About this Event
FROM KITCHEN TABLE TO RETAIL SHELF
What Makers of Natural, Wellness, Food & Body-Care Products Need to Know Before They Sell
Maybe you started with something you made for yourself. An herbal preparation, a salve, a tea blend, a skincare product, or a food product. Something you made because you loved making it, and then other people started asking if they could buy it.
So you made a few more.
Maybe you brought them to a market. Started selling locally. Opened an Instagram account. Then came the website, a retailer asking about wholesale, or the possibility of selling beyond your local community.
And suddenly the questions changed:
- What category does this product actually fall into?
- What can you say about it?
- What has to be on the label?
- Does the packaging need to be bilingual?
- Do the requirements change depending on what the product is, how it is represented, or where and how it is sold?
- And how much are you going to spend figuring all of this out before you sell a single one?
That is the territory between “I make this” and “I sell this as a business.”
FROM KITCHEN TABLE TO RETAIL SHELF
From Kitchen Table to Retail Shelf is a practical, entrepreneur-to-entrepreneur workshop for micro and small producers working with natural health, herbal, skincare, cosmetic, body-care, food, and other regulated or potentially regulated consumer products.
Andrée Noye, MA, Clinical Herbalist, Educator, and Founder of Circé + Medée Herbalists, will share what she has learned through developing and bringing her own herbal and wellness products to market in Canada.
Because making the product is only one part of the work. Then come the labels, claims, packaging, suppliers, production quantities, costing, regulatory categories, minimum orders, bilingual requirements, and all the other decisions you may not have realized were decisions when you were making something you loved at the kitchen table.
This workshop is about learning where the expensive surprises tend to hide before you pay for them.
WHAT WE’LL TALK ABOUT
We’ll look at how to begin identifying which rules and regulatory categories may apply to your product, and why getting the category right matters.
We’ll talk about Canadian labelling and bilingual-packaging considerations, product claims, and why the words you use to describe what your product does can matter just as much as what is inside it.
We’ll get into packaging, suppliers, production quantities, sourcing and scaling, and the costs that are surprisingly easy to underestimate when figuring out whether a product is actually viable.
We’ll also look at some of the assumptions small makers can carry from very small-scale or local selling into websites, wholesale, and broader retail.
“I’ve been selling it this way for years” and “I’m allowed to sell it this way” are not always the same question.
The goal is not to turn participants into regulatory experts.
It is to help small business owners recognize the questions they need to ask earlier, before the labels are printed, the packaging is ordered, the website goes live, or thousands of dollars have already been committed.
Sometimes one good question asked at the beginning can prevent a very expensive correction later.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND?
This workshop is for makers, micro to small business owners, and entrepreneurs who currently sell, or are considering selling, products such as:
- herbal and natural health products;
- skincare, cosmetics, and body-care products;
- herbal preparations and remedies;
- teas and other ingestible products;
- food and packaged food products;
- wellness products; and/or
- other natural, handmade, or packaged consumer products that may be subject to specific requirements regarding ingredients, claims, labelling, packaging, or sale.
You do not need to have a finished product. In fact, if you are still at the idea, formulation, prototype, or early-development stage, this may be one of the best times to attend.
It is much easier to change something before you have ordered 2,000 units.
WORKSHOP FORMAT
90-minute interactive workshop
30-minute participant Q&A
Participants are encouraged to bring questions about products they are currently developing or challenges they have already encountered:
- bring the packaging problem;
- bring the supplier question;
- bring the label you are not sure about;
- bring the product you want to put on a website; and
- bring the “I have read the same government webpage six times and somehow understand it less than when I started” situation.
The Q&A is there so we can talk about the real problems small producers encounter, not just the tidy version of product development.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Andrée Noye, MA, is a Clinical Herbalist, Educator, and Founder of Circé + Medée Herbalists, a community wellness centre in West Pubnico, Nova Scotia. Today, she runs the centre in partnership with Cassandra Francis and Nadine Korhonen.
Her work includes clinical herbalism, herbal formulation, product development, education, instructional design, and the day-to-day realities of running a small business. Known for an engaging and highly conversational teaching style, Andrée has a knack for making dense or complicated material feel practical, understandable, and relevant to those attending.
Through developing and bringing her own herbal and wellness products to market, Andrée has also spent a great deal of time navigating the decidedly less glamorous side of product development: regulatory categories, labels, bilingual packaging, claims, sourcing, suppliers, production, costing, packaging decisions, and retail.
This workshop grew out of a simple realization: Some of the most expensive lessons in product development are surprisingly simple. They’re things nobody thought to tell you until after you’d already paid for them.
PLEASE NOTE
This workshop is educational and based on practical business experience. It is not legal advice or individualized regulatory consulting.
Requirements can vary depending on the product, its ingredients, classification, claims, method of sale, and other factors. Participants will be encouraged to verify the requirements applicable to their own products and to seek appropriate professional or regulatory guidance where necessary.
Event venue & nearby stays
IGNITE Atlantic, 208 Main Street, Yarmouth, Canada
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.