There are moments in life when an idea doesn't feel like an idea. It feels like a calling.
By this point, Andrew and I had settled into our forever home, tucked away in the valley of Dunedin, just a few minutes outside Creemore. Leaving Toronto wasn't difficult, and we weren't running away from the city, we were running toward something else.
We wanted to hike, to snowboard, to swim, to snowshoe, to spend more time outside than inside. Nature had been calling us for years. And eventually, we answered.
About a year after moving, I noticed that living a lower-waste lifestyle had become... harder.
In Toronto, there were little specialty shops scattered throughout the city. One sold shampoo bars. Another had refillable soaps. Another carried sustainable home products. It wasn't perfect, but it was possible. Out here? Nothing. Certainly nothing that existed under one roof.
So I did what many people still do today. I ordered online and with every package that arrived it made me feel conflicted. I loved what was inside but I couldn't ignore what it took to get it here. Box after box, truck after truck, plastic mailers, carbon emissions. I remember thinking...There has to be a better way.
Then one morning in January 2020, I woke up with butterflies in my stomach and a fire in my heart. I ran downstairs and very loudly said to Andrew, ”I've got it.” Andrew looked up. ”We should open a refillery."
Now...If you know Andrew, you may think his response would be something like, "Jac... we both have full-time careers. We just moved. Can we please enjoy the house for a minute, can you chill?” Instead...He smiled.
"I think that's the best idea you've ever had.” One small pause. "As long as we lead with a mission first, business second approach... I think it'll work.” That sentence became the foundation of everything we've built. Mission first. Business second.
It sounds simple but it's anything but. Because it means saying no, like a lot. As a story producer, asking questions had become second nature. So I started asking them again. Where do your products come from? Who makes them? Where do the empty containers go when you're finished with them? The answers weren't always good enough. ”Overseas." "We recycle them.” That last answer especially bothered me. By then I already knew that only a small percentage of plastic is ever actually recycled. Recycling wasn't the solution. It was the consolation prize it was the ruse that we’ve all been fed forever. So I kept looking. Some suppliers told me they didn't take their containers back. We politely declined. Others admitted they hadn't created a closed-loop system...but loved the idea and wanted to build one together.
Those became some of our favourite partners.
And then we found companies who were already doing it. Canadian businesses quietly proving that another way was possible. Those are the relationships we've continued to build ever since. Trust isn't built through marketing. It's built through alignment. If a product couldn't support our mission, It didn't belong on our shelves. Simple as that.
Eventually we had enough suppliers that believed a couple from the TV biz could sell their product, a couple thousand dollars saved and enough soap to last us a year if absolutely nobody came through the doors. Now we just needed somewhere to open.
Creemore gave us that chance. Our beautiful village with the biggest heart. We found an old tire shed, two hundred square feet, no running water, no heat, no hydro and all for just four hundred bucks a month. Perfect.
With the help of our friends, family, and a whole lot of optimism, we transformed that tiny building into something we'd dreamed about for months and on a freezing cold morning in March 2020 we opened The Creemore Refillery (all our OG’s know!)
I still remember getting home that night. My feet were pounding. My heart wouldn't slow down. I couldn't sleep and not because I was worried. Because I knew.
People had come. They believed in what we were trying to build. This tiny little tire shed was becoming something so much bigger than soap and shampoo.
It was becoming a place where people could gather around an idea, a different way of consuming, a different way of caring and a different way of living.
And maybe...Without even realizing it...I was becoming someone new too.
The TV producer who had spent years asking questions, the researcher who refused to settle for easy answers, the activist who couldn't unsee what she'd witnessed in Nairobi, the storyteller who stood in Churchill and watched humans and wildlife learn to share a fragile world, the woman who looked at an old tire shed and didn't see a building. She saw a movement.
Fourteen days later, the world shut down.
And once again...
Everything changed.
But that's a story for the next Keepers Digest.