How to be fearless: Grammy nominee Allison Russell and eight other notable Canadians share their secrets to success

Success comes in many forms, but often has a single ingredient: boldness. We asked headlining Canadians to reflect on how they stayed fearless in 2023, and how they plan to challenge themselves in the year ahead.

Grammy nominee Allison Russell

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For Allison Russell, 2023 began in December of 2022.

The Montreal-born, Nashville-based singer-songwriter recorded The Returner – now a four-time Grammy-nominated album – during that year’s winter solstice. Helping her over six days at Henson Recording Studios in Los Angeles was the all-female musical collective she calls the Rainbow Coalition – with cameo contributions from roots-music force of nature Brandi Carlile, country artist Brandy Clark and Irish folk-soul star Hozier.

“I felt triumphant just having packed the room in the way that I and Drew Lindsay and JT Nero had dreamt of,” Russell said from Nashville, naming her co-songwriters and co-producers. “With the inspiring women that I’d been playing music with over the past couple of years since Outside Child came out.”

Outside Child, her debut solo album, made her an overnight sensation (albeit two decades in the making). The breakthrough record was released in 2021 after she spent 20 years working within groups Po’ Girl, Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters. Documenting Russell’s past pain and celebrating her resilience and redemption, the album earned her universal critical praise, a Grammy Award nomination and trophies from the Junos in Canada and the Folk Alliance and Americana Music in the United States.

With this level of success usually comes a demand to follow-up, but Russell said she is “a little immune to that kind of pressure.”

“I’m a bit free from the trap of feeling the need to try to anticipate what anyone will think of your art, because, first and foremost, I make art and music as an act of self-rescue.”

The Returner is a soulful expression of Black liberation, Black love and Black self-respect. It is also the second chapter of Russell’s musical memoir that began with The Outsider. “It’s feeling joy in the teeth of turmoil and tragedy and the feeling of coming back to one’s body after feeling disassociated and disconnected,” she explains.

Beyond the well-received release of The Returner, highlights of Russell’s 2023 include her participation in a star-studded tribute concert to Joni Mitchell in Washington State this summer that was billed as Mitchell’s first ticketed concert in 20 years. (The Circle Game icon made a surprise appearance at Newport Folk Festival in 2022.)

“I’m endlessly inspired by Joni,” Russell said. “Not only as a songwriter, but as a free-thinking, unfettered human moving with very little fear through the world, unabashedly herself in all circumstances.”

We saw a bit of that fearlessness from Russell in 2023. In response to Tennessee introducing a law banning drag performances on public property, she organized Nashville’s Love Rising benefit concert in support of LGBTQ causes, with singer-songwriter Jason Isbell. Among the performers were Maren Morris, Sheryl Crow, Hayley Williams, Hozier and Brittany Howard.

This past fall, she and her Rainbow Coalition of associates played the Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion festival in Virginia. “I think we were some of the only queer artists and artists of colour on the entire bill,” she said.

Eyebrows were raised when Russell brought Gloria Johnson to the stage. Johnson, a Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and a candidate for the U.S. Senate, was one of three Democrats who led a controversial protest for gun control – decidedly unpopular in the South – on the state House floor.

“I sang a song called Tennessee Rise that is a direct anti-gun-violence song,” Russell said. “We saw some people walking out and who were upset with us, but the vast majority was really responsive toward what we were talking about. When you speak from the heart and you’re not trying to cast shame or blame, people respond shockingly well.”

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• How I surprised myself in 2023: “By making my video with my beloved chosen brother from Montreal, the film production designer and director Ethan Tobman. He made the video for my song Demons with me over three days in Prague. I felt like I was suddenly thrust into the role of a Marvel Comics hero. I was wearing wires and flying around and learning choreography and being flown off cliffs. It was the most outside-of-my-comfort-zone thing I’ve possibly ever done.”
• What keeps me level-headed: “Mortality. We have such a brief time here. When we accept that and know that, it helps us live as ourselves. No matter how much we try to conform, there’s a reason we have our own internal compass.”
• How I recover from failure: “By taking ego out of it. So often, when people feel a paralyzing sense of failure, it’s about insecurities.”

– Brad Wheeler

Social-justice advocate Lauren Ravon

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Lauren Ravon has been an activist for as long as she can remember. But as the current executive director of Oxfam Canada, with more than 15 years of international development experience behind her, she said she’s never witnessed a time quite as tumultuous as the present.

“I definitely wouldn’t underplay the craziness of the moment we’re facing,” Ravon said. “Everything seems to be accelerating and the world really feels like it is in a precarious state.”

It is a particularly challenging time to be in Ravon’s shoes, as climate change is disrupting every single country the organization works in, only further exacerbating issues of displacement that disproportionately affect women and are unfolding alongside a backsliding of women’s rights across the globe.

The gender-justice organization she helms takes a multifaceted approach to addressing complex global issues, with a combination of long-term community programs, humanitarian aid and advocacy work.

“By doing these three things together, Oxfam is a more powerful organization,” Ravon said. “We’re there during an emergency, saving lives, but we also stay well past when the spotlight has left to help communities rebuild, and we’re also looking at the drivers of whatever the crisis was.”

Tackling such serious, heavy issues in her work requires that Ravon prioritizes lightness in her life whenever possible. She loves to run on the mountain in Montreal, where she lives, calling it her “happy place.” Her husband and two young children help to ground her when she needs it most.

Ravon is also beginning to see activism in a new light. She believes there’s something incredibly destructive about the “you’re either with us or against us” narrative that is so prevalent today, and feels there’s too strong of an emphasis on demonstrating outrage.

“It’s not what our world needs now,” she said. “That doesn’t mean being complacent or by any means compromising on your values, but realizing that dialogue will get you further than grandstanding.”

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “I’ve tried to prioritize building bridges with people over being right. Sometimes it’s harder and bolder to try to find a point of common ground than it is to just stand on your own for something. That probably hasn’t been my strength in my 40 years on this planet, but it’s something I’ve surprised myself by doing more of this year.”
• My secret weapon: “I often think if I didn’t have a family to go home to, I would be crushed by the weight of this work. ... Seeing the world through the eyes of a toddler, the naiveté and the joy that kids have in the midst of it all, it just keeps things in perspective and it makes you want to fight harder for justice because this is their future.”
• How I recover from failure: “I’ve learned to reconsider what failure even is, and in this moment of humanity, sometimes just treading water is actually a success. Even if you’re just holding ground and you haven’t made a step forward, but you haven’t taken two steps back, sometimes you have to celebrate that. It takes a lot of collective humility to realize that holding the line is as good as it gets in certain moments.”

– Mira Miller

Fashion trailblazer Celia Sears

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Celia Sears’s résumé reads like an early draft of a fashion-centric Netflix series. Since the 1980s, she has persevered in a business that treats Black women and their needs unfairly, resulting in a 30-plus year career as a model, journalist and industry force who highlights inclusivity.

A mainstay at Milan Fashion Week, her equity-focused processes were acknowledged by Vogue in 2023 as she was chosen by the fashion bible as one of 100 Champions of Change. This honour was due to the ways Sears raised awareness on diversity issues through Show Division, a beauty talent agency she owns and founded in 2015. Also last year, Sears was given a We Award, which acknowledges Women of Excellence in business (recipients were chosen by Il Sole newspaper, the Financial Times and Sky Italia).

“My legacy is far from over,” Sears said. “It is just in the early stages.”

Sears began her career in Toronto’s conservative fashion industry in the eighties, while she was still living in Oakville, Ont., with her parents (who hail from Jamaica and Guyana). For clients such as MAC and the Bay, Sears found herself following in the footsteps of iconic Canadian faces such as Caribbean-Canadian models Skanks and Ethné Grimes-de Vienne. Like them, Sears quickly understood she was reshaping our country’s conventional beauty standards simply by showing up to work and having a point of view.

While modelling, Sears found the majority of hair and makeup teams hired had no clue how to style her or what products to use, often uttering the same five words to her: “I don’t do Black hair.”

“I was often told to arrive prestyled and ready to go – which was unfair,” she said. “I had to hire someone to do my hair or do it myself. I was paying out of pocket to work. No other white models were doing that.”

Instead of giving up on fashion, Sears found a way to transform it in a way that she said went “beyond stereotypical ideas of diversity.” She segued from modelling to fashion journalism, inching her way to co-producing fashion shows. “I saw the lack of visibility on the runways throughout my entire career and how Black models were mistreated backstage.”

A move to Milan from Toronto in 2001 allowed her career to soar as she wrote for magazines such as Fashion Quarterly and, eventually, Vogue Italia.

“I was pigeonholed and didn’t have any encouragement and then Vogue came along and gave me carte blanche to pull together stories for them in a way which liberated me. The Vogue Black issue was a springboard but it was also a sign that I was meant to do more and be more.”

The opportunity propelled Sears to take on the responsibilities of being owner, chief executive officer and president of Show Division. As Sears’s roster went on to become leading creatives at fashion shows for Dior, Chanel and Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, she witnessed the social impact the agency instigated.

In 2021, Sears and her team devised Inclusive Backstage Masterclasses, a series of lectures focused on Afro textured hair and BIPOC-centred makeup tutorials. She flew experts such as Toronto-based hair stylist Adrian Carew – whose clients include Deborah Cox, Stevie Wonder and Laverne Cox – into Europe. Carew helped Sears come up with an essential list of products and practices required to properly grasp the nuances of Black beauty application.

“Celia’s determination to serve underrepresented talent in fashion has been happening for years,” Carew said. “Celia is fighting against old-school ignorance in the most amazing way and hopefully her workshops will be implemented across all the international shows.”

Next, Sears is starting a line of beauty products specifically formulated to style and care for textured and chemically treated hair after, before and during extreme conditions happening backstage.

When asked whether she’s worried about getting into yet another side of the fashion and beauty business, Sears responds with a resounding no. “If you want to move anything further along,” she said, “you have to leave your comfort zone. It’s far too limiting.”

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “When I ended up on Vogue’s Champions for Change list. It made me think, ‘You know what? I did it.’ ”
• What keeps me level-headed: “Listening to my daughters sing. Qwyn inspires me when she sings with her a cappella group, Countermeasure. Kyla is a solo singer-songwriter [who] just released a beautiful album called Edible Flowers.”
• How I recover from failure: “I never see failure as a negative – it’s a teaching moment. I’ve also reread the book called The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer.”

– Elio Iannacci

Olympic-bound surfer Sanoa Dempfle-Olin

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The surf pouring into Chile’s Punta de Lobos was gigantic, but 18-year-old Sanoa Dempfle-Olin flouted her nerves and charged two massive waves on her board. That fierce performance – in the women’s shortboard semi-final at the 2023 Pan American Games in October – catapulted her into the final. When she reached the shore, she was handed a provisional ticket to the 2024 Paris Olympics, making her the first Canadian surfer to ever qualify for the Games.

It will be her biggest competition yet, and she is ready for the challenge.

“Surfing, like any sport, comes with its risks. The ocean is very powerful and you’re at mother ocean’s mercy,” Dempfle-Olin said. In the events she competes in, surfers are rewarded for high levels of risk and creativity.

“It’s good to feel a little fear. I always feel nervousness before every heat I surf. I think you have to be grateful for it, because it means that you care.”

Dempfle-Olin has surfed in many places, from El Salvador to Hawaii. But her roots are in cold water, and she’s been shredding waves since she was a little girl growing up on the rugged coastline of Tofino, B.C. There, avid surfers hit the ocean year-round. Undaunted by winters, they zip into thick hooded wetsuits, specialized boots and gloves, before paddling into frigid 8-degree waters to rip the next swell.

“I personally love surfing in colder water. It’s special to me. I like the ritual of putting on my wetsuit and bundling up,” Dempfle-Olin said. Doing so comes with additional risks – including hypothermia and an increased likelihood of boat trouble – but she looks forward to it any time she’s home.

She learned to surf from her mother, Dion, who home-schooled her and her sister Mathea, two years older. The sisters surfed everyday, and by age 12, Dempfle-Olin became the youngest female surfer to win the Tofino Rip Curl Pro. Both sisters have become national-team surfers – first as juniors, then as two of Canada’s best females at any age.

Off the water, Dempfle-Olin strengthens and limbers her body in the gym to take on the mightiness of the swell and avoid injuries when she’s bounced off her board. Weather and waves can change quickly out there.

“It’s very taxing on your arms, shoulders and upper back to paddle,” Dempfle-Olin said. “Leg strength helps do more powerful turns and control yourself and your surfboard where you get into bigger and bumpier conditions. When you’re going fast, it can be very hard to control your board.”

Her qualification for the Paris Olympics competition is provisional upon her competing in the 2024 ISA World Surfing Games in Puerto Rico in February. As she travels and trains, she juggles online high-school studies and is zeroing in on graduating soon. She hopes to focus on surfing full-time.

“You feel a connectivity to the ocean and the animals and the landscape around you,” she said. “It’s such a big thing, and you’re a small part of it.”

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “In Chile, I surprised myself a lot. I was mentally tough in that event. I had lots of heats where I felt myself getting in my head a little bit, feeling nerves and pressure, and I did a really good job of talking myself out of that and getting into the zone. I was surprised what I was capable of.”
• How I recover from failure: “Some losses are worse than others in competition, but you have trust in your journey – as cheesy as that sounds – and believe that your life is unfolding as it’s meant to. The little things that happen teach you lessons and lead you ever so slightly to different routes. You have to believe that it’s taking you where you’re meant to be.”
• My biggest challenge in 2024: “Competing in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. That’s going to be a big event and I’ll have a lot of nerves and excitement. I’ll do as much training and preparing as I can for that situation, but it will definitely be out of my comfort zone.”

– Rachel Brady

Clean-beauty founder Lisa Mattam

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It’s not often that Canadian beauty brands make an impact on the global stage. But Sahajan, a skin-care line based on Ayurveda, a 3,000-year-old natural system of medicine that originated in India, has done exactly that.

In 2023, Lisa Mattam, chief executive officer and founder of Sahajan, announced a hotel partnership with JW Marriott, launching Sahajan products into all 400 of the hotel conglomerate’s properties in New Delhi, New York and at home in Toronto. The deal was big in itself, but it also helped Mattam court the attention of high-profile investors such as Celeste Burgoyne, president, Americas and global guest innovation at Lululemon; Yvonne Strahovski, who stars in The Handmaid’s Tale; and Rupi Kaur, The New York Times bestselling author and poet.

“It was beyond amazing to receive such enthusiasm and attention from investors who seemed to really believe in me ... and it’s beautiful to see how other Canadians rallied behind a homegrown brand,” Mattam said.

Mattam has always been aware of the power that celebrity investors hold. She launched her brand at the gifting lounge at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015, and through her gonzo-style networking was able to get her products on the faces of celebrities visiting Hollywood North. The beauty brand has been used on sets for Schitt’s Creek, Ginny & Georgia, Star Trek: Discovery and The Handmaid’s Tale.

“Celebrities are trendsetters and tastemakers and are often early to experience and embrace movements,” Mattam said.

Those who participated in Sahajan’s recent round of equity funding may have also been aware of a growing appetite for Ayurvedic products. In 2022, Verified Market Research, a global research firm, projected that the market for Ayurvedic products would accelerate with a double-digit annual growth rate and hit US$21.2-billion by 2028.

Mattam’s foresight caught Sephora Canada’s attention in 2016, when the leading beauty retailer selected Sahajan for the first cohort of its Accelerate brand incubation program just four months after she went into business. This year Sahajan will officially launch at Sephora.

“At times, navigating negotiations and waiting to hear whether we got it, whether it was funding or the deal with Marriott, was scary. There were a lot of times that I held my breath this year. But I did it,” Mattam said.

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “When we finally got the financing deal done. It feels strange to ask people for money, to invest in your business, especially for the first time. But we got it done in four weeks … thanks to the amazing help I had.”
• My secret weapon is: “My two kids. They give me unconditional love when I’m super stressed. I also love seeing the world through their eyes. They’re discovering new things, and to witness that makes me feel like life is good.”
• How I recover from failure: “Failure generates a lot of emotions that need to be processed, so I let myself have a good cry and then I try to work it out in the gym.”

– Daniel Reale-Chin

Food-service disruptor Hassel Aviles

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Hassel Aviles has worked in Toronto’s restaurant and hospitality industry for 23 years. Starting at 17, she quickly experienced the systemic issues of inequality and abuse that plague its core. But eventually she saw an opportunity to disrupt the status quo – and inspire meaningful community change. Today, the 43-year-old Canadian-Chilean is the founding director of Not 9 to 5, a non-profit global leader in mental-health advocacy, training and education for the hospitality and culinary sector.

“There’s so much emphasis on the sustainability and ethical treatment of the ingredients in menus,” Aviles said. “What I’m trying to do with Not 9 to 5 is push to have the same focus on the ethical treatment of people that are producing, growing, serving and creating everything we consume.”

Aviles, who has shared her own challenges with mental illness, including substance use and suicidal ideations, started the organization in 2018 to have a long-overdue conversation around workplace psychological safety, support and resources. It now has partners in the United States, Britain, Australia and Denmark, and is her full-time job.

“I can’t emphasize enough for anyone who might be feeling alone or mentally or physically ill that lived experience is invaluable, and we have so much that we can learn from each other if we are willing to open ourselves up a little bit to share our story.”

Although Not 9 to 5 was co-founded on instinct, validating claims using data has become integral to everything it does. “In 2021, when we surveyed our industry, we found out that 87 per cent were feeling symptoms of burnout, 84 per cent were feeling symptoms of anxiety, 76 per cent were feeling symptoms of depression, 63 per cent were feeling symptoms of disordered eating,” she said. “We wanted to share that research with the industry because they’re extremely high rates. This is not some of us. This is most of us.”

Recently, Not 9 to 5′s focus has shifted toward empowering hospitality workers with education through its CNECTing certification program and storytelling through We Have Lived, its newly launched podcast.

Aviles is hopeful – but clear-eyed – about the future. “I think within the industry, there’s been a lot of shifts,” she said. “I would argue, though, that there are a lot of systems outside of just the industry that are complicit in keeping things the way they are.”

As an example, the former restauranteur points to food media coverage that continues to feature problematic chefs and establishments with toxic and abusive environments.

She also believes government has a larger role to play in transforming the industry.

“Tipping needs to be abolished to create livable wages for everyone,” said Aviles, as she explains its racist origins that date back to slavery. “But that’s not going to ever happen without government support. Ultimately, we need to decolonize our societies as much as we need to decolonize our restaurants.”

• My secret weapon: “Sharing my story keeps me fearless. I experience social anxiety, and it’s still really hard to do public speaking but I do it anyway. Doing the thing that scares me the most is one habit. And constantly trying new things – not being afraid to say yes to something even if I might suck at it or it’s my first time.”
• How I recover from failure: “A lot of times, we want to escape those feelings, but I always say lean into the discomfort. Sit in the discomfort of all the things that come up. It’s hard, but it helps a lot.”
• My big challenge in 2024: “Hosting a massive food festival in June. It’s the kind of event I said I would never do again, yet here I am. I used to run the Toronto Underground Market, and I’m basically doing a 10-year reunion. It will be a huge ‘leaning into the discomfort’ moment because it puts me in the spotlight. I don’t like the spotlight, but it’s important. We’re going to raise a lot of money for Not 9 to 5, so I’m excited.”

– Aman Dosanj

Comedian and writer Sunthar V.

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It was this past summer that comedian and writer Sunthar V. hit a milestone he never could have predicted: He became the first Tamil person to sell out Paris’s Apollo Theatre, a stage that legends Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle have graced.

It’s made the 34-year-old’s goals even bigger, and his mindset even more resolute.

“Doing that for 300 people was huge for me,” said Sunthar V., who is from Scarborough, Ont., and now divides his time between Toronto and London, England.

“I always thought my jokes about growing up in Scarborough, being Tamil and being queer were specific to that space. But they landed in a different geography with different people, which was the ultimate validation.”

Which, by the way, isn’t new for the young comedian, who has performed all over the world, from New York to Chennai, India, to Zurich. Still, the experience lit a fire to broaden his audience even more, to get better at his craft. “Audiences who don’t know me are the toughest to win over,” Sunthar V. said.

His act – which he performs in English and Tamil – often reflects on growing up queer and brown as the child of refugees, and navigating those Eastern and Western identities. Well-versed on what it’s like to be one of few in the industry from his community, Sunthar V. has also made it his mission to create a space for other comics who share similar stories, to make their way up a little easier.

He’s the founder and host of London’s Tamil Comedy Club, a monthly open mic show that provides a stage for LGBTQ and other underrepresented comedians. This year he will be beginning a monthly Toronto instalment of the club, with dreams of making it to Just for Laughs.

Sunthar V. only recently quit his day job, committing full-time to comedy. That’s brought him back to Toronto, where he’s living with family while hopping back across the waters on a show-by-show basis.

Amid the pressure of getting booked and keeping busy, he reminds himself that it is a gift, after all, to be able to perform an art that brings relief and light. Which makes it essential, he said, to “put on a good show in what I feel are really dark times for a lot of people.”

• My secret weapon: “There’s nothing like a South Asian family to ground you, especially your cousins and your siblings. Any time I let anything get to my head, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, because both do happen, my family are the ones who are like, ‘Do you know who you are? We know who you are.’ ”
• How I recover from failure: “I know that feeling is temporary. Every one of those experiences – when I bomb onstage or with a joke – just means I need to do more work, throw it out or remedy it so it doesn’t happen again. And even if it does happen again, it’s okay, I just need to consider what to do differently.”
• My big challenge in 2024: “Most of my comedy is political. So it needs to reflect the current climate as well as my own experiences and how I feel about them. … That’s the next big challenge: learning how to be reflective of the moment.”

– Sadaf Ahsan

Sobey Art Award winner Kablusiak

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The uncompromising zest, novel relatability and thoughtful investigation of colonization intertwined in Kablusiak’s work has resulted in exponentially increasing accolades. But for Kablusiak, the win that stood out in 2023 was when they became the first Inuvialuk artist and third Inuk to take home the coveted Sobey Art Award.

“It’s amazing that I’m able to spotlight being an urban Inuk,” Kablusiak said. “That’s really special and supersurreal.”

Kablusiak often incorporates current, humorous and sometimes surprising cues into their artistic work. An example is the cheerful assemblage of embroidered emojis displayed at the recent Art Toronto fair in October. The artist crafted these whimsical felt expressions – including a face with heart eyes and an upside-down head – as a thank you to people who had donated money toward the creation of Kablusiak’s facial tattoo. Each person was asked to choose their favourite emoji and Kablusiak rendered it in a tactile form.

Their oeuvre also includes an array of Ookpik, an owl character created by the Inuk artist Jeannie Snowball decades ago. Some are made out of traditional materials such as seal and rabbit fur, but others are presented as being plucked, or taking the form of the cartoon character Garfield or, in one instance, wearing leather bondage gear.

“I love using those motifs,” Kablusiak said. “It reminds everyone, including myself, that Inuit are contemporary beings.” Other notable works include a carved soapstone ball gag.

Kablusiak said their move into the visual arts came naturally. “I grew up surrounded by art by my family on both sides. Sculptors, carvers, painters … we had bone sculptures on the coffee table at home. Being an artist wasn’t considered weird or taboo, and my parents were supersupportive of me going to art school after high school.”

After graduating from the Alberta University of the Arts, Kablusiak “started getting involved in artist-run centres – volunteering, being on the board, being involved in any way I could. That gave me so much mentorship by being immersed in the arts community in Calgary.” Now, that launch pad has sent Kablusiak into classrooms and other spaces to educate and invigorate young artists.

“I love being able to talk to students, because they’re the ones that are ready to receive information and their minds are open.”

Kablusiak should still have a long career ahead of them, having turned 30 last year. “I give myself a little pat,” they say about garnering several lofty accolades so far. “It’s fun to grind and then see where you wind up.”

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “Going through the whole Sobey Art Award process again, I had to be mentally prepared that it could go many different ways and I had to be okay with that. And the whole process itself is superintense; you’re putting a lot of energy out into the world and hoping for the best and it’s exhausting.”
• How I recover from failure: “By letting myself be sad for a little bit. And then I try not to ruminate, because life goes on. I’ve been learning about different teachings around mindfulness and the art of letting things go.”
• My big challenge in 2024: “Pushing myself to go even further conceptually and allowing myself freedom from the narrative that I’ve wrapped myself in about expectations of Inuit art. I think I’m ready to let go of that expectation.”

– Odessa Paloma Parker

Food-waste innovator Bradley Crepeau

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Not wasting food is one of the easiest and most powerful actions an individual can take to lower their carbon footprint. So, when entrepreneur Bradley Crepeau, founder of Ottawa-based Food Cycle Science, developed a countertop appliance that pulverizes and dehydrates 90 per cent of the fruits and vegetables we throw out, turning it into plant-based fertilizer, he thought he had a product consumers would love.

He and his sales team went on the road explaining the benefits of the FoodCycler: It would deal with food waste at the source. It would save energy costs associated with waste disposal. It would divert organic waste from landfills. And it would be really good for our warming planet by helping to lower greenhouse-gas emissions. (According to the UN Food Waste Index, Canadian food waste, when it decomposes, produces 14 per cent of this country’s total greenhouse-gas emissions).

That was 10 years ago, and the response was tepid at best.

“When people have been disposing of waste the same way, for decades, they are reluctant to change,” Crepeau said. “We have made it too convenient for people to put it at the curb and forget about it.”

Three years ago, Food Cycle Science switched tacks. Crepeau decided to focus instead on getting municipalities to subsidize the cost of putting FoodCyclers into homes, thereby giving consumers a user-friendly way to discard of food scraps and providing local governments with a cost-effective alternative to green bins, whose waste has to be hauled away to landfills.

In early 2023, Food Cycle Science had a breakthrough, signing Nelson, B.C., as their first large-scale municipal customer. Nelson city staff told the CBC that participants processed more than 30,000 litres of organic waste during a three-month period and estimated the appliance’s use could save 280 kilograms of carbon dioxide a year.

Word spread. Food Cycle Science now has more than 135 municipalities using the FoodCycler ECO 5, which retails for $799. The company – which employs 52 people, including 20 engineers – also has a smaller product, the ECO 3, coming out this year.

“As a company we are looking to be a thought leader in this space,“ Crepeau said.

“Food waste is a global issue. Backyard composters and worm bins are great. The city-run green bin recycling programs are helpful, too. But the reality is way too much food waste is still making it into landfills,” said Crepeau, who adds that 60 per cent of Canadian food waste is avoidable.

“We try to differentiate by being more convenient. However, we can make all the FoodCyclers we want but without behavioural change in society, we won’t be able to solve the global food waste problem.”

• How I surprised myself in 2023: “Fostering a culture where quitting doesn’t exist. ... I’m most surprised this year by the power of resiliency. It is contagious.”
• What keeps me level-headed: “My friends and family. Hard times and failure are inevitable when trying to scale a business, so having a support system that helps you when you’re down, but also celebrates the wins is critical.”
• How I recover from failure: “Spending time with our new son, Beckham, helps keep ‘failure’ in perspective. It helps you realize what is actually important at the end of the day. He’s also the motivation to get back up and try again.”

– Gayle MacDonald