Brewing Success

Mike Pinkus: Over the last 10 years at ConnectCPA, we've had the privilege of witnessing the incredible journeys of over a thousand businesses. We've been there for the thrilling highs and daunting lows of entrepreneurship. We've celebrated wild successes and monumental exits, and we've also stood by businesses as they've navigated the stormy seas, facing roadblocks and challenges that every entrepreneur encounters in their day-to-day grind.

Join us as we dive deep into the stories of these resilient individuals who dared to dream, who persevered, and who were a testament to the power of entrepreneurship. This is their journey, their lessons, and their triumphs.

Welcome to GrowthTales. I'm your host, Mike Pinkus, co-founder of ConnectCPA.

Mike Pinkus: Today we're brewing up something special. I had the privilege of sitting down with Jennifer Commins, CEO of Pluck Tea. Jennifer is one of Canada's first tea sommeliers, a founder, and a force in Canada's premium beverage space. What started as just $5,000, a credit card, and a passion for food and culture evolved into one of the most innovative tea companies in the country.

In this episode, Jennifer and I discussed how a Dragon's Den audition that wasn't even supposed to happen led to her first investment, how she hustled from farmer's markets to fine dining tables to get off the ground, and finally, how COVID nearly crushed the business. However, adapting and increasing sales through multi-channel efforts like e-commerce gave the business new life.

You're gonna hear real, authentic talk about building a brand in a market dominated by coffee giants, and what it really costs to get on grocery store shelves in Canada. Finally, we lean into being a Canadian business and how those roots have been a superpower for Pluck.

I hope you enjoy this episode. I really enjoyed this conversation.

Hi, Jennifer. Thank you so much for joining me today on GrowthTales.

Jennifer Commins: Thank you so much, Mike, for having me. It's always such a good time when we're talking.

Mike Pinkus: Yeah. And yeah, it's funny—it's not my generation, the whole "spill the tea" and the sayings that go with it—but it's funny that, yeah, tea is something that I've come to learn a lot about from you and also just from a journey of being a coffee person a lot of my life. But I've come to love tea.

I actually have on my desk right now—not to be promoting too much—I've got my Control-Alt-Delete. I drink it after the afternoon. I'm all tea, all the time. But today I wanna learn a lot about the story of Pluck Tea and how you, as an owner and a founder, have scaled the business. 'Cause it's an incredible story.

And I just wanna start off by asking you: What made you wanna become an entrepreneur, Jennifer? Like, where did this all start?

Jennifer Commins: Oh, okay. Well, so back in high school, there was a Young Entrepreneurs group that I was a part of, and we made these ridiculous things. They were like CD clocks. I dunno if you ever saw these for sale in, like, random malls across Toronto, but with groups of teenagers trying to make a buck. But they were essentially like blank CDs that we affixed to these acrylic backgrounds and assembled into a clock. And it was a big competition within the school and, like, interschool, and we did really well at the school that I was at. We sold more than anybody else. And it just kind of ignited this idea in me that, you know, you could kind of create something from nothing in this world.

And I've always worked. I started working when I was 13 years old, and some really misguided person put me in an assistant manager role at a frozen yogurt store on Avenue Road really early.

Jennifer Commins: So I was really interested in taking responsibility and making my own money. I worked actually in the corporate sector for a long time, selling office furniture—obviously a straight line from office furniture to tea sommelier. But one of my jobs there was to take people out for dinner. And so I took a lot of architects and designers out for beautiful meals and great food. And then the dessert would come and the tea would come—and the tea was terrible. It was like a scratched metal teapot, and a paper-wrapped teabag on the side, and the water wasn't hot enough, and it was just really frustrating.

So it became kind of a pain point. I mean, it's a first-world problem, but still, I thought there could be room for improvement here. Growing up with two British parents who took tea pretty seriously in the house—we would have at least four cups a day—there was a right way and a wrong way to do it. And it just sort of stuck in my mind as, you know, this could be improved.

Jennifer Commins: Meanwhile, my coffee-drinking friends were being treated to these beautiful, layered, gorgeous coffee drinks—espresso-based, of course. The third wave of coffee had hit the shores of Lake Ontario. Meanwhile, our tea-drinking friends were sort of left out in the cold. So it kind of bugged me. And just like a lot of entrepreneurs, when you see a gap in the market, if you have the courage to step in and try to solve for it, great things can happen.

At the same time, I was studying food at George Brown. I was in their culinary program part-time. I was just sort of a lifelong lover of food and loved to cook.

Jennifer Commins: And one day I got an email saying that they had a tea sommelier program that they were launching. And so I signed up, and I was totally hooked. I loved it. I loved learning about the traditions, the cultivation methods, the cultivars, the flavors, and all of the things that tea can do. It was really a fascinating topic.

And so I studied that for a couple years and took my tea sommelier exam and passed. So I became one of Canada's first tea sommeliers. And then I decided to take a big leap. And with that tea sommelier certificate and this gap in the market, I started Pluck in 2012 with $5,000 and a credit card.

Mike Pinkus: Wow.

Jennifer Commins: Here we are.

Mike Pinkus: Wow. Do you think that gap in the market, Jennifer, was like—as you expressed—there's cultural differences? Like, if you were in Japan or the UK, I mean, tea is an obsession. But in North America, I guess at the time, 2012, coffee was the namesake, I guess, for most people in North America. Is that the gap that you were seeing?

Jennifer Commins: Definitely. I think at that time, coffee was 10 times the size of the tea market in Canada, even though Canada over-indexes on tea consumption, because we do have that sort of British background and a strong tea culture, with Orange Pekoe being number one on the supermarket shelves, like, forever.

In Canada, tea is about a $200 million market on the retail front, and Orange Pekoe is probably $75 million of that. Those numbers are a little old, so I think they're probably higher at this point. But yeah, Orange Pekoe became the sort of default, and we kind of got stuck there.

But you're right—coffee had really evolved and changed. When you saw brands like Starbucks coming out and really kind of pushing that ball forward in terms of quality of coffee and service, and then having these amazing third wave coffee shops opening up everywhere with pour-overs and single origin beans and roasting in Toronto—and all of these things started happening.

Jennifer Commins: But tea took a little longer. You had some great retail concepts, like David's Tea—I think they did more than any other company in Canada to push that idea forward of a quality tea experience, flavor exploration, getting people used to steeping with loose leaves as opposed to just a teabag, and showing people what an actual tea leaf looks like, right? I mean, they're not these tiny specks of brown or green—they’re... it's actually a leaf.

And so it was really... all of that kind of came together. And I think the retail had been figured out, but for some reason, making a leap from premium tea in retail to restaurant just took a little longer than I think it should have. So that's really where I saw the opportunity. And some of my first customers were chefs who I had met in my previous life in the corporate world, because I'd be frequenting their restaurants.

Jennifer Commins: So when I started the company and I started blending these things on a kitchen table using locally grown ingredients—'cause I love farmers' markets and I love supporting local food—when I brought them into these chefs, in fact, one in particular, Jamie Kennedy, opened up a bag of loose leaf tea that I'd created, and he put his hand in the bag and he ate it.

And I'm like, "Jamie, no, it's tea."
He said, "Well, but this is how I judge quality for everything. And I don't care if it's tea. I don't care what it is. This is how I evaluate a product."

So thankfully he liked it. Apparently my tea can also be used as a snack. But... and then he was one of my first customers. And from there, it was a lot of word of mouth, and it was honestly a lot of hustling.

You know, I'd be blending tea in the morning, delivering it after lunch—you'd never show up at a restaurant in the lunch rush or the dinner rush, so there's time for everything. I’d deliver the tea, and then I would go knock on some doors after that and hopefully get some new orders. And then, you know, repeat.

Mike Pinkus: And when you were thinking of who your ICP or ideal customer was—you mentioned restaurants, and I guess that's maybe the genesis—but like tea, you were entering a world of, I don't know if you knew the complexity you were entering into in terms of manufacturing and distribution.

But did you think on day one about, like, "Hey, I'm going after wholesale, retail, D2C," like the e-commerce piece of it? What was going through your head back in 2012, and how has that evolved as you started to gain customers and traction?

Jennifer Commins: I'll tell you, it was a funny story. So we—when I say "we," I mean me, 'cause I didn’t have an employee for the first couple of years—I would blend and pack and deliver, and blend and pack and deliver, and take on more and more accounts. And at a certain point, we were growing too fast, Mike. This is a classic problem. Couldn't finance the inventory because guess what? Restaurants don’t always pay on time. And at a minimum, you’ve got 30 days between when you’re making the product and getting paid for it.

So as we were growing and growing and growing, I kind of ran outta capital. My husband and I had an agreement that we weren’t gonna mortgage the house. We weren’t gonna dip into our own financial situation. If I couldn’t make this work with the $5,000 and the credit card, you know, it wasn’t gonna happen.

Jennifer Commins: So in terms of complexity and approach, two things were happening. We had this really interesting, vibrant community of restaurants that loved the tea, and they were talking about it, and consumers were enjoying it. At the same time, we needed to solve for this lack of capital and be able to keep going.

So I actually auditioned for Dragons' Den. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this story. This is like a wild, crazy story. So I was at the Withrow Park Farmers’ Market one morning selling tea by the gram in little bags—which is another thing that I did. So farmers' markets and restaurants were sort of the two channels I was focused on. I went down there, and somebody came into the market and said, “Hey guys, guys, guys, there’s a Dragons' Den audition today. You all should go. Any of you who are making stuff—you should go.”

I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t have… I don’t know, like, my hair wasn’t done. I had an apron on. I thought, there's no way. I mean, this is something you should probably prepare for. And this person just convinced me—“Just get in the car, Jennifer, and go.” I said, “Fine.”

So I brought my little, you know, bags of tea and my little apron, and I went down to CBC and signed a bunch of forms, got in line, and pitched. And who knew what was gonna happen?

Jennifer Commins: Anyway, a couple weeks later, I got a call from one of the producers saying, “Okay, we can’t tell you if you’re gonna be on the show or not, but we’re auditioning new Dragons.” There were a bunch that had left—David Chilton, Kevin O’Leary—so they were auditioning new ones.

I said, “Well, sure, I’ll come down and help you for that.” They said, “Basically, it’s a pretend pitch. It’s not about you. It’s about us putting them on camera and making sure that they look good and can have great conversation—see how they test.” Great.

So I went down for this pretend pitch. I looked a little better this time—I did put some effort in. I had it really nicely set. And so I go in, and I do the pitch. I talk about where we’re at as a company and ask for some ridiculous amount of money on a valuation that was completely unreasonable.

Jennifer Commins: And I should say, I didn’t know who the four guys were I was talking to. Arlene Dickinson was there, and then there were four gentlemen I didn’t really know, and I wasn’t introduced. So I do the pitch, and they start doing the classic, “Oh, well I’ll do it for this,” and “I’ll do it for that,” and “I need 51%,” and “I’ll do a royalty.” I mean, you know the drill if you watch the show.

And Arlene was really quiet. At the end, I said, “Hey Arlene, you’re a little quiet over there.” And she sort of looked at me like, who are you? And she said, “Well, I’ll just do the deal the way you want it.” I said, “Oh… okay, cool.”

And again—it’s all pretend. So I thought. But I might meet her again, right?

So I’m packing up, and she walks over to me and gives me her card and says, “My CFO will contact you in the next day or so.” I’m like, “What?” She goes, “Well…”
I’m like, “What do you mean? Is this for real?”
And she said, “Well, I want it to be real. Do you want it to be real?”
I said, “Well, I mean, yes, of course—oh my gosh. Arlene Dickinson. Oh my gosh. Wow.”

Jennifer Commins: This is crazy. So I took the card. I was completely—I was flushed. Like, I couldn’t organize my tea. It was just a lot.

And then one of the gentlemen came in—it was so surreal—and he goes, “Hey, you know what? You did a great pitch. I’m actually quite interested. And it’s a little unfair, 'cause you were introduced to us, but you don’t know who we are or what our experience level is. But my name’s Andy, and I’d love to continue the conversation with you.”

And I said, “Well Andy, you know, I have a deal with Arlene, and, you know, I appreciate you, and this is great.”
He said, “Well at least maybe let me help you navigate some of this, 'cause it can be a lot.”
I said, “Okay, fine.”
He said, “Listen, can I send you my resume?”
I said, “Sure.”

He sends me the resume—and he’s amazing. He’s got CPG experience, he has a great exit story, he’s really well connected, he happens to know people I know. It just felt like a really interesting potential fit.

Jennifer Commins: At the end of the day, due diligence is due diligence, right? It is a process. We ended up—I ended up—taking his deal. So out of a very strange Dragons’ Den story, where I did not actually appear on Dragons’ Den, I ended up with a deal. And he’s been a partner in the business for quite a while—obviously 10 years now.

So that was kind of how that happened.

In terms of the approach and thinking about the marketplace—now that I had financing to kind of get us through that inventory hump—it was about kind of a Trojan Horse idea.

Jennifer Commins: So I quickly realized that if you put tea into restaurants—and you put them in the right restaurants—people will find them on the menu and want to buy them elsewhere. So we started to think about how can we sell tea more directly. And that's sort of the origin of the online store, which in its first iteration was not a Shopify store—it was a WordPress site with a plugin. It was very, very basic. Early days.

Yes, very early days. And we really kind of ignored it. It was sort of on autopilot. We didn’t run ads, we didn’t do SEO—anything. It was really kind of just there in case people found our tea and wanted to order it while they were sitting in a restaurant. In fact, most of our orders were coming in at like 8 to 11 o’clock at night, which sort of coincides with, you know, when people are ordering dessert at the end of their meal.

Jennifer Commins: So that’s how we thought about it. And that’s been a really... it’s almost like a paid sampling program, right? We’re making money on the tea that we’re selling to the restaurants. The people are loving the tea. They’re looking for it elsewhere.

When COVID hit—so, 2020, an era that nobody in food ever wants to talk about, but we’ll go there—we almost lost everything. We were very, very highly leveraged in food service and also in offices. We had figured out that the office channel was a great place for people to enjoy our tea as well.

And all of it shut. Right? One day the phone’s ringing, two days later it stopped. And unfortunately, we had to lay everyone off. That was awful.

I’m happy to report everyone is back now.

Jennifer Commins: And we have twice the staff as we did then—if not, maybe even more. But it was really a time of... it was a day of reckoning, to have those conversations and try to figure out, okay, what do we do now?

So one of my friends, Peter Neal from Neal Brothers—who’s now with Jonluke & Neal—called me up and said, “Hey, you know, supply chains are questionable right now. We need a premium tea to go into market at places like Whole Foods and Farm Boy and Summerhill Market.”

Essentially, we couldn’t afford to go into any of the big grocery stores because their listing fees are extraordinarily high. So to give you an idea, it would be about a quarter million dollars to get on shelf at one of the big three in the main tea aisle. And that’s just for the right to be on the shelf.

Jennifer Commins: People don’t talk about this—but I will talk about it, Mike—because it’s not great. So if you’re ever wondering why your favorite smaller challenger brand isn’t available at your local large-format grocery store, often it’s simply because the barrier to entry is far too high.

And that doesn’t guarantee you long-term shelf space either, does it?
No—that’s pretty much an eight-month window. And if your velocities don’t justify your staying on shelf, then you’ll be not on shelf in short order. You don’t get a refund.

The other cost base around that is, of course, program fees, couponing, sampling. One day of sampling is around $400 for a brand. And you don’t necessarily get to choose who is sampling. Some have very strict union rules around who is employed to do those kinds of sampling.

Jennifer Commins: It’s kind of a minefield. Big grocery is something we’re grappling with right now. And I think with this “Buy Canadian” sentiment happening around the country, perhaps some of those barriers will come down for smaller brands, because grocers are looking for those Canadian companies that can fill that need for the customers. And we’re getting an increasing level of people asking where they can find our tea. So I think if the time is anytime, the time is probably now for that. And so that channel is emerging.

But going back to 2020—phones stopped ringing, emails stopped coming—you know, we don’t need to go over that again. But my approach or my thought was: okay, I think maybe we might be ready to take D2C more seriously.

Jennifer Commins: So I sat with Shopify and I locked myself in a room. And those very patient Shopify help desk people—I feel like they probably had a sign on the wall saying, “Has Jennifer called yet today?”

They helped me so much. I mean, really, it became—it was—a lifeline.

So when I launched the store on Shopify, I didn’t know if anyone would show up. I didn’t know if the brand had enough exposure yet to make it a success. But sure enough, they did. And we kind of had a standing start. As I mentioned, we had that old WordPress site and, you know, maybe we were doing $15,000 or $20,000 a year—it was really, really not a lot. So I’ll consider that almost a zero.

Jennifer Commins: Today, it’s our third-largest channel. It is growing at a rate of 50%. I mean, it is extraordinary. We’re spending very little in ads—we probably should be spending more. We’re starting to dig deeper on those kinds of topics.

But we built it ourselves. We have since redone it and hired professionals. And, you know, it’s just going so well.

And I’d say over the last couple months, Mike, we’ve seen a lift of 50% month over month, because people are looking for Canadian product. And because we’re unique in that we source Canadian ingredients and we make our own stuff—which is unusual for tea companies. They often will be blending off-site or even in other countries. Germany is pretty popular for that.

We have our own factory here in Leaside that we also built during the COVID period.

Jennifer Commins: I was so fortunate to be awarded the Women’s Entrepreneurship Strategy grant by the federal government in 2019. And with that money, we were able to buy our first teabag machine. So amazing. If we didn’t have that machine on the floor, I don’t think—I hate to contemplate it—I just think it would’ve... it would’ve been very ugly. It was ugly, but it would’ve been pretty, pretty awful.

So there’s kind of the story of how the channel’s evolved. And today, we are probably about 50% food service. I’d say we’re around 30% direct to consumer, and the rest is office and special projects.

Jennifer Commins: So we also do some white label product development for some brands that are very specific. One of my favorites was a blue raspberry tea that I developed for a restaurant chain that wanted a healthier option for their kids’ menu. So rather than focusing on the Coke and Pepsi products, having something that was unique—but could also get around their Coke and Pepsi contracts—because Coke and Pepsi are very protective of their beverage programs, for good reason. But they didn’t have a blue tea that tasted like raspberry, so it wasn’t in conflict.

So we developed that, and it actually changes color with a squeeze of lemon. So it became a "unicorn lemonade" for this restaurant group that has now been on menu for, I want to say, six years. So it’s doing really well for them, and it’s really fun to work on these kinds of white label projects as well.

Mike Pinkus: So do you handle all production for Pluck on your own? No co-packer? Like, you guys do it all yourselves?

Jennifer Commins: Yeah. So we have a team of 12. We have tea makers here that blend and pack the teas every day. We blend and pack about 10 kilos at a time. And we don’t use mechanical blenders. I don’t want to say we use humans, but like... we do it manually.

So we use—actually, ice scoops we’ve found to be the best tool for the purpose. But we have large bins. We measure out all the ingredients by the recipe, combine them together, and then they’re hand-blended. Once they’re hand-blended, they’re gonna go either one way—directly to packing if we’re doing a loose leaf tea—or, all of our teas are available loose and bagged, so they’ll also... most likely—75% of our program right now is tea bags, which is amazing because it was really 20% just a few years ago. And it’s crept up to 75%.

So that tea goes into the teabag machine and gets turned into teabags, which we use fully compostable plant-based material to make. It’s actually sugar cane fiber.

Mike Pinkus: Oh wow. It’s sugar cane fiber?

Jennifer Commins: Yeah. So plastic-free.

Mike Pinkus: That’s incredible. With the health trends going on right now—first of all, tea’s been in the media a lot just for the health benefits to begin with—and there is this health revolution you’re seeing in social media happening right now.

And I think about it a lot. Like, I drink a lot of matcha tea, and you see all these studies about all these health benefits. I just do it for, like—I like that smooth feeling you get that’s a little bit different than coffee.

But now that you’ve gone after... I guess the origin was with restaurants, and you mentioned that split. I see on your website you’ve got retail, wholesale, you’re doing direct to consumer, and you even have tea subscriptions and Pluck Points and all these other things.

Where do you see that? Do you think that mix is gonna change over the next five years as you continue to scale? You’ve got a beautiful website—you mentioned the Shopify backend. Do you think that’s gonna become a greater percentage? 'Cause there are consumers that obviously would love access to high-quality tea, and in Canada, I don’t know of anyone that does it as good as you guys.

Jennifer Commins: Thank you.

Mike Pinkus: So what do you think that split might look like? Have you thought about it over the next, like, three to five years?

Jennifer Commins: I'm obsessed with that question—of course, absolutely. I mean, I think we could approach 50% D2C. I do think it’s really important to continue to develop our food service program and our customers there, because again, it’s kind of like a paid sampling program. But it’s also... it’s wonderful to enjoy a high-quality tea in a restaurant or in a café. So that’s not gonna change.

But if the last two months are anything to judge the future by, I think we’re gonna see exponential growth in the D2C channel. I mean, to give you an idea, I have an ad right now on Facebook—on Meta, so Instagram as well—that is talking about our Canadian roots and our commitment to Canadian products, Canadian ingredients.

Jennifer Commins: And our customer acquisition cost on that ad, and our new customer achievements—we’ve never seen numbers like this. I mean, the ROAS is insanely high. And this is just an in-house-made ad. It’s pretty simple. It’s me just talking about stuff, and we’re seeing incredible results. And we’re spending very, very little on our ads right now. People are sharing them, people are organically discovering and commenting. It’s really amazing.

So I think we’re probably gonna get to around 50 to 60% D2C. That being said, we have some very large retail opportunities that are about to land. And so those channels will also grow. But I do think that D2C online is gonna start to eclipse some of the B2B work—until, of course, we reach a point...

And we are talking to the big three retailers. Some of them do have some interesting programs for Canadians. So we’re very active in those conversations. Should we land a national account with one of them, of course the scales on the split of where our products are going is naturally gonna shift a little bit.

Mike Pinkus: I think that's exciting. I love that you're addressing this. Like, the multi-billion dollar companies control the shelves—and I think it's a problem.

I just came back from the U.S., actually. I was in a Costco, and my wife and I were talking about how they just have a lot more options. You go down the cereal aisle, and it's like—healthier options. You do that in Canada, and it's... it's owned by General Mills, Kellogg’s—like, the multi-billion dollar companies own the shelves.

But what consumers want—they want the cutting edge, the new, the healthy, the trendy. And that's what Pluck Tea falls into—that category. So I'm hoping, like you said, that D2C allows access to people like me. I want to get Pluck Tea—at least I can pull up my laptop and order it. As a consumer, I'm not a restaurant, but I'd love to access high-quality tea.

But do you think that’s going to change with the big grocery stores? To be able to give access to scaling businesses that are gaining traction—to get on those shelves and reduce those barriers?

Jennifer Commins: I really hope so, Mike. And I think the more people talk about it—listen, I’m unusual in that I’m actually talking about it. Most people in my position won’t, because they don’t want to burn any bridge they could potentially have with these brands or these large retailers in the future. But I don’t think anything changes unless people talk about things.

So I think it should change. I think the public needs to put pressure on these companies. Even regionally—let’s say a cluster of downtown Toronto stores picked up Pluck Tea—that should be an option. It’s not currently, but... and there’s reason for that, right? They planograms, essentially, they plan their aisles way in advance—many seasons in advance in a lot of cases. And so it is a complicated thing to try to get on shelf.

Jennifer Commins: And obviously, if you’re on shelf, someone might have been removed. And that person probably paid a listing fee, right? They probably paid that shelf space fee.

So I hope that it changes. And I think it would be great if they had a Canadian aisle to highlight some of these brands. They currently have what they call the "natural health set," which is that sort of other space within these grocers that focuses on organic food—sometimes local—but, you know, it’s the natural, the nutraceuticals, the supplements, the vegan cheese... and so it all tends to sort of be in that zone.

And that’s a less expensive zone to play in. Last conversation we had with one of the big retailers, they said, “You know, the main tea aisle is gonna be prohibitively expensive for you. So probably the best bet is to look at this natural health set area.”

Jennifer Commins: So it’s a bit of a mixed message, right? Because I wouldn’t say that Pluck is inherently... I think the customer who shops for natural health products is probably also a Pluck customer—that’s evident. But why shouldn’t Pluck have a rightful space in the main tea aisle?

The reason why is because we can’t pay the ransom to get on there. And natural health is less traffic and so less expensive. So perhaps that’s where we’ll land.

I gotta give a shout-out to Metro, though. The Metro grocery stores have a local program. It is totally free. So any other entrepreneurs out there who are manufacturing product in Canada—definitely reach out to Metro, because they’ve been great supporters of us.

Essentially, it’s an off-shelf display. It’s its own island. So it’s funny—any Metro store I go to, I always seek out to see where we are. Sometimes we’re beside the fish sticks, sometimes we’re in the produce area, sometimes we’re somewhere else. And these islands are great—they’re profiling incredible brands and great Canadian companies. So they are a destination that people should try to find, like a treasure hunt at Metro.

Mike Pinkus: And Jennifer, I guess—you’ve scaled, and honestly, like, a big congrats to you that you’ve scaled tea. And I know it’s been a long journey. It’s been over a... it’s been over a decade.

But I don’t know what the stats are—I think it’s like 95% of entrepreneurs don’t make it to year five. So a 2012 startup from a $5,000 credit card to where you guys are today is a massive, massive achievement.

And I think there’s... because I agree with you—tea is just underserved in Canada. Obviously, there’s a lot going on in the world with the U.S. relationships, and obviously that could create opportunity as well.

Where do you see Pluck Tea going over the next three to five years? Because I was gonna ask you about challenges, but obviously COVID—you pretty much let us know—I don’t think there’s a bigger challenge than that. But where do you see the business going over the next three to five years?

Jennifer Commins: Oh, that's such a great question. Currently, we are having some interesting conversations with people who’ve reached out—who would like to help get Pluck to the next level. So these are sort of outside investors or people who are watching our growth and saying, “Hmm, maybe our team might be able to help this brand get there faster.” So those conversations are always exciting.

But I think in the absence of a strategic partner coming in, we continue to focus on the Canadian market for sure. There’s a lot more geographical growth that we can tackle. We really have not done a lot of work in the West Coast areas. We have a lot of concentration in business in Ontario, so I think—I’m a big proponent of making sure that you're selling in your own backyard and that you’ve got that figured out first.

Jennifer Commins: In terms of geographical reach into the U.S., we do have some key accounts that are in New York City—one of which is Impact Kitchen. So they’re opening up their first locations there, which is very exciting.

Mike Pinkus: Wow.

Jennifer Commins: Yeah. Have you been to Impact? They’re fantastic. They do—

Mike Pinkus: I haven’t. I’ve heard of them though.

Jennifer Commins: Oh, you need to get there. It’s healthy, it’s delicious. It’s just—it’s really thoughtfully curated meals. Just excellent. So definitely check them out.

So that’s our big sort of partnership foot into the U.S. Now, interestingly, we’ve been seeing a lot more activity on Shopify from the U.S. recently. And it’s almost people who are protesting—I shouldn’t say “almost,” because I read the notes on these orders, and some of them are like, “Elbows up from Pennsylvania.” We’re getting some orders from Americans, which could become a little complicated depending on what happens in the coming weeks and days.

Jennifer Commins: I feel like every day we have a different piece of news on how we are supposed to move tea over the border. But because we are a made-in-Canada product—unlike a lot of others who are importing—because we add at least 51% of the value to the product right here in Toronto, we fall under the USMCA or CUSMA agreement. And so we have a unique opportunity to be less expensive in the U.S. market as a premium brand.

If you think about the tariffs impacting American premium tea brands—their Chinese green tea has now gone up by 145%.

Jennifer Commins: So if you’re packing tea in the U.S. and you’re importing from—well, the two biggest producers of tea right now are India and China, both of which have extraordinary tariffs. And so when your raw ingredient cost goes up by 145%, or 45%, or even 20% in the case of matcha from Japan, that’s super disruptive to the marketplace.

So perhaps there’s an underdog story for Pluck Tea to come in and do some more business in the U.S. But we really want to make sure that we’ve fully served the Canadian market. And I think that will be our focus for the next little while. We have a lot of growing to do up here.

I mean, one of our competitors does around $40 million in direct-to-consumer sales in tea in Canada. And, you know, we’d love to get some of that market share from them—’cause, you know, we think maybe we make more delicious products sometimes.

Mike Pinkus: Yeah. And hopefully—you know what—I think the more and more people that try Pluck Tea, it will start like anything else. When you build a great... when you have a great product, it will draw people in. And I think we’re seeing that.

And I can vouch for it. Like I said, I’m a believer. Because I’m a coffee person at heart in my mornings, and tea has really changed my afternoons. I’ve gotten into matcha. I’ve gotten into all these things I never would’ve been involved in.

And as a Canadian business—like, Jennifer, you’ve done a lot of things. You’ve been around for over a decade. You’ve dealt with fundraising, you’ve dealt with COVID, you’ve dealt with distribution, you manufacture, you deal with the whole production process completely on your own. You have a lot of lessons, probably, that you can share with other entrepreneurs, whether in CPG or otherwise.

But my final question to you is: if you were to give one or two lessons to other entrepreneurs who are not as seasoned as you are—or haven’t been through all the things that you have been through—what advice would you give them? What are a couple of lessons or things that you would share?

Jennifer Commins: Hmm. That’s a great question. First of all, I think you need to find your tribe. I’ve found it immensely helpful to be a part of a founders group. I’m a member of a group called The Founders Club, and it’s a wide range of entrepreneurs from all over the world at different stages of growth. So that’s been incredibly helpful. We have almost a cheat code—this Slack channel where people are asking questions, they’re getting help, they’re getting support.

Being an entrepreneur is a lonely road. So one thing you need to prepare yourself mentally for is that no one’s gonna care as much as you do. No one’s gonna be as passionate about it as you will be. There will be people in your life who aren’t necessarily... their hearts are in the right place, but they might be saying things like, “Are you sure you wanna do this?” or “Maybe you should give it up,” or “Maybe this is too hard.”

Jennifer Commins: And it’s really valuable to surround yourself with people who are also kind of in the same boat. 'Cause entrepreneurs are... like, we’re kind of weird. You know? We are the people that run towards the edge of danger when everyone else is running away.

So I think it’s important to have community—really, really important.

I’d also say: business plans are great, but you need to be flexible. The world is a crazy place right now, and everything is changing all the time. So if you’re thinking about how much money it’s gonna cost to do a project—double it.

Jennifer Commins: And Mike, you know this from your clients too, right? Best laid plans—something can always go wrong. So make sure that you... like in my case, I ran out of cash and I didn’t really have a choice but to bring on a partner. And I brought on a great one.

Be really careful who you partner with. If you do find yourself in conversation with someone who wants to invest, who wants to have some equity—fit is critically important. The money is one thing, but if personalities start clashing or... I’ve just heard so many stories from other entrepreneurs who have had partnerships that have fallen apart.

I’m so thankful for Andy and Dan and Ed, who all came in 10 years ago to help grow the company with me. We still meet every month. We’re a great team. But that’s not always the case.

Jennifer Commins: So I’d say those would be my pieces of advice:
Make sure you have a community around you.
Make sure that you’re flexible.
Try to take some time for yourself.

Things like fitness, self-care, eating well, sleeping—these are all really important things. And it’s really easy to get up in your head and work until midnight several days in a row and just kind of push through. It’s really important to look after yourself, because you’re responsible at some point—probably, if you’re doing it right—for a team. And that team needs you to be healthy, and they need you to be in a stable mental health place as well.

So I think it’s important to ask for help. It’s important to take a break. And invest in yourself as well.

Mike Pinkus: Absolutely. And that’s amazing advice. And Jennifer—for restaurants, retailers, consumers—what’s the best way to reach you?

Jennifer Commins: Okay, well, we have a great website, as you mentioned. It’s pluckteas.com, and we've got a wholesale form there—they can reach out. We are on Instagram at @pluckteas. You can find us on LinkedIn as well. And we look forward to taking over the tea world one cup at a time.

Mike Pinkus: Well, cheers to that. And thank you again, Jennifer, for taking the time. I know you’re a busy CEO, and so really appreciate you taking the time. I’m a huge fan, and I’m cheering you guys on, 'cause I think there’s a lot more growth to come for Pluck Tea. So thank you. Thanks again for joining.

Jennifer Commins: Thank you, Mike, for having me. It’s always great to talk with you.

Mike Pinkus: That was Jennifer Commins, CEO of Pluck Tea. There are many takeaways from my conversation with Jennifer, but two stood out the most.

The first: opportunities are all around us, but it takes action to make things happen. Jennifer showed up to what was supposed to be a practice session for the Dragons' Den cast. Jennifer was there to pitch her business so the network could test the Dragons—to analyze the responses and reactions. It wasn’t a real audition. But little did Jennifer know that appearance would catch the attention of the Dragons and lead to an investment. Jennifer created serendipity just by showing up. The worst-case scenario is she would’ve perfected her pitch for the next real-life scenario with potential investors. But the best-case scenario, which ultimately happened, is she’d be surprised by a cast member showing interest. Either way, there was no downside to showing up and taking action.

Mike Pinkus: The second big takeaway was: COVID was brutal—especially for Pluck Tea, considering it had a significant amount of revenue from restaurants and other brick-and-mortar establishments that were completely shut down. Rather than throwing in the towel, Jennifer acted quickly—downsizing the team and leaning into D2C to build their e-commerce presence.

The big takeaway is: sometimes the hardest decisions are the right ones. No one wants to let anyone go or have to pivot everything they’re doing. What makes businesses successful is the speed in which they can adapt to change. Jennifer’s execution not only saved the business, but allowed the company to come out of COVID much stronger—and with new growth opportunities.

That’s it for today. As always, keep scaling up and breaking barriers.