From Farmers Market to Retail Shelves: How Kettle & Hive Built a Lemon Honey Tea Brand

Trish, founder of Kettle & Hive, joins This Commerce Life to share how a coworker's break-time basket of lemons, ginger, and honey sparked the idea for a fresh, spoonable lemon and honey tea — made with just two ingredients, no corn syrup, no thickeners, no shortcuts.

From her first job as a day baker at Tim Hortons to quitting her job after one exhausting-but-successful farmers market season, Trish walks us through the real journey of building a small-batch food business in BC: honing recipes 20 jars at a time, using baker's math to scale batches, moving from a home kitchen to shared commercial kitchens to her own facility with a 60-gallon steam kettle — and learning the hard way what it costs to sell out and cancel a Christmas market because production couldn't keep up.

Whether you're still selling at craft fairs or eyeing your first distributor conversation, this episode is a masterclass in growing a CPG food brand the right way — one honest customer conversation at a time.

Find Kettle & Hive:
🍋 Shop online: https://kettleandhive.com
📍 Available at independent grocers and health food stores across Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland — full store and market list on the website

Thank you to Maritime Good Food for sponsoring this podcast. https://maritimegoodfood.ca/