Made with Local, the Halifax-based snack brand founded by entrepreneur Sheena Russell, has quietly grown into a national retail presence and is now expanding across more than 3,500 retail doors across Canada, all while continuing to manufacture its products in-house in Nova Scotia.
The company has recently doubled down on Canadian retail expansion particularly as it pulls back from U.S. growth amid current geopolitical headwinds including:
- Costco Canada: A new sample pack format introducing the brand to Costco shoppers nationwide.
- Walmart Canada: Launching a value pack designed specifically for Canadian consumers w/ accessible price points.
- Continued growth across key Canadian retailers including Fresh St. Market, Sobeys, Loblaws banners, London Drugs and more
Made with Local sources many of its core ingredients directly from Canadian farmers, including Canadian oats and honey, supporting domestic producers wherever possible. Canada produces roughly four million tonnes of oats annually, much of it grown in the Prairies, and the country is also one of the world’s top honey producers.
The brand originally started at a Halifax farmers’ market in 2012, and that connection to local producers remains central to its growth strategy today.
What’s notable is that Made with Local remains fully vertically integrated, producing its bars in its own Halifax facility. By owning its manufacturing, the company has scaled efficiently.
Russell was born and raised in Prince Edward Island then moved to the Halifax area to go to university.
“I grew up in a farming family in PEI, moved to Nova Scotia to do a degree in environmental science at Dalhousie, and then graduated and wanted to have a little passion project that kind of brought together those life experiences and passion of mine for sustainability and food and farming,” explained Russell, who is the company CEO.
“And I had this idea to make snacks and take them to the farmer’s market using ingredients that I was also sourcing from farmers at the farmer’s market. So that was the very earliest days of just kind of trying to test the waters and see if this is something that people would be interested in.
“But I did not have a business background at all, so I kind of learned everything the hard way. It’s been very organic growth over the last decade plus. But it all started with about two years’ worth of weekends at the farmer’s market — that was kind of the earliest days.”
In 2022, Russell said the company made a big move to bring its manufacturing all in-house. Prior to that, it had already been expanding into national retailers in Canada. It was becoming a more mature business.
“But it was all co-packed, and that became an issue because our demand was really exceeding our capacity with those co-packers. So we kind of took a giant leap in 2021, bought a building, got into it in 2022, and brought everything in-house,” she said.
“So now we manufacture six SKUs of our real food bars, which we’re best known for. That’s kind of our origin SKU or product line. And then we also have recently launched protein cookies that are high in protein and fibre and are made with that same very clean and transparent ingredients ethos. They’ve been very on trend at the moment.”
Russell said working with retailers like Walmart and Costco has been a big opportunity.
“Honestly, being able to work with those retailers has allowed us to bring our products to a more mainstream customer base. We went into — or currently are in — Walmart with a four-pack of our bars, which was the first time we ever did a multipack. It’s really great value to the consumer, and that has allowed us to play more into being more of a household brand, moving a little bit outside of — and the product quality is the exact same, obviously — what we’re selling in health food stores and some of the more premium retailers,” she noted. “But just in a more approachable format for the Walmart shopper, which has been really positive.
“And I think, as any brand can say, doing business with Costco is an incredible opportunity for any business. We’ve been fortunate enough to do quite a few rotations with them at this point with different offerings for our bars. We’ve done our protein cookies. There have been several different rotations in the east and west with different offerings. So yeah, we love doing business with Costco. They’re a great partner.
“We are continuing to put opportunities ahead of ourselves in that more value-offering space. We’ve seen the success of our Walmart SKUs — the four-packs — and just really thinking about, okay, if it’s the mission of Made with Local is to source and bring as many Canadian-grown and produced ingredients to Canadians — or honestly anybody who enjoys them — that is achieved by just getting out in front of more customers.
“So whether that be in a bigger way through the Walmarts or the Costcos, bringing more offerings to the Loblaws and Sobeys, pushing our Amazon business because it’s still pretty early days for us on Amazon, and then looking into opportunities abroad as well.”
Russell said the brand is also looking at some export opportunities and then looking into expansion in the U.S.
She said the company is not an overnight success story as it has gradually built its business over the years but many people are still finding out about it.
“We’ve been at this for a long time, just kind of putting one foot in front of the other because it’s something that has developed and flourished over the course of almost 14 years now,” she said.
More from Retail Insider:
