This Commerce Life

Julie Therrien has spent 28 years selling Canadian cookies to the world — and she's got the stories to prove it. As Western Canada Sales Rep for Biscuits Leclerc (the family behind Celebration Cookies, Go Pure bars, and that iconic air travel snack you definitely know), 

Julie joins Kenny and Phil to talk about her unlikely path from Quebec City to Guadalajara to Vancouver, what it really takes to break into export markets, and why the Canadian food industry's tight-knit community is one of its greatest competitive advantages.

If you're a Canadian food or beverage brand wondering why retailers keep asking for a distributor, this episode is your answer.

Phil and Kenny sit down with Stacey Kravitz, President of UNFI Canada, for one of the most important conversations we've had on the show. Stacey brings 20+ years at Kraft and Kraft Heinz — and nearly 10 years leading UNFI Canada through COVID, supply chain chaos, and a rapidly consolidating grocery landscape — to give brands a rare, unfiltered look at how distribution actually works in this country.

Whether you're still selling out of your car, just hit your first retail listing, or you're scaling nationally — this episode will reshape how you think about distribution as a growth strategy, not just a middleman.

🎯 Key Takeaway: Retailers don't want more vendors. They want trusted distributor partners who can bring them curated, ready-to-sell innovation. If you don't have a distribution strategy, you're leaving listings on the table.

Connect with UNFI Canada: unfi.com Follow This Commerce Life: thiscommercelife.com

Mentioned in this episode:

UNFI Canada's Up Next Incubator Program

Canadian Grocery Sector Code of Conduct

ItSo Coffee (brand shoutout from Stacey)

Rob Mortenson — go-to-market strategy services

If you're looking for online retail classes, we're building our first class already! contact us at [email protected]

Most small business owners think they have a brand. What they actually have is a collection of decisions made in a hurry — four shades of blue, six different fonts, and a website built room by room without a blueprint. Sound familiar?

In this episode, Phil and Kenny sit down with Kevin Sotto of Sotto Digital — the digital strategist behind the This Commerce Life rebrand — to talk about what branding actually is, why so many Canadian food and CPG brands get it wrong, and what it takes to build a digital presence that earns trust.

Kevin shares his journey from engineering at McMaster, to RBC, to health-tech startup life, to running his own digital marketing and branding consultancy. He also pulls back the curtain on his experience working with TCL — from cleaning up a messy website to uncovering the three core pillars of the brand and why that "editorial navy" is doing more work than anyone realized.

What does it take to turn a house-made restaurant dressing into a multi-SKU CPG brand with distributors, Power Bowl mixes, and a brand-new line of high-protein soup mixes? This week, Phil and Kenny sit down  with Joanna and Stephanie, the co-founders of Umami Crave the Fifth, a Kelowna-based food brand making waves across BC and beyond.

Joanna and Stephanie pull back the curtain on the full journey: starting with a beet quinoa salad dressing at BNA Brewing, surviving a pandemic launch, building their own production facility, and navigating the brutal reality that getting into a store is easy — getting off the shelf is hard. 

They share hard-won lessons on SKU naming disasters (50,000 pouches ordered before rebranding), sourcing Canadian pea protein, competing in a crowded condiment category, and why their vegan Worcestershire sauce accidentally became their fastest-growing product.

 

Check out Umami Crave the Fifth here: https://www.umamicravethefifth.com/

Find out more about the Big Cheese Festival in Armstrong here: https://www.aschamber.com/thebigcheese.html

Find out more about Basin Food Summit here: https://basinfood.ca/

 

If you want to sign up for one of our classes, email us at [email protected]

What does it take to leave a 30-year career at one of the world's biggest consulting firms — and bet it all on a 65-year-old condiment brand that had been sitting dormant for a year?

Marc Whitmore is the CEO and owner of Dennis Horseradish, Canada's only horseradish producer. A former Senior Partner and global leader at Deloitte, Marc walked away from corporate life in his 50s to become a food entrepreneur — and ended up finding his business for sale on MLS.ca like a cottage listing.

In this episode, Marc shares the full journey: the failed hops venture that came first, why he bought a brand with no active customers, how Dennis went from zero to 1,000+ stores across four countries, and what growing 25% looks like when you're still reinvesting every dollar back into the business.

We also dig into the realities of Canadian food entrepreneurship — why you need to "get in the flow" to find deals, how to think about exporting before you've even figured out your own backyard, and why Marc says the best reason to build a business is for Canada itself.

 

Check out Dennis Horseradish here: https://dennishorseradish.com/

If you're a brand and you need help to scale, or you know a brand that needs help - send them to us! www.thiscommercelife.com