Speaking with Sheena Russell; Founder and CEO of Made with Local

Today I am speaking with Sheena Russell. Sheena is founder & CEO of Made with Local, a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. What started as a farmer's market table in 2012 has grown into a nationally-distributed brand known for delicious Real Food Bars and their innovative social-impact production model. You can find Made with Local's products in 1000 retailers all across Canada!

 

This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media. This series is a platform for women, female-identified, & non-binary individuals to share their professional stories and personal narrative as it relates to their story. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age, status, or industry. 

 

TRANSCRIPTION

*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors

 

[00:00:00] In this episode, I speak with founder and CEO of Made with Local Sheena Russell, made with Local as a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. Key points addressed where Sheena's launch of Made with Local and the ethos behind the company culture and brand. We also discussed her incredible efforts to keep made with local, sustainable, responsible, made locally with local ingredients and filled with good intentions and love. Stay tuned for my awesome chat with Sheena Russell.

 

[00:00:33] Hi, my name is Patricia Kathleen, and this podcast series contains interviews I conduct with women. Female identified and non binary individuals regarding their professional stories and personal narrative. This podcast is designed to hold a space for all individuals to learn from their counterparts regardless of age status for industry. We aim to contribute to the evolving global dialog surrounding underrepresented figures in all industries across the USA and abroad. If you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as Vegan life, fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found via our Web site. Patricia Kathleen ARCOM, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:31] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia. And today we are sitting down with Sheena Russell. Sheena is the founder and CEO of Made with Local. You can find out more about it and our conversation about everything we impact today at w w w dot made local made with local dot s.a. Welcome, Sheena.

 

[00:01:51] Thank you so much.

 

[00:01:52] Thanks for coming on. I'm excited to talk to you and unpack everything for everyone listening. And we'll give you a brief bio on Sheena before I start peppering her with questions. But prior to that roadmap for today's podcast, just so for those of you that are new, can kind of follow along and realize we're we're kind of pulling all of our inquiries from we'll first look at unpacking Sheena's academic and professional background and then we'll turn straight to unpacking made with local and we'll first look at the logistics and then turn some of our inquiry towards the ethos and the philosophy behind the company, which it pulls heavily for it being a B corp and things of that nature. And then we'll turn towards goals and plans that Sheena has built for herself and made with local moving forward for the next one to three years. This is an area that has changed greatly with a lot of people with the most recent COVID 19 pandemic upon us. And we'll wrap everything up with goals, advice that Tina may have for those of you who are looking to get involved, maybe emulate some of her success and OK. So before we get started, a quick bio on Sina Sina. Russell is founder and CEO of Made with Local, a health snacks company based in Nova Scotia. What started as a farmer's market table in 2012 has grown into a nationally distributed brand known for delicious real food bars and their innovative social impact production model. You can find made with locals products in a thousand retailers across all across Canada. So again, their website is w w w dot made with local dot C eight. So she not prior to R before we jump in to kind of unpacking meat with local and I love it. I like, I really kind of climb through all of the aspects of your website and I can't wait to kind of pepper you with questions.

 

[00:03:33] But before we get to that, I was hoping you could kind of describe your academic and professional background prior to launching the company.

 

[00:03:42] Sure. So I grew up on PTI. Born and raised, rural Prince Edward Island girl. And out of high school, I did one year at the University of Prince Edward Island and then recognize that it kind of felt like high school 2.0.

 

[00:03:58] Now, I