This Commerce Life

Natasha Chawla spent 25+ years in the corporate world working on brands like Coca-Cola and Unilever before launching Greens&Beans — a line of vegetable-packed, allergen-free pasta sauces born from her own kitchen.What started as a mom's mission to feed her allergy-prone, hockey-playing son healthy meals turned into a full-fledged CPG brand now landing on shelves across British Columbia and beyond.In this episode, Natasha shares the real journey: the R&D nightmare of scaling from 10 litres to 300 (when her sauce turned into dessert), the pivot from glass bottles to shelf-stable pouches for e-commerce, and the hard lesson that getting into a store is only half the battle — you still have to sell it.Kenny and Phil also dig into the practical side of growing a food brand the right way: why training your distributor matters, how to pace your retail pipeline so you don't outgrow your co-packer, and the power of collaboration with complementary brands.Whether you're just starting out or scaling up, this conv