, you know, in Ojibwe first, and then the English name underneath. And that was part of the shift to the paper wrappers because it enabled us instead of using wax cloth ties to use water, activated paper, tape printed labels, to include a lot more information per item.

[00:36:14] Jennifer Chua: Do you have a favourite color name?

[00:36:18] Anong Beam: It, it changes all the time. I’m a painter too. So my favourite painting, it’s always whatever the last one was. And I just laugh about that because I’ll start another one. And then when I think, oh, that’s my favourite painting. Fast forward six months. Well, this is my favourite and it’s kind of like that with colour names too. My most recent favourite is one of our most recent colours wet grizzly.

[00:36:47] Jennifer Chua: So it’s clear that tradition is important to you with putting Ojibwe on the packaging. You’re honouring your father’s legacy, really with the paint-making process, you are showing your children the merits of entrepreneurship, you are creating like low waste products. Really? You’re doing a lot in terms of sustainability. What part of all of the impact that you’re making means the most to you? Really

[00:37:14] Anong Beam: In a personal enjoyment level, I, I really enjoy, uh, approaching the waste stream and finding possibilities. I actually some of the key ingredients that we use in all of the paints are reclaimed from the waste stream of quarries. And there’s like an indigenous quarry on the west end of Manitoulin that captures different things that are actually hazardous in their workflow because they get wet and slippery, but they capture that moves them out of the way for us. Being able to interact with industry in that way, especially as, as a woman, mom, you walk into the place with all the big machines and talk to people and materials and to have conversations like that, that’s been really enjoyable, but also because I’m being offered a job at a pivotal moment in my life, gave me such stability. It’s really important to me and be able to offer employment to people who need flexible, flexible employment, especially here in M’Chigeeng. We are on Manitoulin island. There aren’t just a lot of jobs and most jobs are really heavy heavy industry or construction. They’re not really ideal for working moms or single moms. People with disabilities. So I’m happy to, to fill in there and, and design it. Like, I didn’t really realize it at the time, but being a very flexible employer has meant that we we’ve been able to withstand the pandemic, I think in better shape than other companies that have more rigid employment. So we’ve split our production over four locations. So having it split like that meant that everybody could have observed that corporate protocols and feel safe about going to work where they were working. It also meant that, uh, a lot of our in who had childcare issues that arise out of the pandemic, we’re able to flex the times that they came into different locations to work. So it’s been, it’s been good like that. I want to, I want to be able to grow our company that way to be able to be a stronger employer

[00:39:55] Jennifer Chua: When you’re looking back at all of the impacts that you’ve created, and when you’re looking around you and seeing other brands that are doing really interesting things with waste, for example, how hopeful are you for the future?

[00:40:11] Anong Beam: I am really hopeful for the future. I think, um, I think part of this was the fact that I had young kids. At this juncture and they’re coming back from school with concerns about the environment. Concerns about global warming and it’s has been really great to me to be able to tell them this is what we’re doing about it in our corner. We’re responsible for making things, and these are our choices and we can be responsible down to this, this, minute level.

And we can look for other companies who are that responsible and choose that. That definitely comes from my mom. So being able to share that with my kids and seeing them make choices like that and feel empowered to be conscious consumers.

It’s my absolute joy to design and imagine new ways of presenting our product. But the core strength of it is the fact that, uh, our main goal is to make the best paint in the world and in terms of performance and in terms of its respect for the health of our users and people who try our product, their children. Then the environment, that it’s responsible, but the bottom line is when you use our paint, we want you to be really blown away. Oh, that blue, there is so much blue in that blue. So I’m always working on recipes to find different ways to compact and get bluer in the blue also make sure that it really outperforms.

[00:42:06] Jennifer Chua: If you want to learn more about Anong and her plastic-free paints handcrafted from harvested pigments and wildflower, honey. Visit beampaints.com. Looking to support a hundred percent indigenous-owned business? You can purchase Anong’s beautifully vibrant paint stones direct or through independent art supply stores across Canada. You can follow along with Anong and be inspired by a life full of colour on Facebook or Instagram at beam paints.

In today’s episode, we chat with Alain Menard from The Green Beaver Company. We explore why Alain, a microbiologist, and his wife Karen, a biochemist, left their careers in the pharmaceutical and pesticide industries after deciding to start a family and being sidelined by a surprising diagnosis. We do a deep dive into natural and conventional sunscreens, antiperspirants and toothpaste, learn what the differences are, learn why there have been recalls and what the health impacts of our choices may be. And discover why after 20 years of revolutionizing the industry and engaging with his customers, Alain feels so hopeful for our future.

If you want to Learn more about Alain and his Certified Organic & Cruelty-free Personal Care Products visit https://greenbeaver.com.  Looking to try Alain’s revolutionary antiperspirant or toothpaste that uses the benefits of science? You can find both in retailers across Canada. You can follow along with Alain on his mission to inspire a natural way of life in a more sustainable world on Facebook  or Instagram

Links from this episode

• Allegations Banana Boat sunscreen causes burns continue to pour in to Health Canada
• Hawai‘i Senate Bill Bans Harmful Sunscreen Chemicals
• Lavender Products Associated With Premature Thelarche and Prepubertal Gynecomastia: Case Reports and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemical Activities

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Myers Chua: If you’re a user of antiperspirants take a look and see if yours has a warning label. If you bought it at the drug store, chances are it has one. With a warning about kidney disease. We’ll go into why that’s there in a bit, we’ll also go into antiperspirants and aluminum. This is something you might’ve heard of. And there has been studies showing aluminum in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s. It’s been linked to cancer, and it’s a reason that a lot of people have switched their deodorants. Natural deodorants are kind of the gateway into natural personal care.

And a lot of us know there may be things in our household products that we rather avoid. But natural products do not always work like we expect them to. And Alain and his team at The Green Beaver Company have been formulating products backed by a tremendous amount of scientific research. So while natural products are often unregulated, The Green Beaver Company is backed by science, certified with ECOCERT and working closely with health Canada to create new and truly innovative products that work as good as conventional without causing harm.

And over the last 20 years, Alain has seen a dramatic shift in consumer behavior. People are asking questions. They are looking for natural alternatives and Alain has been a huge part of this shift. He’s incredibly influential. Many of green Beaver’s products were first to market in their category, and ever advocates, the green beaver company has been fighting for transparency and regulation in the industry and strives to use the cleanest ingredients sourced locally.

Alain lives in Hawkesbury, Ontario near the Quebec, Ontario border. And its where nearly 20 years ago that he started the green beaver company with his wife karen. Before green beaver, Alain was a microbiologist. Karen was a biochemist working in pesticides. Alain had gotten into microbiology because of the science of food. Making cheese, beer, that kind of stuff. And afterwards he took this education into pharmaceuticals, working with antibiotics. He was spending his days in hospitals, meeting with doctors and pharmacists telling him about new antibiotic products, how they worked, what the effectiveness was. And Karen was also a medical liaison working with the latest studies presenting data to healthcare professionals. And after a while, things began to change because they began to change. They both felt compelled to do something else.

See, they had begun to talk about starting a family, trying to decide if they were ready, if it was the right time, trying to figure out where they could put a nursery. But once Karen really started considering having a child, she began to look into the chemicals they were using in their home because she was picturing her child crawling across a floor washed with conventional cleaners and putting their baby hands in their mouth. Was she okay with that? With what she knew about chemicals? So Alain and Karen began to take a hard look at everything within their home cleaning products, personal care. And it was overwhelming.

Alain Ménard : Everything is like artificial fragrance and chemical, this for washing clothes, dish washing soap. You name it, then you start getting into, well, what exactly is in my shampoo or my antiperspirant, then it gets to be like, Yeah, we were going a little bit bonkers with this, and of course. with both of our science background, I mean, and with a bit of more research. We kind of figured out what all these products had in him and this, and then you start thinking, this is our nest we live here, we breathe here, we eat here, you’re, you’re breathing the air. You’re like, how Can it be every week importing chemicals from the outside to bring in to the inside and to spray it where I’m going to breathe, eat, sleep, then it’s like, yeah, why do we do that? How did we get here? How did society did we get to do that? How did we get to like, figure out, we can, it increased our yield of a crop by 30% by putting chemicals on it. The insecticides. Yeah. There’ll be some left. We’ll be eating a little, bit of it, but it’s not the end of the world. We’ll get, be getting 30% more yield. Oh my God. And I feel like, If you look back 19 years ago when it was when we first introduced our product, the world has changed. There’s a lot more knowledge about everything that’s going on about, pollution and climate change and everything.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Karen was really grappling with her identity as a biochemist. She was working in pesticides during the day. And then purging her home of chemicals on nights and weekends. It was like leading a double life and it was beginning to eat at her, so much so, she couldn’t do it anymore and she quit.

And by that time already, a portion of the kitchen counter was covered in mixers and beakers and equipment. And the two began to dabble in making products as a hobby. Something for Karen to focus on now that she was unemployed. An avid cook. She loved it. Cause making face cream is similar to making mayonnaise, Alain points out, they are both emulsions. And back in those days, there were not very many natural products available. The health food stores had a small selection, but natural products were much more difficult to find. So Alain began to experiment too thinking he’d use his expertise to help formulate products on evenings and weekends. And see where this leads to, but he had no plans on quitting his job.

Alain Ménard : And by that time, oh boy, I was changed. It was there wasn’t any more chemicals in the house and making it a lot of our own stuff and went organic. And as much as we could, it’s be honest, it’s because in those days it wasn’t as much available as today. And yeah, we got into gardening. I remember that had our first garden around that time.

Jennifer Myers Chua: But soon afterwards, Alain got a call. That changed everything.

Alain Ménard : So then I got a call from my sister. My oldest nephew, Miguel was three years old and the twin boys a year and a half. So three boys under the age of. Equates to very busy, tired. And anyway, she was very upset. Then she sadly announced to me that she had just been diagnosed with very advanced breast cancer. And this is at 32 years old, i mean come on. And I remember having discussions with Karen. Yeah. All these chemicals it starts, from within our house, which we have control of. We’re self polluting ourselves. People think of pollution. They think of going outside, smelling smog and things like that. But what about your own pollution that you create in the house with all these like air fresheners and things like that? Because with my sister, we did find out it wasn’t hereditary.. So basically something clicked, something got cells growing and it’s like, Well, I don’t believe it’s like maybe one ingredient that’s probably being exposed to multiple chemicals. Some of it, you breathe through the air, some of it you’re eating, whatever pesticide residue or, or worse, it’s like, all this artificial flavoring. Can we have real food anymore? That was our synthetic chemicals. Like everything else in these chemicals, something always comes out later, and then it’s what you read and we don’t have all the same genetics and it will affect us more than others and at different concentrations and things like that.

Roughly a week after that I decided to quit. And by that time we had some products formulated we were using and I said, let’s see. You know what, let’s come out with these products and we’ll use those as a means to educate people that there are alternatives that is healthier for you, your family. And and at that time we didn’t think about the environment as much. It was mostly just for the people’s health. So really green beaver was not born with a business plan. Actually. I only wrote a business plan 15 years after we launched our first products, it was really born on a mission. We actually said, okay, let’s make these products, we’ll sell this products. You got to make enough to make a living because we only had so much savings and we had quit our pretty good jobs and all that stuff. So, as long as we can do that, we’ll use the products as a means to communicate our mission to help people live more natural, healthier lives. And later on, we added and in a sustainable world.

Jennifer Myers Chua: You had this background in science, you had this family, you were starting, and you had this complicated diagnosis with your sister. And now you had this idea for a product basically for a brand. How did you move this forward into creating an actual business?

Alain Ménard : There was a reason and definitely, but still, it was pretty bold starting out a family, good careers, I mean, wow. What were we thinking? I guess we truly believed it obviously. We were going to a health food store, went on, the internet started looking at it. They sell natural products. So maybe if we came out with some products and we had bought some natural, natural, personal care from there. We’re coming mostly from the states. No, it wasn’t that many there, but mostly from the states, Canadians were not even heard of.

And we said, Okay, well maybe we can start making our products and then we can go and deliver them to the stores and then they could sell their products for us. Most of the products are already there and there were a few, but were mostly coming from the state. And then well basically, you empty your basement, then you put up some shelves. Right. And we were lucky because I did have a, the help of my parents. My dad would come and help me label the order and sticks and things like that, watching hockey game or during the day with me in a basement with a wood stove going in that day and, whatever. And Coco came around and our son Joshua and yeah, so my mom would help out with with cocoa because Karen was busy, also working. Our first orders, I mean, it was just like one carton box, it would maybe five, six product inner boxes and that was it little by little. And then consumer shows, we did so many consumer shows.

I’ll never forget. The first one I told Karen, we had a van and I said, okay, we loaded up the van. I mean, there wasn’t a square inch left in that van. I said, we have to bring lots of products because this is going to be a hit. If I could have hooked up a trailer to the van, I would have hooked it up. And I would have filled that one too. There was a Toronto woman’s show. I said, Karen, they said, there’s going to be 30 000 women. We’re going to tell him we have a deodorant without aluminum, I mean, they’re going to line up and all natural and toothpaste with real flavors for their kids? I said, Karen, it’s going to be crazy. It was a tree day show. Would I started Friday afternoon type thing. And I said I don’t think we’ll have enough stuff to last till Saturday. End of day, Saturday. But that’s all we could bring. I’m like, oh, what a disaster? So I’m there. And I have my new products and I’m thinking, man, they’re going to jump all over this. And all I saw is I saw a bunch of deers all weekend, like a deer when it looks into headlights. And when I was telling him they would just look at me and I could tell, like, they’re not getting it. They don’t get it. So that was a long trade show. Hardly sold anything.

And all the other, like booths were like major, like big cosmetic companies. And we had a little wood table and. I kind of like very disappointed. And then I was thinking and thinking I couldn’t stop, and I figure it out. And I said, I remember saying to Karen, you know what? I think I know why. You know when we say this is toothpaste with natural flavors and they look at you like what? So like why, I said, Karen, this is what’s going on in the world. Artificial flavors have become the norm. Natural flavors, almost a weird thing. Cause they’re so used to the artificial. I said, I don’t know how we got here. I guess these big companies with all their marketing and whatever. Right. They pushed it at us. We, they liked it and they can’t get off it. You know what I mean? They’ll almost think of natural is like, is like weird. And is it safe? So I said, we’re going to have to start way back a couple steps back in the education process because who, I didn’t think it was that far back.

Jennifer Myers Chua: In the beginning, the company was really founded on helping people make healthier decisions for their health and then sustainability and all that piece came later. I was wondering, do you have a moment that really stands out in your mind when sustainability became important to you?

Alain Ménard : triclosan. That got me really thinking. It’s a chemical antibacterial agent and it’s found like, antibacterial soaps, it was even in toothpaste. And then a study, started coming out, showing that the triclosan, they could find it in the sewage. Right. And then they could find it. In the Ottawa river and lake Ontario, Pacific ocean, near Vancouver. Why? Well, first of all, it’s very persistent. It’s not doesn’t biodegrade. Very easily. Right? So they could see that, Hey, this stuff is like everywhere. And the study came out and then a few after came out that validated that first study that showed that it was actually like having an effect on the aquatic animals, so it was killing frogs and all kinds of nasty stuff. Cause they could find triclosan in them and things like that. So then you start thinking and not many people think about it. I didn’t before that, I don’t think so. If you were to just think . Tomorrow, Montreal Toronto, Vancouver, all the big, big cities across Canada, right? How many litres of shampoos and shower gels and conditioners and laundry detergent, dish washing detergent, that’s going to go through the system and then end up in our river rivers and lakes. Day after day. It’s horrible. And then the worst thing is it makes me think of like, when they use pesticides on food that we eat, you throw it out in the water and then, you know What? You bring it back in to drink. You’re polluting your water source.

Does that you bring aliens here? I think are aliens, yeah. Well maybe I’m superior intelligence than us. They would look at us and say, those are the most stupidest animals I’ve ever seen. They’re contaminating their food source and their water source. An, the land that they need to grow the food source. Like they’re really not too intelligent. Think about it. What I exactly just cause we always did it that way. And so far it doesn’t mean we can change,

so triclosan. Yeah, that was the first one. FDA actually, banned it in the states. There’s no more triclosan in products in the states. If you come to Canada, health, Canada reduced the amount that is allowed in products, but they didn’t actually ban it. So that was horrible.

Jennifer Myers Chua: You commented earlier that this is becoming more top of mind for a lot of people. I’m curious how you did that because you a pioneer in this space, you really are. I mean, I was using your shampoo in 2006 or something like this. You are a person that really significantly impacted how Canadians feel about these products. I would love to know what you did to really create change here. Like I’m assuming your background in science maybe gave you a unique advantage in communication, but how did you break through to meeting consumers where there only beginning to understand that natural is important?

Alain Ménard : We were doing mostly like grassroots stuff. Right. So our impact would have been kind of limited, but with other companies getting on board there are groups like the environmental defense, and bunch of scientists there that really started going after the chemicals and showing everybody to prove, it’s when the scientists got more together, it used to be, the scientists would be like on the other side, proving that the chemicals were safe, those are the people that have the knowledge they can see through it. And then there started to be a shift. So some of those minds went into places like environmental defense or whatnot, and started working for the good side, the natural side. I see it as a good site, and I think that was probably where it started. Started getting a little bit traction and these were credible people. Talking about real studies, real results, real research. And then I hate to say it, but I think that this whole, like climate change actually accelerated it because by showing people that, our CO2 emissions can actually affect the weather, I remember way at the beginning, a lot of people are skeptical about all of that. Even there were scientists saying they were saying, no, it’s not true. It took a long time, cause the onus usually it’s always in science, it’s always a, the proof that it’s not rather than prove that it does, it’s a safer way of doing it, I guess, but it takes more time. You know what also, now that I think back over the years, it’s when you had like all of a sudden, a product recall, it’s like all of a sudden you have the agencies they’re batting triclosan, not to be used ever on the American soil, because they realized that all this stuff in these soaps and things like that is damaging to the environment. If health Canada ban some ingredient ingredients as well. Before the companies would say, well, no, it is safe. This chemical is safe because it’s approved by health Canada. They approved it on whatever data they had at that time. Who presented the data who prepared the data, a little bit of a conflict of interest there. Yeah.

And then you had things like, finally it was proven that the baby powder containing Talc cause cancers, ovarian cancers, and that company’s being sued for it right now, proven in court that they were guilty, that they had some knowledge of it. That’s horrible. It was just like recently, two weeks ago, all of a sudden you have this major, big brand company that recalling all of their sunscreen because they, they figured out that it contains benzene, which is cancer causing. And this is happening as we speak right now, these products are being pulled off the shelves. And it’s all of this stuff coming out.

And then people say, well, wait a minute, you say it’s safe, your research has shown that it’s safe. Yeah. But you should see the protocols, it’s like pesticides, they have to be tested obviously, when, when they’re tested, they’re tested and they don’t go out and test it and plots outside when it’s like super windy, it’s very, very calm. And the farmers are supposed to only apply like pesticide when it’s not windy, but you know, when you only have so many days to spread and you have so many acres, you’re in a hurry.

I remember once jogging. I could Tastes like something metal and like metal in your mouth. And I looked over and they were spraying and it was getting the wind. I was breathing in all of the the pesticides, was like, my God, they don’t, they’re not being used like you’re supposed to be used for whatever reason, not accusing people, but it’s just the way it is.

Jennifer Myers Chua: I’d love to talk to you a little bit more about these recalls because on hipmommies Instagram, for example, we share information with our followers, a lot about these recalls, and there’s been a lot of conversation about the sunscreen recall, and I’ve heard so many different opinions about this, but we always advocate for these natural mineral based sunscreens regardless. So I was wondering since your sunscreen is one of the best sellers in Canada, especially for children and it is mineral based. Can you explain a little bit more about what that means and the safety around sunscreen in terms of health and environment?

Alain Ménard : Conventional sunscreen, the ones made with the chemicals have been having a hard time. If you look back in the last four or five years right now, starting with studies coming out that showed that the active ingredients in sunscreen actually do cross the skin. That’s the active chemicals, right? And these are simple studies and they’ve been done and redone and redone. It’s proven every time, after a single use of these chemical sunscreens, studies have shown that they found them in urine and blood and breast milk. They get right through your, your skin and get right into your system and it just goes everywhere. Again, there were saying, Yeah yeah but it’s a such a small amount that safe that, and I hate that answer.

So, they were getting a bad rap because they were scared, but they use their PR to convince the people, reassure people that, but it’s okay. It’s still safe. And then a couple years ago there was a big recall. And one of the big brands, kid’s skins were all like burning and nothing to do with the active ingredient on that one. Because of artificial fragrance. They had started using a new artificial fragrance and it just burned kids skin and you can still find that information on CBC actually.

And then two years ago, this was a shocker. I knew I’ve seen studies that but it was, I had a hard time believing it, but more research was done and actually it was proven, they were finding out small, small amount of chemical sunscreen on people. When they go swimming in the coral reef, where people were going to swim, the coral reefs were dying and they made their link. They found the chemical from the sunscreen, very small amount, but in the coral. They did studies and they showed that yeah, it could kill it. So actually Hawaii, the state of Hawaii, who depend a lot on tourism and they like to have their coral cause that attracts people too, have banned the use of chemical sunscreen. They only allow the use of mineral sunscreen. Isn’t that unbelievable to say that they’ve banned it, and well, two weeks ago the benzene issue it’s like, okay, enough is enough. People, there are great natural mineral sunscreens out there, safe for you, effective. They go through the same testing as they do for the efficacy as the chemical ones, and it’s all submitted to health Canada. They have to review it. Isn’t there enough bad stuff known about chemical sunscreen?

Jennifer Myers Chua: If you haven’t made that switch yet, if you haven’t tried mineral sunscreen, what exactly is the difference?

Alain Ménard : It’s the active ingredients. So, basically instead of using the avobenzone and all those type of chemicals that, that act as an active ingredient in the sunscreen, you’re basically using a mineral powder. So it’s basically a zinc oxide or titanium dioxide. It’s also an active ingredient, but it’s also for us blocking the rays, but it’s also a counter irritant that takes away a skin rash. So basically the way that these minerals work is basically they block it. The rays just bounce off them. It’s pretty simple.

Jennifer Myers Chua: So in your time making sunscreen, for example, you’ve noticed all of these issues with conventional sunscreens and some of the chemicals that are getting through testing and making it onto store shelves. When did you realize that conventional baby care products may be less than ideal? What’s going on in conventional baby products that we need to be aware of?

Alain Ménard : If you look at baby products and baby shampoo or an adult shampoo, I mean, they’re all made at the same components. You need a surfactant, which is a soap component. You need texturizer, so it doesn’t come out so liquidity that comes out of the bottle too quick. You need a preservative. There is a pediatrician in the states that did a really simple study just to prove one thing. She knew that, for example, the lavender go to bed, baby lotion or whatever, soothing and everything, but you know what, the majority of the conventional products that say it’s lavender do not contain lavender. Right? I don’t know why they’re allowed to say lavender. It should say lavender scent. And she knew that. So basically all these products contain artificial fragrances, and she knew that an artificial fragrance is not one ingredient. On average, it’s 14 different chemicals put together. And because it’s propriety information companies do not have to reveal what is in that fragrance. That just that fact scares me cause that’s carte blanche to put whatever you want. You just have to basically sign an affidavit that it’s safe for the government. But I think that’s not enough personally. But one of the chemicals that the, that the majority of these artificial fragrance contain is called phthalates. It’s kind of a funny word. It’s even harder to pronounce. They actually prolong this duration of a scent, intensifies it and prolong.

I saw an ad on TV, not too long ago. Where there one of these air fresheners, it’s like, eh, it’s good for like seven daysand I thought. Oh my God, you’re going to put that in their house. And it’s going to stick around for seven days. So anyways, that’s what these phthalates do. And so like, for example, if you were to put a lavender essential oil on your t-shirt and a lavender artificial fragrance with phthalates in it and another t-shirt put them away and your laundry room, whatever, for a week, you bring both out. I can guarantee you the lavender t-shirt won’t smell like lavender anymore, there are lavender artificial fragrance, still will. Those are the phthalates at work. There’s many different types of phthalates it’s a class of chemicals and this pediatrician knew that phthalates were suspected endocrine disruptors.

Some of it we’ll call them Zino estrogen or whatever. What it is is that basically it’s a chemical that gets into your system. When people say what mean, I just putting out, I’m just putting this stuff on my skin. I’m not eating it. And I know a lot of the chemicals, not all, but a lot of the chemicals in these products actually get through your skin and they don’t just sit there underneath your skin forever. No, they get picked up in your blood system. And then here we go. Yeah. let’s go for a ride. We’ll go through this organ we’ll go through this organ. We’ll go to the brain. We’ll go through the liver. The liver that’s when a lot of times it’s it, it gets broken down. And unfortunately some of these chemicals they’re kind of shaped, like some of our hormones, there is like a key and they fit only in certain area. On receptors cell receptors So you have a chemical that resembles a hormone that you have, and it creates a hormonal imbalance. So all of a sudden, there’s too many of these hormones clicking all of these receptors at the same time. And that’s when it can cause serious illness, leading up to cancer.

Hormones are very, very powerful, small amount difference can change a body like you wouldn’t believe. Right? So they’re called Zino estrogen. And so she was concerned. She was concerned that she knew that parents would the, wash your baby every day with these artificial fragrance to put some lotions on. And she was concerned. So it was really pretty simple study. When you think about it, she collected urine from 268 babies across the country in the states because she wanted regional representation and all that stuff. So you take the urine and you just send it out to an analytical lab and you, you just see phthalates and then the baby’s urine. And babies don’t forget they are growing hormones, you have growing organs, even more susceptible to a hormonal imbalance. And unfortunately what they found was that a hundred percent of the babies tested, had phthalates in their urine. Hundred percent. I mean, that’s horrible. We’re poisoning our children.

And then you’re wondering, little Johnny can’t concentrate. Yeah. I know, but he’s indirectly being drugged with all these chemical hormones and the parents don’t even know they’re doing it. Can’t concentrate. Oh. And then yeah, of course. Okay. Well, let’s, let’s give him some pills, and there’s no end to it. I’m not advocating that people should, just stay away from medication. We have an illness, it’s an illness. It’s different, but what led to the illness? That’s the problem with modern medicine today. We’re, it’s very good at bandaging things. You have a, this disease here, you have this symptom, okay. Here’s a medication to take care of that symptom. Well maybe why do I have that symptom?

Jennifer Myers Chua: Something else that you’ve really revolutionized really, is both toothpaste and anti per sprint. And I know you’ve won some awards and you’ve gotten a lot of Canadian press about your antiperspirant, your toothpaste, but why did you choose antiperspirant and toothpaste and what makes yours so revolutionary?

Alain Ménard : They don’t need preservatives, the water activity meaning the amount of water it’s available for microorganisms to grow in that type of product is very low. and there’s humectants in there. So they basically, they take the water and they don’t give it away. Nowadays we have all kinds of natural preservatives that we can use it. You can eat. Back then it was. It was tough finding them, it was a big challenge.

I also, at the same time toothpaste, we though well, you know what? Maybe people will get it more cause it putting it in their mouth. Most people now know that your skin can absorb stuff, yeah. Probably still some awareness to be done there, but back then, no people didn’t even think about it. So I said, well, okay. And the deodorant, well, I always had a big hunch and it’s been proven now, it’s the aluminum in those antiperspirants. for years the companies always said, oh no, It’s a, it’s safe. It doesn’t cross your skin. They always said it. They said it just gets in your sweat pores and creates a plug in. Eventually it plug falls out when it plugs, it plugs your sweat pores while sweat can come out of it. And people have to understand, it’s not just like aluminum, pure aluminum that they dig up from the earth. No, no. It’s chemically treated aluminum. Aluminum chlorohydrate. Aluminum zirconium. It’s not as if like those exist in nature. No, it’s manmade, partly what it partly natural element.

I laughed yesterday. I saw a company come up with a, an antiperspirant, but aluminum, but they said, Yeah but it’s made with recycled aluminum. It’s like, Okay. But what about the people’s health that doesn’t, that doesn’t change anything, and studies have shown that that’s a, those chemically treated aluminums were potential endocrine disruptor or cancer causing if you want. And studies have shown that there were, they did find some of this aluminum in the breast tissue that was metastasized cancer or tumor. And it’s like, Okay. there is a smoking gun, but the industry still said, no, no, it’s impossible. It must be coming from somewhere else because you can’t get true. Further studies had been done by using isotope and they added an isotope to the aluminum, so they could actually trace it. Yeah. They take a blood sample, they find the aluminum they’ll know it’s the aluminum that actually came from there. So first study showed that the, yes, the, it does cross the skin. It’s pretty complex a study to do. It sounds simple, but it’s not. And then the, even that tested on people that have just shaved. They call it damaged skin. If you apply it right after a damaged skin, you get six fold, more absorption of aluminum from the aluminum stick.

And people maybe don’t know this too, but a typical antiperspirant contains anywhere between 15 up to a 25% pure refined aluminum adds a lot. That’s a lot. So when those studies came out and now you’re seeing it on shelves in Canada now, the companies were a little bit scared because they’d been going on saying it’s safe. It doesn’t get through your skin. So the first thing they did or the FDA forced them to do it is add a new warning to there, to the antiperspirant, stick to the label. And it’s in the back of the label. I would encourage people to read it and Canada’s not mandatory, in the states it is, but most companies in Canada will actually add the warning. Cause most of them are American companies anyhow. And they don’t want to get sued. So it says if, if you have kidney disease to ask you your doctor before using this product, why renal disease can they disease? Because this aluminum is getting to your skin and getting into your body, it is circulating everywhere, and if you have renal disease, you need your kidneys to get rid of the aluminum. It gets filtered out of your blood so that you can get it out of your body.

But people with kidney disease, they can’t get rid of the aluminum fast. They can get a toxic level of aluminum and have serious damage. And, studies have shown you take care of the aluminum and antiperspirants you’ll think about the breast cancer. You’ll think about the Alzheimer’s. Cause there was a study shown that, they scan the people’s brain that had Alzheimer’s versus people who didn’t have that same age group. And there was a significant difference of of aluminum in people with Alzheimer’s brain. So it does cross the blood-brain barrier. Right. So how long will this be allowed to continue? I hope not for long. And they started adding those types of warning. It’s like an admission, right? So it’s just a question of time. I think the smoking gun is there for the breast cancer link. It’s just a question of time.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Natural deodorants have had a bad rap that they don’t work. What did you do? What is the difference with yours? Why does yours work?

Alain Ménard : There’s deodorants and then there’s antiperspirants right. So we’ve had deodorants for all for 19 years, right? And we introduced them to aluminum free, antiperspirant a couple of years ago. And I’ll come back to that one. But first we, we looked at the smell. Why people wear deodorant? Is for the smell. Deodorant will not stop you from sweating. Only aluminum based antiperspirant could do that because the aluminum goes into the plug, the sweat pores, and creates this metal plug.

And we thought, wow. Okay. Cause when you look at the composition of sweat, now people say I’m sweating. I stink. Yeah. But the sweat doesn’t smell. It’s almost odorless. Of course it’s mostly water, but you do have some stuff coming out, depending on what you ate, whatever, but what causes this smell? Actually, your arm it’s armpits are full of bacteria, molds and yeast.

It’s quite disgusting actually. And then, so what happens is that when you sweat, you’re feeding them, that’s their food. They love moist areas. So then when they get that moisture and they get some nutrients, they start multiplying. And when they multiply, they create byproducts and that’s what smells. There’s some very specific bacteria. One of them is called CNO bacteria, something, I forgot the name, but it’s actually using to make cheese in one of those stinky cheese. So next time you smell it, thinky cheese you’ll see it smells a little bit like armpits. I, sorry, I don’t want to ruin, everybody said love for cheese there, but just by the way.

We focus mostly on the antibacterial part of the deodorant because we knew if we could put in there enough antibacterial agents, natural, of course, the less bacteria you have or microorganism the, less byproducts you’re going to produce when you’re feeding it water. Basically that’s the whole concept. So we really focused very hard on that and that was my specialty. So it was just a given, it was Okay. Let me play with some antibacterial stuff.

I think it’s important to sweat personally. I do. I think get some people say, oh, well you get, that’s how you get rid of a lot of toxins. No, you get rid of a little bit of toxins. Yes. But the majority of your toxins, you get rid of it through your urine and feces. It’s a natural thing to do and maybe there’s other things we don’t understand, but there are times when you don’t want to sweat. I don’t know you’re at a wedding, big presentation, whatever, so that’s why people, a lot people would still continue using antiperspirant.

The deodorants had a bad rap, so quite a long time, most of them weren’t that good. To be honest with you. The old, old deodorants it’s all they used to be is this heavily perfumed so that when you put it, hopefully that perfume would be stronger than your own perfume, and then, the antibacterial people started working with more antibacterial active ingredients that greatly improved the efficacy, but then people are still sweating though. That’s the thing. So I thought about it. Well, if we could make something to replace the aluminum, but that was safe. I didn’t want to have something so small that it could get into a sweat pore. So I thought, well, what if we did like a surface block, temporary surface block for those people don’t want to sweat. So that’s when we thought of wax wax actually the idea came, we were working on the sunscreen and we use wax as a, for the natural waterproofing, right. Instead of using a silicone, that’s another bad one. That’s just triclosan, its gonna come out it’s just a question a time. We do the first test. We just do it qualitative. So you put it on your back of your hand and then I call it the faucet test. You put your hand underneath the water. If you see you look at, see if the water pearls and they do big pearls or small pearls. It gives you an indication that it’s going to work. We’re allowed to see sweat resistant on our sunscreen. So I thought Okay. It’s water resistant, but it’s also sweat resistant. So we started working with the wax, but it wasn’t working. Your skin is not smooth. It’s like in grand canyon, like full of crevices. So I used part of waxes esters. The definition of Esther means part of, so you have all these long fatty acid chains there, so you just cut and use a little piece of the wax. So they can get down into grand canyon. So it does like a film, it’s a surface film. It doesn’t get into your pores. It’s too big.

So finally we did a study head-to-head. Versus the conventional brands with aluminum. It was done in a specialized lab on people. So we actually tested it to see if it prevented the sweating. And we showed that it was just as effective. Finally, we have something just as effective for the sweating. We had something for this smell, but now we have something for the sweating and the smell, obviously. So yeah, that was a big accomplishment. That was one of our biggest one. Honestly, there it’s a, it’s a big one.

We’ve been making toothpaste for 19 years, so we weren’t allowed to say the anti-cavity on the toothpaste because it didn’t contain fluoride. I was a regulation. We figured out something, we put together, all the literature, the research, and sent it to health Canada. They finally agreed that the research that we showed that yes, 20% xylitol in a toothpaste is as effective as fluoride. It is anti-cavity, which is a big thing, especially for children’s toothpaste, because now you finally have anti-cavity children’s toothpaste that is safe to swallow. And I say that because any toothpaste on the market clearly says on the packaging or the box or the tube, whatever caution, for children of six years of age or less only put the size of a pea size amount of toothpaste and make sure they don’t swallow it. And if they do contact your poison control center, wow. What does that. What does that tell you about fluoride? Flouride is great. It’s great for Anticavity, prevent cavity for tooth enamel and things like that. But if you start ingesting it and you start getting too much, it can end up with fluorosis.

This is not proven yet, but the study by a group of Harvard researchers showed that cities that had fluoride in a water they had a higher incidence of bone cancer and cities that didn’t have fluoride in our water. So they think there’s a link they’re not proven yet, but.

Jennifer Myers Chua: You’ve been advocating for Canadians for our health, with the government with health Canada for all of these years, but you’re also committed to education and raising awareness. And you do a lot of that as well, which I love about the potential dangers of chemicals, but I was wondering how you were interacting with local producers and the natural world. Could you talk a little bit about what green beaver is doing in terms of climate initiatives or in terms of supporting local producers?

Alain Ménard : That’s part of sustainability. Some people will look at it as local economy. It’s more than that. Sustainability. For example, sunflower seed oil. Yeah. I could buy it cheaper and Ukraine, but you know what to bring all those barrels from Ukraine to here, that creates a lot of pollution. You got to try to minimize, you know, all the transport. All those boats very diesel and soforth. It’s more, more of a sustainability thing. We support organic farmers obviously, and every time you buy organic food, you’re providing a business for an organic farmer . So let’s say he has a hundred acres. Well, that’s a hundred acres that no pesticide is being spread on. That’s at a hundred acres that actually bees can actually breed and not being killed by pesticides, that’s a hundred acres that the earth is healthy. They showed it, the, the pesticide was all question of a yield, right? How much are you going to get per acre? There’s a study was done in Pennsylvania. It’s like a Amish. They don’t use pesticides and they get more bushels of corn per acre than the big producers with their pesticides and their synthetic fertilizer. Why is because the earth is healthy, there’s all kinds of microorganisms in there creating their own natural fertilizer. So every time you buy organic, you got to think that, you know what, you’re helping out. You’re helping to reduce the amount of pesticides and chemicals that’s being spread in our land. That’s leaching in our rivers contaminating, not just the earth, the water, but also the animals that live in it feed off. And who else feeds off it, not just the animals.

Jennifer Myers Chua: When you think about the children, or when you think about the Canadians of the future or the people of the future, are you hopeful?

Alain Ménard : very hopeful? optimistic, feel great about it. It feels like I didn’t just spend the last 20 years just I dunno singing out in the middle of nowhere. Nobody heard nothing. It’s happening. It’s actually happening. It took a long time. I’m telling you the first 10 years, I still, it was so slow. People weren’t getting it. But now if I looked at the last five years, oh my God, it’s unbelievable. I mean, I didn’t grow up with, we weren’t recycling in those days. Right. But then I look at the, my son. For him it’s recycling is, yeah. That’s what you do. You don’t even think about it. Eating organic for him. He’s like, yeah, of course. That’s what you do. You don’t need chemicals or that’s, this doesn’t make sense. I think that next generation, because again, I think about, the millenial parents. Compared to parents 20 years ago. My research is qualitative. But I’ve talked to many parents. It’s night and day. So their children that will be just for them, that will become the norm. So I come back to the story when I clued in that people accepted artificial flavors as the norm. Well, now they’re going to be accepting, like, of course you eat natural, real food. That’s the norm. No more of these artificial flavors. I’m just using that as an example, but yeah, very optimistic. It’s like a, wow. I, it’s so great. It’s a great feeling that, people are finally waking up. Again, like I said earlier, I think the global warming accelerated the awareness and the acceptance, although right now, if you look at everything that’s going on in the world with the impact of global warming and the pollution and things like that, I think in 20 years from now, we’re going to be in a better position than what we are today. The air is going to be cleaner and 20 years from now than it is today. I’m sure of it it’s going to happen. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes that’s what people need. They need a little bit of a shock, to believe, to change their ways. And I think we’ve got that shock. We want to change and we don’t want to feel that again. And now for our future generations, no, can leave that to them

Jennifer Myers Chua: if you want to learn more about Alain and his certified organic and cruelty-free personal care products. Visit greenbeaver.com. Looking to try the revolutionary antiperspirant or toothpaste that uses the benefit of science. You can find both in retailers, across Canada. You can follow along with Alain on his mission to inspire a natural way of life in a more sustainable world. On Facebook at thegreenbeaver or Instagram at the_green _beaver.

 

In today’s episode, we chat with Courtney Stewart from The Good Kiind. We explore why Courtney shut down her reusable silicone label business at the height of success to start a brand new company, and learn what lessons she learned from her first go at entrepreneurship. We discover why she decided to launch her new business with plastic-free, litterless lunch options, how the community supported her when an established brand launched a similar product, why you shouldn’t rush out to buy her product if you have a lunch box already, and how she’s planning to use the Good Kiind to create meaningful change.

If you want to learn more about Courtney and her endlessly reusable mealtime essentials for families on-the-go visit thegoodkiind.com. Looking for litter-proof lunch solutions for back to school? They are available to order now. You can follow along with Courtney on her mission to helping you sustainably and mindfully tackle life with littles on Facebook or Instagram.

Links from this episode

• You Can Help Keep 540 Plastic Sandwich Bags Out of the Ocean With One Swap
• Zero Waste Canada

Episode Transcript

 

Jennifer Myers Chua: It’s back-to-school season already. And in retail, this is a really big deal. In mid to late summer, millions of parents begin stocking up on school essentials, things like book bags, lunch boxes, lunch bags, pencils, and other supplies. And everything needs to be labelled with the child’s name. Which is how I came across Nomi & Sibs. A brand that sold multi-purpose silicone labels to stretch over water bottles, snack, tins, pencil cases. Colorful fun, endlessly reusable. I labelled all of our family’s things and bought more as gifts.

And they were definitely popular. Nomi & Sibs had a strong social media following. I’d see them in the school yard. And so I was incredibly surprised when the founder Courtney announced that they’d be shutting down. Sales were strong, support for women-owned and black-owned businesses had never been stronger. Why this choice?

And I couldn’t help, but think about Instagram. See late in 2019, One of the large Canadian label brands had launched their new product. This is a brand started by a mom of five and it ended up growing and being sold to a major international corporation. So this brands, personalized bottle bands, as they called them were pretty much indistinguishable from Nomi & Sibs. Side-by-side it was hard to see a difference. And The mom community also saw this and voiced this loudly in the comment section. I assumed that something was going on here with this behind the scenes. And we’ll go more into this in a bit.

Shortly after receiving my last order of the Nomi & Sibs labels, the site went down to re-emerge this summer as The Good Kiind. And I have to admit that I am even more excited about Courtney’s new venture.

The first product with The Good Kiind is the B.I.G. It’s the box and go. A stainless steel lunchbox, safe, and will last for years. It’s made from really high quality materials and it’s completely plastic free. Made so that little one can really lug it around for all of elementary. So you don’t have to buy a new box each fall. And since the average family in north America is using hundreds of single use plastic sandwich bags and plastic wrappers a year, all which head into landfill. This is an impactful switch.

I asked Courtney about that competitor. And if this was the reason for the change, but she has a positive view on the situation. Commenting on the tremendous support that she received from her customers and how much this gave her the confidence to move forward with a new idea. A brand that’s really rooted in her own ideas of living a low waste life. And for the competition. Courtney’s always been really athletic. And so she views business. Like she does athletics. She’s ready to take on the challenge.

Courtney Stewart: Yeah, I grew up playing sports all my life. And so you see a lot of athletes turn into entrepreneurs. It’s that like, go get her, gotta win sort of, attitude inside that never really leaves you when you’re done sports. So, I actually played basketball in university. A lot of people don’t know that about me. I played division one basketball in Ohio. So, and I studied business.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Courtney started her career in corporate America. She worked for really large companies and she considers this period to be vital training for what she decided to do afterwards. After starting her family, Courtney wanted to explore doing her own thing rather than working for somebody else. And she wanted to start a business that aligned with her values, but she wasn’t exactly sure what that could look like. She came across an idea for personalized labels for drinkware. The concept was to be able to use one label from baby bottle to sippy cup, to thermos, reusing that one label across multiple stages. It was the idea of creating something endlessly reusable that was so appealing. She couldn’t find anything similar available in Canada. So she set out to work, looking into materials and manufacturers.

Courtney Stewart: I’d already started myself on that journey of, products that are a little bit better, a little bit better for the environment, definitely better for us into our home. So started there and did that for a few years, but quickly realized before the three years that you know, personalized business as you scale up is very challenging. The challenges were very difficult to overcome.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Courtney began to run into quality control issues with her manufacturing partner. And she tried to take that personalization piece into house. But the laser engraving was proving to be a huge challenge and getting this into retail was proving to be a huge challenge. And then she had to rely on fulfillment centers in Canada and the us, which also wasn’t working out. Maybe this could have been overcome. Courtney was beginning to see it as a sign that it was time to try something else.

Courtney Stewart: Unfortunately we were very busy and at those times too, and being a small business I don’t think we were a huge priority for them. And There were just a lot of issues, a lot of error, a lot of quality control. And it ultimately solidified what I had already been feeling. And then we wrapped up the business, we wrapped up we’re calling it a pivot, but we wrapped up the labels of any personalized products. about six months ago in December, so, started the new year fresh and been working on The Good Kiind ever since.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Have there been any really significant events in your life that have shaped how you see the world and how you see the world this way?

Courtney Stewart: My father passed away when I was 13 and I feel like, as a dad, he was just like robbed right of so many years with his kids and his family. And I think that’s something that has stuck with me. To think, like, what could he have done? What could, what impact could he have made in those years that he, lost and it, I think it makes me as a parent really want to, leave a legacy of some kind, like, be impactful in some way. I don’t want to just live. I want to live with purpose and I want to have it like, meaning I want, when somebody, says my name or, even my kids. And they’re like, oh, her mom, recycling lady, or, that lady who like, she’s trying to inspire, people to do the right thing. Like that’s important to me. Because I, I think it makes you feel really good to, to bring out the goodness in people. And it’s something that is very selfless to do. But I think if there

was

something that I think about often, I think about, my dad and his time lost and the impact that he, could have continued making or what the things he could have gotten into that, what he was passionate about that could have, you know, helped shape the future. I feel like we’re here for a reason and it’s an unselfish reason. It’s, it’s beyond, ourselves, it’s gotta have a purpose and it’s got to impact others.

Jennifer Myers Chua: What exactly is the good kind. What are your products? And what are you all about?

Courtney Stewart: The Good Kiind from a product standpoint is an accessible line of kind of safe plastic-free high-end premium, good quality planet friendly mealtime solutions. Essentials for families. And the whole idea behind it is this is what I practice in my life is when you know, better through education and learning and listening to people you want to do better, I at least want to do better. So that’s really what I want to inspire. And hopefully through, our products and our content and how we can be out there in front of people we want to inspire people to live with purpose, choose products that are better for you, but better for the planet, better for your kids and your families. And essentially, that’s kind of like embodying the good kind you’re making The Good Kiinds of decisions, you’re being The Good Kiind of person and doing the things that like make you feel good that you do, even when nobody’s watching, all of these things tied into one, we’re still working out the messaging, but it’s a good kind of feeling, really like the things that you do that really make you feel good because, you did the right thing. It was a message. And we’re doing that. The avenue is through our product.

Jennifer Myers Chua: What was your thought path if you had this idea for maybe. More sustainable products or products that are better for your family. Why did you start with lunch?

Courtney Stewart: I think this is the athlete in me, the timing of the year when we decided to pivot and the season I really wanted to hit, this is a strategic business. Was definitely back to school. I felt like we had that audience already, that we had a back-to-school product that was important prior to previously. So I felt like it was a good fit. you know, Looking back, it was definitely very rushed. Definitely one thing I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is just like having goals and, trying to push it, push it. It’s great. But sometimes you just need to take your time with things. And so I’m definitely learning that, but that’s really why we wanted to drive this whole out of the home, on the go part of the line first. And then the goal will be to move into at-home solutions within the next probably 12 months.

Jennifer Myers Chua: With little ones at home. I’m assuming that you’ve gone through a number of lunchboxes. So what were the issues with the lunchboxes that you’ve seen already like what kind of changes are you trying to make with your new product?

Courtney Stewart: We’re not the first to come up with a similar concept, in terms of a lunchbox that’s attached where, you’ve got all the options, the way little kids, like to see it when they open up a lunchbox when they’re at school. But we did see some things that need to be changed. And so, one of the things that were pain points for parents who were using, similar style, bento boxes, some plastic, some stainless, somewhat not but hands down, number one thing that we heard complaint, was it leaking and leaking in terms of not necessarily just that like the lid, the leaking inside. So, when they would open it, the hummus would be uh, it’s already dipped for you, you know, things like that. And when it comes to your kids, God love them, but they might not want to eat that if they see soggy crackers. So I always want to set my kids up for success.

So I want to set them up so that when they open that lunch, they’re enticed to eat it. They’ve got a lot of options that are still the way they were when we pack that lunch. And so I really wanted to go off of that pain point and make something better. Like I said, we’re not the first stainless steel. We’re not the first bento box, but I feel like we’ve made some really good improvements. And in that way, with adding that silicone seal on the lid that, it does not allow anything to move around inside. So when those kids are shuffling and running to their school bus or from the school bus and whatnot, nothing’s moving. So parents can be confident that when they opened that lunch box, hopefully there’ll be excited to see what they what’s inside.

Jennifer Myers Chua: We’ve had school shutdowns here for over a year and a half. And. I only started, revisiting our lunchbox solutions for summer camp lately and was surprised to see that one of the lunchboxes that we use is a plastic lunchbox with a silicone interior. And it was noticing that the silicone was kind of coming back. And when I did some Googling. There are known issues with some of these plastic bento boxes and mold, which I found. Not only surprising. But i found it really alarming

Courtney Stewart: whenever things can get in those cracks. Right? It’s hard whether it, honestly, if it’s plastic or stainless, of course, like, I feel like stainless, you can get a better clean in there, you can put it in the dishwasher and nothing’s going to change shape. And our silicone seal, it comes off so that you can clean in there, every night, if you want or weekly, whatever. Those nooks and crannies that you can’t get to, sometimes they tend to leave mold. And, we’re talking about eliminating toxins through, better materials of like food plates and containers. And then, potentially there’s mold hidden in the crevices of those containers. I think that’s this through education. I remember one time I was I were very popular brand water bottles, stainless water bottle. They had it, it was a plastic. And unless you popped like the center of the lid out, you never would see, but inside, there was exactly where the kids are having taken a drink from. It was garbage in there. And so you really had to know to like, get that straw cleaning, stick in there and really clean because we’re, we’re giving them the great products to be using and what not, but, the toxins are there and the mold and everything, like that’s just as harmful or if not worse. So, it, it’s important to be able to have a solution that, can easily in clean those things away and access potential nooks and crannies. Very easy.

Jennifer Myers Chua: I do want to talk a little bit more about materials in your choices there, but I’d like to go further backwards into your life. Maybe before the good kind maybe before your first business but why is sustainability or why is going plastic free so important to you? Do you have a moment that stands out where you had this shift and when you decided you wanted to make change in this way?

Courtney Stewart: I think it was definitely over time. It had been, a journey that I would go in, come out of. But after having kids and just, shifting my mind in general to, know better and, and do better and everything, I, when, you know, when you have kids, it’s just about, they’re looking up to you, I’m responsible for this human, right. And I want to put out the best human I can. And so I want to embody and be a really good example for my kids. And, what better way to do that? Then, in the kitchen, doing the right thing for, for our home and for, our health and nutrition, but also for beyond that, unselfishly for the planet and for the world.

And so, choosing reusable products limiting containers and packaging and things like that, it all just over time, and I definitely in the last six years has become so important to me. And I hope to have made some change, even in my community. I’m like a big advocate for recycling. So I’m always encouraging. We have like little recycling competitions if you can only put out one black garbage bag, A week and like fill your recycling bins because it’s the way it should be really. And so, we’ve got people and got friends involved in our like gold box competitions with recycling and things like that. It’s something that it matters to me. And I can truly tell you that if I see somebody put like a plastic water bottle, which I don’t know why people use those anyway, but a single use water bottle in the garbage, it literally, I cringe. Like there’s something, it bothers me so much. And I think that’s just the person I become, I’m thinking about our footprint, what we’re doing, and what’s going to affect our kids and my grandkids when I’m not here. So I’ve got to, I’ve got to do something now. And I feel like this is what I can do now to help that. So, and hopefully encourage others around me to do the same.

I have not bought Ziploc bags in years. It was a goal of mine, I think by the end of 2019 to have like a plastic free kitchen. So we don’t have any plastic cups or plastic dishware, you know, all that trendy, the colorful stuff, the kids always want to go get it. But we’ve really moved away and obviously it’s caused me a lot of glass dishes over the years and cups. But hopefully our line we’ll fill that in soon, but yeah, I have a plastic free kitchen, so everything everything that our food touches is either stainless or glass. So something I’m very proud of. It’s hard to do though. It’s hard and you got to work it out. But I’ve made sure when people come to my house with like a plastic container with food, I just send them back home. Like I can’t have plastic in my house.

Jennifer Myers Chua: You were working on closing your first business. What’s the story of coming up with the idea for this new business and how did you move this forward into something like create an actual product?

Courtney Stewart: I actually had always, when we thought about line extensions and what’s next with Nomi & Sibs my previous business, the labels, we thought, okay, we have the option to go into this personalization route or, we have a sustainable label. Maybe we can go on the sustainable products route. So this is always been in, circling in the back of my head. I think I was so deep and swallowed in the production of the labels and the complexity of the production of the product that I didn’t have the time to really think it through and to come up with a really good plan. When your back’s against the wall and things are really going badly, you’re forced to do that very quickly. But so I think the sustainable products was always in my, in the wheelhouse where it was working, but I wanted to add that personalization at that personalized touch to it. That was going to be our kind of point of differentiation. And then I we found other ways to do that because I knew personalization was not the avenue I wanted to go in anymore. So, it was something that I had been thinking about.

I felt like the changes we wanted to make to current products that were out there were enough. And I think hit the pain points that that customers were experiencing. It was something I was looking for. And so it felt really natural. I think my audience I think we had a mix of, modern moms wanting different types of products, but we also had moms who were a little bit more cautious about their spend and conscious and in terms of sustainable and reusable products. So. There was a good fit for our current audience. So it pivoted an idea that had already existed. But I felt like we needed a, more of a change. I wanted to change the name. I wanted to do some other things too. And change the, really the whole mission behind the brand and make it more of like a mission driven brand. And, and that’s the goal?

Jennifer Myers Chua: In terms of retail too. I think if anyone is listening to this with the idea of starting a brand, that’s based on personalization. That’s really difficult. If you want to then sell in retail stores, like you can think of those key chains at any tourist shop with names on it. My name is very easy to find. But anyone with a more unique name? He doesn’t have that option. And a retailer is not going to want to purchase something with a name that is maybe. Sold once every two years like it’s just not good business so personalization in terms of retail can be really really challenging

Courtney Stewart: It’s very hard, and we tried to go down that that avenue so many hours and months, like, planning some kind of retail strategy with hopes to get them as a, DTC compete customer in the end, but a lot of complexities and ordering and getting names and all that stuff at the retail level.

It, it was just at the end of the day, it was a business that presented a lot of challenges throughout the entire process. If somebody came to me and said, I’ve had people ask actually very disappointed that we stopped with the labels and say to me, I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Don’t worry. That’s amazing. But at the same time I’m thinking and myself, you just have no idea. And I think also too, because that wasn’t an area where I was an expert in and being a mom of two little kids and in the situation I’m in with you, my husband, and he’s got very long hours of work.

He puts in every single day, not having much help there. I didn’t have the time to be going and learning new skillsets. I knew I already brought skillsets that I could contribute to a business and, learning those other things about printers and graphics and all that stuff. It wasn’t right for me at the time. I felt very strongly about stopping, but if you’re a creator and you could see yourself on Etsy, and if that’s what you’re passionate about, I would not say don’t do it. I would just say, think it through in terms of scaling and what you want long term because it’s challenging personalization definitely is challenging.

Jennifer Myers Chua: I’ve been following your business for years, your first business. And another thing that you ran into that I’m assuming was a huge challenge. And I have seen this so many times with other small businesses. Is that at some point a larger Canadian company put out a product that was remarkably similar to yours. Like almost indistinguishable. And. I know that must’ve been a big challenge. And it’s something that small business owners face a lot. I was wondering if you were willing to comment on that situation. And did it have any impact on the decision to pivot into a new business?

Courtney Stewart: It definitely did not have an impact to pivot. I think if anything I felt like we got a lot of really great support from customers. Like people who hadn’t even bought the product, our product before just wanting to support. Cause they were, it was relatable in terms of, a mother just trying to, start something new or, make a living sort of thing. And so I felt people felt They want to support that about good for them to do so. So I think if anything, it fueled it helped us. It definitely, for me that owner at that business, she was a mom she’s led a lot of kids. And I know in the early days of that business, it was a hard struggle and, to see that being done it rubbed me the wrong way as an entrepreneur. And as in the position I was in, but at the same time, that’s business, it’s, it sucks. And I was mad. I was angry. And I think you maybe could have done something differently, but I think that in, in hindsight it’s business and I don’t think it’s a big part of their business. I might be wrong, but I don’t think so. But. Those are the things that you’re going to have to face, and I’ll have to face this with this product as well. Cause there are other international brands or us based brands that are doing similar things. I hope that I’m doing it a little bit differently.

Our message and our mission and the community we want to create is a little bit more unique. And so that will help us stand out. But, there are bigger brands with bigger, deeper pockets that can come in and, they can make their way. So those are the things that we’re always going to have to deal with. If anything, I think that situation prepared me for probably what’s to come and they will never stop coming. But as an entrepreneur, it didn’t make me want to give up. It made me want to show that we can move past this and you can get past this. So any, aspiring entrepreneur, anybody who’s been presented with challenges of people within a region or a community or something, doing something similar, find a way to be different and continue setting yourself apart as a business. And, you can get through it.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Another thing that surprised me about that situation was that generally in terms of the Canadian entrepreneur community, specifically the woman entrepreneurs. They’re very supportive and very mindful. Of collaboration. I remember that with Nomi and sieves, you did a partnership with Nicks and some Canadian influencers. And I’m wondering how that came to be and is there anything that you learned from that experience that’s going to help you building your new business?

Courtney Stewart: Absolutely. So, yes, that was a collaboration with Knix and the Bird’s papaya. And Tisch jewelry was also part of it. Actually, Sarah, we in the atilier gift bag and she was a speaker, so she received our product. And then she did a unsolicited, shout out thanking us for that gift. Cause they were personalized. They had her children’s names on the labels and whatnot. And so she did that and we saw a huge lift that was wonderful. And then organically, we would keep in touch, I would engage with her and since social media and, Like she was really making a place in the last year. When things were happening with the black lives matter movement, and if you follow Sarah Landry, I feel like she’s a, when I know better, I want to do better kind of person she’s, she’s trying, sometimes too much to be something for everybody, but she’s very inclusive. I feel like her heart is there. You see her growth over the last couple of years, so it happened organically with us kind of chatting during those times. And then when I got the email from Knix it was at a time where, it was a low point in terms of, what was I going to do? We are having so many issues with production and everything. And so, Maintain your relationships as much as you can. I know it’s difficult, but networking is very important. And even maintaining connections and contact, you never know how those things are gonna, help you and uplift you in your business and in life, in the future. And so I think that’s a huge learning. I think going through the collaboration process was really great too. Working back and in, in communication with that corporate environment that I had been out of for so long and seeing how that works and I think it’s totally changed as well. But it was a great experience.

I hadn’t totally made the decision that at the end of that year, we’re gonna be wrapping up the labels. But I feel like looking back, it was a really nice exit from that, from that business. We wrapped up a couple months later and it was a great send off. We had our best year in terms of sales and, so our exposure was up there. We got shout outs from other top influencers. It was a gift, a little gift send off of Nomi and sibs.

Jennifer Myers Chua: So when you went to develop your new product line, can you talk to me a little bit about finding a manufacturer or what kind of materials you chose? I’d love to explore how you made those decisions.

Courtney Stewart: In looking at developing these products for the past, year and a half we had already been in conversations with partner manufacturers that we’ve worked with at the labels who are using premium, either FDA approved or the LFG B approved tested materials as far as our silicone products are concerned. And so they had connections with with other manufacturer on the stainless side that kind of helped linked, linked us together, and they were able to even work together. And so that was definitely beneficial because going through that manufacturing hunt surgery per manufacturer is very difficult because. The way that, they may come off and they may perceive to be can be very different from, what is actually going on. And it was a hard time to do this because we couldn’t go over there and we do manufacture in China. So we can’t go over there. We can’t travel. So we really put our trust in our silicone label manufacturers to help lead us in that direction and work with that new manufacturer to create the lunchbox.

we developed a really good relationship with our label manufacturer over the last few years and felt confident in that. We could trust them and we’ve been very happy, very lucky now all situations work out that way. But but at some point you kinda, you gotta have some trust.

Jennifer Myers Chua: I took a look at your website in the product descriptions of the new lunch boxes, which are made of stainless steel. And some of your new messaging and it’s very much focused on non-toxic rather than being focused on those terms that we’re seeing now all the time, like BPA free, that if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know, generally don’t mean much because everyone’s just slapping that on a label now these days, whether it’s true or not. About that messaging. Are there any insights into how you’re communicating the safety and health benefits of your products?

Courtney Stewart: It kills me when people say BPA free and it’s been, and now it’s used as a marketing, a marketing thing. So parents are proceeded to think that, oh, it’s BPA free. And that’s the headline it’s BPA free, unfortunately, and it’s not the parents’ fault or anybody else’s, but that’s one of hundreds of toxins or chemicals that are used in these products. And so to eliminate that great, that’s the one that they’ve taken out, but there are still others and in plastics. And even honestly, there are different grades of stainless as well. And so we are using a 3 0 4 grade stainless steel, which is a premium approved for food contact level, stainless steel, and it’s different from what you would find, at a, $1 store, $2 store, something like that. That’s a different kind of stainless steel. It’s not the same. People don’t, they don’t see that. They see a product that kind of looks similar. A stainless steel water bottle, you get the dollar. So it was very different than when they buy from a brand. That has put the research in and put the education, then the testing, and gone through those steps to ensure that they’re offering a high quality, healthy, safe product into the marketplace. And so, that’s something that’s really important to me if I’m not going to use it in my own family, if I’m not willing to expose my own children to it, I would never, introduce it to the marketplace. I’m very strict with what we bring into our house. So, it was important if there was a best, we were gonna bring it into this product and this whole line really

Jennifer Myers Chua: It’s such a challenge for us as consumers, as people who are trying to make better choices when it comes to. Things like that, the things that may be toxic and that inconsistent labeling is part of the challenge. A couple episodes back. We met with Emma Rohmann who’s a toxic expert. And she talked about how substitutions are happening. So if there’s a regulation and they take something out like BPA they’re removing BPA, they’re replacing it with something else. That they have waiting. That may just be just as dangerous, but it’s currently not something that we’re immediately aware of and maybe it’s something that’s not currently illegal or whatnot. It’s a real challenge and i appreciate that you’re going for the broad stroke of non-toxic and you’re actually doing all you can to make sure that is true. i appreciate that

Courtney Stewart: I feel like. That’s the way that BPA free has been thrown around on packaging and labels. It’s actually very sad. It’s very disappointing. We don’t put BPA free. I think there’s an assumption. We’re saying no toxins right? Here, platinum. The highest levels of, pure silicone, no fillers, no additives, none of that stuff. And I think that BPA free thing is thrown around to it’s that extra. Oh, okay. It’s an extra kind of notch of approval that a parent will take in and feel like they they’re confident and, in, in that product and in some ways they are, in some ways it’s wonderful, like, and it works out there.

It’s BPA free, which is great. It’s also, it doesn’t have other toxins, but in a lot of cases, you’re right. It’s just the BPA that they pulled out and they’ve said student was something else. And so something cheaper, another filler and whatnot. And it it’s, I feel like it’s, it’s unfair to parents in the marketplace because goodness, we have so many things that we’re trying to do well.

And, trying to raise these good humans and we’re putting our faith and, to these labels and packaging and things like that and want to be able to trust. And, a lot of the times we’re getting duped by these brands and manufacturers. Unfortunately,

Jennifer Myers Chua: Have you come across anything in your research about the environmental impact of our lunch packing habits? I guess we’re not even a brown paper bag, lunch culture anymore. We’re more like a Ziploc bag or a sandwich bag. Did you find anything surprising?

Courtney Stewart: I can’t even think of it, but it’s something like like 30 million lunch bags, like Ziploc bags are used in a year or something. It’s more than that because it would be more than that, I’ve got to find the number, but the amount of plastic single use Ziploc type bags that are used and then thrown out in the impact that has is staggering is absolutely staggering. So when you think of that, in terms of all the different things that you put in a lunch I find that when you have something like a. A lunchbox that has, different sections, maybe as a parent, instead of buying the yogurt in, 30 individual containers, maybe we just buy the one container and you scoop it from there.

So even making a simple swap like that, it’s impactful. Imagine everybody doing that, getting that bulk tub. And so instead of sending those single ones all the time, I really want to get through to people that it doesn’t have to be these huge shifts in your life. It can just be, one little thing that when you think about it, in terms of everybody doing one little thing, the impact is ginormous. And so, the numbers on even the single. Plastic bags and things like that. It’s staggering. Staggering. It makes you, you definitely think twice we put things in the garbage and filling up that garbage every week. Yeah, it’s staggering.

Jennifer Myers Chua: One of my favorite questions to ask founders about looking back at this moment that you’re in right now. I love to ask. If there was a moment. Where you said, Hey, people are responding to this. I know this is going to happen. Have you hit that moment yet?

Courtney Stewart: We sent off the labels with a bang, I felt really good. I felt confident about whatever I decide to do. I did feel really confident. And as much as I believe like this is going to work, I think the goals that I’ve set and the things that I want to do and, the impact I want to make it has to work, it has to work, but I’m not going to lie Jenn. Like there are days where, as an entrepreneur, like the highs are so high and literally the lows are garbage, low. Like they are landfill garbage, low. That’s very hard. And trying to navigate those ups and downs, while trying to be everything in your business, to everyone who needs you in your business and outside of your business and, in your personal life, it’s hard. So, I don’t have doubts that this is going to be great. I think, yeah. It’s getting there and staying in a clear mental state because the roller coaster of entrepreneurship, it can, it gives you turns and twists and you gotta be able to keep it straight, navigate them and keep it straight. So, I think if there’s heart and there’s passion and great products, it might take time, but it will succeed.

I think I I’m used to hard work in terms of growing up and a family filled with athletes and very successful. My, all my siblings are very successful. As an athletic scholarship. I did, I did my power, in, in that way I have this kind of be the best at whatever you’re going to be attitude. So I think the biggest surprise. So yes, working hard and being seasoned for something like this because I’ve been in training mode my whole life. But there’s nothing more, and I don’t know if it was necessarily a surprise but a shocker, in terms of. The commitment that entrepreneurship and having your own business and maybe it was the timing of it along with my tabbing, small kids, the sacrifice, the things that you’re going to have to miss. I think people glamorize entrepreneurship in terms of you run your own business and you come and go, as you want. And it’s great. You show up, half day Friday. and sure you could do that. But the reality of it is that, you’re in your business, in the early days, it’s all the time. Especially as an online e-commerce brand, people are expecting you to get back to them immediately.

And so I think a big shocker was, although I was, trained my whole life to be a very hard worker and to work, tirelessly. This entrepreneurial journey is exhausting. It is, and it will, it tests, it tests you it tests everybody, it tests your whole family, everybody in my family is impacted by it. And so it’s hard. It’s hard. It’s, it’s definitely it harder than I would have even imagined, but, it will push you. It will grow you, it will challenge you in ways that you never thought possible. And for me, I think it’s made me a better person and made me a better parent in a lot of ways. I don’t always think that in the moment, but yeah, the amount of work and time and commitment and the sacrifice and all the things that you miss out on, even your family and, that’s been a big shocker. Very hard.

Jennifer Myers Chua: Do you have any other ways that you’re planning to use this business to support any other kind of change?

Courtney Stewart: We haven’t actually announced this, but we are working on some kind of certification supporting other organizations and we have a few already in in the works, but the goal is going to be like 5% of our proceeds are all going to go to other things, the B certification that ocean movements there’s a few things that are high priorities. And then a couple that we’re determining, what’s the best fit, but definitely want the benefits that we reap in the business in terms of sales and profits, to be able to share that with other organizations that are also trying to do the right thing and other groups and young minority aspiring entrepreneur, things like that, that, it again, that it feels really good to give back when you can. It’s going to be something that that we’ll announce, hopefully by the end of the year, once those things are confirmed, but it’s a must in the business for sure. To be able to give back, especially to groups that are trying to inspire change as well.

Jennifer Myers Chua: And what about other black owned businesses? BIPOC creators. Do you feel that there’s been a shift in the marketplace? Like, do you feel that people are using their dollars to support maybe businesses owned by marginalized people or anything like that. I’m wondering if you have anything to comment about that shift and if you see anything changing?

Courtney Stewart:  I definitely think that there is a shift, of all the kind of ugly that’s come out of a lot of things recently. I think that there’s also some good and there’s been openings and some big organizations have stepped up in big ways, to help support BIPOC minority, underserved groups, and entrepreneurship. There’s definitely been a shift and I think consumers are more educated now than ever to kind of search around, search around for options. And, I think people are dedicated to supporting small businesses, supporting local businesses and, That includes, BIPOC owned businesses. I think people deeply care, I really do. You have to feel, you have to think that you have to believe, and I think people want to see good. They want to see change. And in order to see change, you’ve got to support different types of businesses operated by different minorities and, LGBT Black community Brown community, Chinese, everything, all those businesses are just as important. But it’s also finding a way to bring light and expose these businesses in terms of, making them more visible. Yeah, I do see a change. I see a change. I think it’s going to be a slow shift, but I do see a change and I hope that only continues.

Jennifer Myers Chua: So if you’re interested in conscious consumerism and you’ve gotten to this place. What’s a resource that you would recommend to someone who’s starting to explore this? Explore making different choices. Where should they start?

Courtney Stewart: There is a blog called zero waste Canada, I believe . I learned so much from, she has this blog, she has so much education, so much knowledge on her blog and even on her Instagram. People know at the end of the day, when they’re putting that water bottle in the garbage, that it’s not where it should be going, but she shares also the other side of it and the impact and and breaks it down from the impact to also, the impact it has on you and your health and, the toxins. So just a wealth of knowledge. She is somebody who has definitely devoted her life to, living this way and deaf amplifies conscious brands. And so I definitely think that is a great place to start. And then from there, it’ll just spiral because everybody’s following her and everybody who has, those goals in mind for their business or for themselves personally, they’re watching what she’s doing and listening to what she’s saying.

Jennifer Myers Chua: There are people like you and I who are looking to make a difference in our own homes. And then also looking to make a difference in the communities and people are supporting your products. They’re purchasing those, and you’ve seen more support coming for BIPOC creators and women owned businesses. So I’d just like to know with all of that in mind how hopeful are you for the future?

Courtney Stewart: I’m very hopeful for the future. I see. Great things coming. I believe in myself, I believe in people wanting to be better, to do better, to shop better, to support businesses that are trying to do the right thing. you can only want people around you to, other citizens to want, the good for everybody. And so that involves, being a conscious consumer, not overbuying buying, when you need, I even say with our. When you’re in the market for don’t just go buy it. Cause you, you don’t, cause you want it when you’re in the market for, because listen, there’s another box that, has been working for you or, if it’s not then sure if you want to replace it, but that’s just going to end up in the landfill too. And that’s what we don’t want either. I believe, I believe people want to do better. They want to be better. They want to be The Good Kiind.

I’m very passionate. So when I care about something a lot, I come off very pushy, I guess you can call it, very, but it’s just, it’s just coming from a place of just really caring and wanting someone to feel it like, feel the way I feel it. I don’t want to come across and that I’m not perfect even in our home, I’m not, I’ve got work to do. But I wanna, go along this journey with our customers and our community, because it is a journey. It’s not something that you flip the switch and it happens. Small changes can make a big impact.

I think it’s since having kids and, all the toys and the, the unnecessary, packaging and the toys that literally just end up in the garbage it’s painful, it is painful to me. And it really bothers me. I just really tried to limit those things but the amount of mindless consumerism, that’s happening. Then I say mindless. I mean, people are just buying, buying, buying don’t need, like, if you stop and ask yourself, Is it good for me? Is it good for the planet? And do I need this? Do I need this? If you would put down probably 75% of the things that you pick up. So, I wish people would and you would save so much money. You would save so much money. So, I’m hoping that we can help people shift in that direction a little bit by a little bit less use what you have and make the best of it. I’ll tell you one thing. With our manufacturer, our lunch pails, when they’re open in the box, they were supposed to be sleeved with like a, with a paper sleeve and they didn’t, they did it with a plastic sleeve, it was so painful bothered me and it still bothers me, but it doesn’t make sense to go reproduce something else to put it in it and to make all those changes.

But that, and obviously the footprint of something like that is far less, however, it’s something that when you think of it, in terms of McDonald’s and these big brands producing hundreds of thousands weekly, probably, it really adds up. So we’re not perfect either, and we’re trying to do this right. We stumble on the way to, and that, and it was, a miss at the quality control level at our manufacturer. And so, small steps, small steps do better next time.

If you want to learn more about Courtney and her endlessly reusable, mealtime essentials for families on the go visit thegoodkiind.com [kind with two ii] looking for litter proof lunch solutions for back to school, they are available to order now. You can follow along with Courtney on her mission to help you sustainably and mindfully tackle life with littles. On Facebook at thegoodkiind or Instagram at @bethegoodkiind

 

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.