This Commerce Life

Phil and Kenny sit down with Bonnie Joyce — the photographer and web designer behind some of the best headshots This Commerce Life has ever had (which, admittedly, is a low bar). Bonnie runs Bonnie Joyce Creative Studio, a photography and Wix web design business based in Eastern Ontario, where she's built over 500 websites and shot everything from brand sessions to adoption hearings.

In this episode, we get into why Bonnie chose Wix over WordPress — and why that decision actually makes more sense for small business owners than the industry gives it credit for. We talk about the real cost of being locked out of your own website, how AI is reshaping both photography and web design (and where it absolutely cannot replace a human), and what it means to intentionally not scale your business.

Bonnie also shares her winding path from political science and copywriting at Zulu Alpha Kilo in Toronto to building a creative studio that she genuinely loves showing up for every day. It's a great conversation about building a business on your own terms — and ignoring everyone who tells you you should be doing more.

 

Check out Bonnie's website and services here: https://www.bonniejoycecreativestudio.ca/

You can find Bonnie here as well: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnie-joyce-7215a64/

If you missed our last episode on Expo Antad - you can find it here: https://youtu.be/TnzKD1KBhtw?si=Aqlda7CAFFHmhONd

The survival math behind Vancouver's independent restaurant scene — and why cheap food is never actually cheap.

Phil and Kenny sit down with Robert Belcham — a 35-year Vancouver chef, restaurateur behind Campanolo, Monarch Burger, and Poppina Canteen, and board member of the Chef's Table Society of BC — for one of the most candid conversations about the business of food we've ever had on This Commerce Life.

Robert pulls back the curtain on what it actually takes to keep a restaurant alive in one of Canada's most expensive cities: the unforgiving margins, the perception-of-value trap that operators fall into, why independent restaurants are chronically underpricing themselves, and what it would take for the whole industry to collectively raise prices and survive.

 

Check out: https://chefstablesociety.com/

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.