This Commerce Life

We spend some time with Hope Aylen. We learn a few things and see how a designer sees the process of designing our hopes and dreams in packaging and labels.    To find Hope https://www.linkedin.com/in/hope-aylen-designfulhope/ check out her services here: https://www.designfulhope.com/  

We brought her back to talk about her! Cheryl Grant, the founder of Vitality comes on to talk about her journey.  Last time she was on, she spent a lot of time talking about Save our Supplements. We wanted to make sure we got a chance to talk to Cheryl about Cheryl. We're glad we did. We talk about work life balance, taking time for oneself, and what it takes to "unplug"   To find Cheryl: https://...

Former broadcaster Patrice Mousseau started making eczema lotion, and now she's moving into helping other businesses.    Find Patrice here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrice-mousseau-1109791a/   Shop Satya here: https://satya.ca/    

Tamara Wensley sent us the best pork rinds we'd ever had. The founder of Primal Sisters talks about how a vegetarian nutritionist got into pork rinds.    Find Tamara here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamara-wensley-96a445209/?originalSubdomain=ca   You can shop for her amazing pork rinds here: https://www.primalsisters.com/    

They got voted off the island...literally. Salt Spring Island Founder Mickey McLeod comes on to talk about their origin story, regenerative farming, organic, fair trade standards.    check out Salt Spring Island coffee here: https://www.saltspringcoffee.com/ you can find Mickey on linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickey-mcleod-8829598/   Mickey talks about Regenerative Organic Alliance h...

He likes to break down silos and move between things.  Michael Mikulak, Executive Director of Food and Beverage Manitoba comes on to talk about his winding path to helping food processors and brands today in Manitoba.    Find Michael here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-mikulak-5057b531/ Check out Manitoba Food and Beverage here: https://foodbeveragemb.ca/   find out more about Cultivate here...

She's done a fast thought with us, but we finally got a chance to hang out for real with her.  This started with a journey to switch the family to vegan, and she realized how hard it was to get healthy, tasty and relatively to make.  check out Yumasoy here: https://yumasoy.com/   Find Gina here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gina-arsens-cpa-ca-cbv-05533312/

Cedar Valley founder Ameen Fadel talks about how he got started at 16 and how he and his family have built a national business   Find Ameen here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ameen-fadel-48175514b/ Shop Cedar Valley here: 

A colouring cookie kit. Who knew? Chris Goodrow and his wife, Kristy, that's who.  They began baking out of a licensed kitchen in their basement part-time and frantically juggling 3 small children, a travel work schedule and growing demand. Today, they're pioneering a whole new category, and pushing the borders on decorating kits.   check out https://bysweetness.com/ Find Chris here: https://www.l...

They bought their uncle's business, got orders by fax machine, and didnt' know who their end customers were. It took a pandemic, and a timely instagram post by Ryan Reynolds, and a lot of sweat and selling to get this business into what it is today.    shop Grandpa J's here: https://www.grandpajs.com/   Find Jenny here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennygrandpajs/  

A father/daughter podcast on families in business together. We spent some time with Randy Sihota at Nationwide, and this time, his daughter Kamryn joins us and talks about working with her dad.  She talks about reconsidering working with her dad and Nationwide. The two of them talk about family dynamics and what it takes to try and continue to build a family business together.    You can find Kamr...

This episode finally happened. We get a chance to talk to Aaron Chin about 30+ years in the Organika business. He always knew that he wanted to be in the business of helping others. Watching his dad do it served as role model for what he's trying to do with the business today.   You can find Aaron here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-chin-b1336336/ check out Organika here: https://organika.com/...

CEO and a partner of Unity Brands Inc., David Lui comes on to talk about the company he cofounded with Joe Mimran and Frank Rocchetti. We talk to David about his wide and varied past, and how he's lived right across Canada.   Find David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidymlui/   Check out Kit and Ace here: https://www.kitandace.com/    

Mayumi Bae and her siblings are committed to bringing Asian inspired, innovative plant based products to market. Their newest product Noods, surprised us at CHFA East. In case you want to check out their food offerings in person, head to their cafe - the Plant Based Workshop   find Mayumi here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayumi-bae-b735b1277/?originalSubdomain=ca their cafe is here: https://plant...

Sonia Strobel talks about supporting Canadian fishing families and keeping small-scale fishing alive in BC and providing transparency around what they are catching, where and how.    Find Sonia here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sonia-strobel/ Sign up for Skipper Otto here: https://skipperotto.com/   Homework for our listeners - watch the cbc documentary on Skipper Otto here:: https://www.cbc.ca/pl...

Celebrating small business month, releasing a special episode with Christina Santini from CFIB.  92% Canadians said they love having small businesses in their community, but only 13% do most of their shopping at small businesses Christina Santini from Canadian Federation of Independent Business  talks about influencing goverment policy, helping small businesses  and fighting for a CEBA extension. ...

"Who the heck cuts out sugar??" This got her thinking. Alice Grey talks about finding monk fruit, and making the best chocolate she can make with monk fruit.   Find Alice at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alice-grey/ Shop for monk fruit sweetened chocolate at https://mindfulmonk.co/ thank you to Fieldagent Canada for sponsoring today's episode. check out buy and try here: https://www.fieldagentcanad...

Chocxo just won an award at BCFB. Wondering what their story is? Scott Sulz comes on to talk about great chocolate. On top of that, we spend some time talking to Scott about how you figure out how to work somewhere that you love.    You can find Scott here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-sulz-5301b967/ Check out Chocxo here: https://chocxo.com/   Interested in Fieldagent's Buy and try? hit this...

 The CEO  of Vitality, Cheryl Grant sounds the alarm on Health Canada putting more red tape on our world class supplements process.  Thank you to the Boss for telling us that we had to have Cheryl Grant on.  On a totally different note, Cheryl's decided that she's going to screw with Phil the time she sees him.    You can find Cheryl here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherylgrant25/ check out Vital...

She inherited her dad's meat smoker and decided that she'd smoke tofu instead. Founder Miki Talebi talks about coming from public policy to slinging tofu.   find her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miki-talebi-22587a43/?originalSubdomain=ca check out Oome here: https://www.thisisoome.com/   Thank you to Field Agent Canada for sponsoring our episodes. Check out their Ratings and Review program he...

It's a thursday, and we're talking to a functional expert you can call or ask questions of. Bryan Horsley is a CA/CPA who has an accounting background, consulting and been a retailer.    You can find Bryan in Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryan-horsley/ or bryan@bryanhorsley.cpa   Thank you to Fieldagent Canada for sponsoring this epsiode, you can find out more about their ratings and rev...

"People want real tangible holistic frameworks for healing" Angela and Yarrow Willard talk about Harmonic Arts, how they became a national brand, and the shift from being a small business owner to a business leader.    Find out more about Harmonic Arts here: https://harmonicarts.ca/   Find Yarrow here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yarrow-willard-b0b09839/ Find Angela here: https://www.linkedin.com/...

For every dollar they've given a company, those companies are able to attract another $64. Who is NPC? Coueslan explains. If you were at CHFA, you saw Shelley King on stage, helping Launchpad finalists, and if you walked the show, you definitely walked through innovation alley.  Find NPC here: https://www.naturalproductscanada.com/en/ Find Sue here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sue-coueslan-6864748...

Mitsoh ("Eat" in Cree Nehiyaw) was founded by Ian Gladue of Wabasca's Bigstone Cree Nation in Alberta. We talk to Ian and his partner Brandon about restoring, preserving and sharing North American Indigenous culture while bringing great products to market.   Find Brandon here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-markiw-071b0946/ Find Mitsoh here: https://www.mitsoh.com/ Be sure to sign up for CHFA...

If you had 250,000 people at your disposal what would you ask for? Jeff Doucette talks about some of the retail wishes he and Fieldagent fulfill every week for brands.   Find Jeff here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-doucette-72b3556/   Check out Fieldagent here: https://www.fieldagentcanada.com/   Make sure you sign up to CHFA Now here: https://chfa.ca/en/Events/chfa-now#upcoming