Hibiscus drinks from Africa made in Montreal

Montreal is a multicultural city and celebrates diversity in many aspects. Diversity can take the form of innovations, curiosity and sustainability. When it comes to the food industry, the city has known a real boom in innovations over the past years. A new drink is now entering the market for non-alcoholic beverages: Hibisko.

African flavors, made in Montreal

Hikmath is a dynamic, ambitious Montrealer who decided to become an entrepreneur and make other Montrealers discover her favourite drink, coming directly from her home country, Benin (West Africa).

Hibisko comes from the world “hibiscus”, a red flower that is emblematic of tropical destinations, but that can also be used in infusions. Hibiscus tea has been consumed in many parts of the world for ages – in Egypt it is called Karkade, in the Caribbean it is agua de Jamaica, and in West Africa, it is called Bissap and it is a traditional drink appreciated for its sweet and sour taste and deep red color.

I had never thought of entrepreneurship before. My parents wanted me to be a doctor.

After growing up in Africa (Cote d’Ivoire and Benin), and studying in France, Hikmath came to Montreal for a fresh start: she began her studies at HEC in 2012 and after graduating, started working in IT. All along the way, she brewed bissap at home, keeping her habits from childhood.

An unquenchable thirst for new products

As Hikmath experienced life in a corporate world, the idea of making a business out of her hobby kept growing in her mind and she saw a fit with the market:

Montrealers love testing new drinks and new products that are healthy and locally made.

Given the current trend of kombucha (cf. Mannanova) and cold-pressed juices (cf. LOOP juices), such products definitely fit with consumers’ expectations and the growing demand for attractive and tasteful non-alcoholic products that are not produced and bottles thousands of miles away.

Hibisko offers three types of flavours: El Classico (a blend of hibiscus and mint infusion), Phoenix (a blend of red and white hibiscus with maple syrup, lemon an cinnamon) and Senshi (a mix of hibiscus, ginger and baobab extract)

Home-made drinks. Home-made everything!

Yes, it is that simple: during the summer of 2018, Hikmath officially quit her job and started being a full-time entrepreneur. She went through a training in Hygiene and food safety and got a license from MAPAQ and she was officially allowed to start making and selling her product. All items are 100% home-made: the hibiscus is brewed, bottled, labelled, straight from Hikmath’s kitchen.

Selling the products online and at special events is a first step. The packaging is also subject to improvement and there is a lot to be done in sourcing raw materials. But I need to feel at ease with my product, take one step after the other, and be open to advice and positive criticism.”

For now you can buy Hibisko drinks online and follow the journey on social media.

A social impact story: creating value out of food waste

If your mission goes beyond selling your product, you will sell more products. That was the first lesson learnt from listening to David Côté, VP of Loop Juice. He discussed entrepreneurship, alive food, fermentation, health, circular economy and innovation at HEC Montréal…

Trekking, traveling, food experimenting

David has always been interested in health, nature and plants. When his father wanted him to follow his footsteps and become a doctor, David was yearning for more – more passion.

He had a revelation when trekking the Appalachian mountains and eating candy bars to get his daily dose of energy. He was surrounded by natural beauty but he was eating unhealthy transformed products. He decided to travel and test all kinds of food habits from fasting in a cave in Hawaii, to experimenting raw food habits. Eventually, after 8 years of traveling and working on organic farms throughout the world, he came back to Montreal with the goal of changing the world.

Entrepreneurship, a way to change the world

“I learned to be an entrepreneur. Starting a venture was not my original idea, but it became the most relevant means to deal with the issue of healthy food and eco-friendly products.”

With his friend Mathieu Gallant, David was experimenting with new food habits taken from his travels in Hawaii and California: making vegan no-bake energy balls and brewing Kombucha in the kitchen. He started delivering lunch boxes made exclusively with raw food to companies and decided to create two startups – a restaurant to promote raw-foodism (Crudessence) and the first Quebec Kombucha company (RISE Kombucha)

“With Crudessence, we wanted to innovate eating habits and give back to people the ability of better feeding themselves.”

In 2016, after 8 years of managing two impact-driven ventures, David decided to sell his shares. His mission was accomplished. He had democratised the fundamentals of raw-foodism and provided an alternative to traditional soft drinks.

More than a serial entrepreneur, a serial world-changer

What other challenge could David address? And what innovation to tackle? For his new venture, David decided to partner with his girlfriend Julie Poitras-Saulnier. They wanted to focus on food waste after getting goosebumps from alarming figures (check this very interesting video from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations):

45% of all the fruits and vegetables produced in the world are wasted

David and Julie decided to open a cold-pressed juice company to fight against food waste. They met Frédéric Monette from Courchesne Larose, a historical player in the Canadian fruits and vegetables industry. When they found out that the company was throwing 16 tons of fruits and vegetables every day, their mind was set and LOOP Juices was born.

Looping around a circular economy

Some might say that it is a project “dans l’air du temps”, that circular economy is nothing but a green washing concept. Maybe. But what David wants to prove that it is possible to provide valuable solutions to a problem.

Everything in LOOP is targeted towards recycling and reusing food waste: one bottle of juice is made out of 1.5 kg of unused fruits and vegetables. But the circular process goes even further: The residual but still nutritious high-fiber pulp is then reused by a pet food company, Wilder & Harrier.

Loop is revolutionizing the value chain by making it circular. It is also providing a model for conscious capitalism.

Limitless innovation possibilities

Starting next week, LOOP is launching a partnership with Sobeys to blend cold-press juices exclusively with products from the giant food retailers. In two months, they will launch their first beer, brewed with dry unsold bread. They are also thinking of making milk out of brewers’ spent grain and flavored water out of leftover essential oils…

From Finance to Craft Brewing, an entrepreneur story

Today, Renaud Gouin has two microbreweries in Montreal, he has been one of the key industry innovators in the past decade, seeing the potential for hoppy beers. How did he become a brewer and entrepreneur? We will have a look at his journey, from HEC Montreal to Jukebox and Avant-Garde.

The beginnings

At first, Renaud didn’t like beer. Because beers were unflavored, standardised, industrial. When he discovered some Belgian beers, he realised that beer could be fruity with almost a non-existent bitterness.

During his studies at HEC Montreal he started home-brewing and discovered that he could actually brew beers that were above industry averages. He also found out that the community of craft beer lovers was a passionate and dynamic one, ready to share their knowledge and experience through social platforms like the MontreAlers on Facebook. Still an amateur, Renaud accepted a position at Desjardins as a Personal Finance Advisor and decided to explore his new passion further.

A potential for innovation

There is such a diversity of flavors in craft beers: fruity, sour, even salty flavors! Some hops like Citra can create flavors of tropical fruits, litchi, passion fruit, without adding any fruit in the brew! Some yeasts like Brettanomyces can give a sour taste of hay.

ipa flavors.jpg — one of the very interesting infographics made by https://vinepair.com

In Quebec, in the early 2010s, over 50 types of beers where still not accessible. There was one particular type that was still not adopted by industrial and medium-sized breweries: that of American Pale Ales and Indian Pale Ales. Their intense bitterness made everyone wince. But Renaud was already creating his own.

When Renaud the corporate vision of life, he decided to take a leap in entrepreneurship but he knew that he could not invest in the heavy and expensive equipment and open his own brewery. He had read a lot about contract brewing and how it succeeded in the US. Without equity, this innovation in manufacturing industry clearly eased the transition to being an entrepreneur for home brewers.

Renaud pitched his idea to Brasseurs de Montreal. At that time, they had never tried the model but as they were not into creating similar products, they decided to go for it.

Introducing hoppy beers in Quebec

Renaud analysed the market and clearly saw an opportunity to catch:

“Unibroue had concentrated their efforts on creating Belgian-style brews while McAuslan was more traditionally focused on English styles but hoppy beers were new to Quebec”

He also wanted to innovate the branding and offer a disrupting image to his beers: unlike industrial or regionally focused images used by the other players, Renaud wanted to offer a whole new world: in 2012, he created his first microbrewery, Jukebox, around the world of rock music. The hoppy flavor of each of the products is as electrical as the guitar on the labels.

If amateurs and curious gourmets liked his new products, Renaud was still working part-time at Desjardins because he needed cash flow.

“Contract brewing was great for distribution and increasing sales revenues but it did not include representation and promotion which is a crucial part.”

Innovating vs. creating profits

With Jukebox steadily working, Renaud wanted to create new products and innovate:

“One thing is to be focused on growth but I am more interested in creativity, passion and innovation and contract brewing is a perfect tool for testing the market and testing new flavors”

Renaud had met with Shawn Duriez, an ex-brewer from McAuslan. They decided to create new innovative beers together and co-founded Avant-Garde. Shawn’s experience on the ground and Renaud’s entrepreneurial experience made them complementary.

Again, timing was of the essence: in 2016, they capitalised on another innovation in the industry: Julien Niquet and David Cayer, co-founders of Glutenberg, were launching Oshlag Brewery, and offering the first contract brewing service for craft breweries. Renaud and Shawn jumped at the opportunity.

With the high popularity of IPAs, they wanted to offer more classical beers while exploring new flavors. They focused their exploration on barrel-aged beers: the Porter Imperial Bourbon, for example, has a vanilla bourbon nose, mixed with coffee, caramel, even banana flavors. They also disrupt classical recipes with the Nocture Coco, an Imperial Porter made with an unconventional ingredient: coconut!

Engineers are innovating the wine experience in Montreal

More and more studies of drinking patterns in Canada show that consumers are moving toward premium beverages and especially towards wine. Following this trend, two young engineers have decided to create the first mobile application that makes wine more accessible to the general public.

Techies that love wine

The seed was planted back in 2011 when a trip to Napa Valley sparked Terence Kao’s passion for wine. Upon his return, he found conventional channels of wine education, such as internet, books and tasting classes, too costly, time consuming and hard to understand. To combine his passion for wine and expertise in mobile, Terence enrolled into an entrepreneurship program at ÉTS, where he met his associate, Jérôme Combet-Blanc. Both came from engineering backgrounds and had a common objective: to democratize access to wine.

wineout team.png

This is where Jessica Harnois comes in the story – indeed, to become a reality, the project required a wine expert and Jessica, a renown sommelier, was looking for a technical partner to develop her idea of a wine tasting game. Chance allowed them to meet and the team was born.

With a starting grant from the BDC in 2016 and support from organizations such as Centech, SAJE and Fondation Montréal inc., the Vegas Tasting mobile application was born.

A blind tasting game and much more!

degustation vegas

Launched in December 2016, Vegas Tasting is the first mobile application focused on making wine tasting more accessible to the public through a game. The app is divided into two parts. In the first part, the user learns to taste like a pro in 3 simple steps while blind tasting a wine: 1) visual analysis 2) olfactory analysis 3) gustatory analysis. In the second part, the user starts with 50 tokens and is invited to bet on the characteristics of the wine, such as the grape variety, country and vintage. This interactive game is the funnier part of the app. To complement this app, Jessica made instructive videos to help players improve their tasting techniques.

A marketplace for tasting products

Wineout is relying on a very smart and innovative business model by offering Vegas Tasting as a tool for wine and beer companies to promote their products and educate their customers. Considering the very restrictive and regulatory environment that governs the sale of alcoholic beverages, it is indeed an innovative way to disrupt the industry.

Growing the business

Wineout has started to think of ways to expand and added a beer tasting game to the app, which received much positive feedback at Mondial de la bière 2017. They are also exploring partnering opportunities to add other beverages such as coffee, spirits, and tea.

In addition, Wineout is also collaborating with Professor Jeremy Cooperstock from McGill University to create an artificial intelligence to provide users with personalized recommendations based on their taste preferences.

Stay tuned for their next monthly event on 1^st November 2017 at Wework. They will be presenting Vegas Tasting for an exciting wine and beer tasting event.

Bastien Poulain, innovating the cola industry

It might be cold in Montreal but the city is bustling with hot innovative projects. Bastien Poulain is one of these dynamic young entrepreneurs surfing on the wave of innovation. He has launched 1642, the first cola made of maple syrup, in a country where the soda industry is clearly dominated by multinational firms.

Entrepreneurship? It runs in the family

Bastien is not from Montreal but his heart now belongs to the city. Born in the French city of Rennes, he was raised in Brittany in a family of entrepreneurs.

“My father and grandfather were both entrepreneurs. It runs in the family. I spent my childhood immersed in this world. Every Saturday morning, I opened the cheques with my father and gave him the amounts.”

However, Bastien knows that having childhood memories is not enough: to be an entrepreneur, you need to have an original idea, and be passionate about it. Bastien started his professional life in China and Montreal in the hotel industry and the idea of a Quebec cola only came to his mind in 2013.

Innovative financing tools

Like many startupers and entrepreneurs, Bastien had to juggle with several financing tools: although he had put money aside before the project, he launched a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and raised $7,111 CAD in a month. He also earned a grant from Fondation Montréal Inc, and credit from Banque Nationale and from private investors through the TV show “L’Oeil du Dragon”. Bastien knows that money is the backbone of his effort: “financing is a continuous goal that we have to consider on a daily basis to manage our growth”

Producing a local soda through social entrepreneurship

Producing alternative sodas is not a new idea and there are many examples in the world, such as Breizh Cola, a soda launched in Bastien’s original region of Brittany, but what is so innovative and special about 1642 is that (almost) everything about it is local.

“In Quebec, we have the chance of having the most natural and healthy sugar so when we asked ourselves what we would put in our cola, the answer was crystal clear”.

Not only is the product local but it is also perfectly adapted to the changing market: Today, consuming local products is not a trend anymore, it is a fact.

Bastien is dedicated to working with quality local actors: his company is the only one in the soda industry working with the best Canadian micro-distillery, Le Domaine Pinnacle. All providers and employees are local. The cola itself is named after the foundation date of Montreal, and Bastien has already developed strategic language elements and strong communication.

“We want to tell a story with our 1642, a story for all Montrealers, whether we were born here or made it our home. This is the story of our proud city”.

Consumers become influencers

1642

Bastien started his adventure by targeting the Canadian market and neighbour states who have a good image of Canadian products. His target consumers are in their twenties and thirties, they are striving for innovative products and they like to tell all about it. “1642 is not a luxury product, it is a quality product”. Although an individual bottle will cost around $2 CAN in Canada, it is distributed in more than 600 locations in Quebec (you will find a helpful interactive map of Montreal on the website), in prestigious restaurants (Le Toqué, l’Européa in Montreal), in supermarkets and delicatessen shops. 1642 wants to create a niche on the fizzy drink market.

Next steps?

There is no doubt that 1642 will continue to grow in Canada but the company wants to develop sales in Europe, China and the US. They have also started to expand the range of products with 1642 Tonic, their new soda. In the short term, communication and PR remain a key issue and Bastien will represent Canada as a delegate at the G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit (G20YEA) in Beijing in August 2016, along with 16 other entrepreneurs.

1642 is sold in more than 600 locations in Quebec and 20 in France and Belgium, you can also buy it online. It is very active on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Personally, I have tasted it at L’Intermarché Universel, 89 av. du Mont-Royal Est.