Subscription box offers residents the chance to try local products

By Michelle Poirier

Small business owner, Chris Campbell, offers Georgina residents the opportunity to discover local businesses and try Georgina-made products through his bi-monthly subscription box, Georgina Small Business Collective.

Campbell, who’s a beekeeper and owns Hiveshare, founded the business a year and a half ago and has been hand-delivering the boxes himself to subscribers, introducing them to businesses in town that they may not know about.

“I started it because I love where I live. I want people to shop here and not just in Toronto or Newmarket. That always drives me crazy; we have everything we need right here for the most part,” he said.

Campbell said he was already delivering for Hiveshare, so he decided to deliver the box as well.

While Georgina is growing a lot, with many new families moving in, Campbell believes they may not know all that Georgina has to offer, and the subscription box can help open their eyes.

He also wanted to help local retail businesses that were struggling during the pandemic.

“There are a lot of little businesses that I want people to see and to buy local. To keep the money in town, instead of all of it going to online retailers,” he said.

“I mean Amazon’s great, and we all use it to varying degrees, but there’s a lot of great things which we can get faster and fresher in town.”

A directory is also included each month to inform the subscribers which businesses are in the box and how to contact the company for more product.

An important aspect of the business is that little packaging ends up in landfills.

He uses recyclable and compostable boxes, which can also be reused.

Many subscribers will keep their box until the next delivery, so that Campbell can pick them up and reuse them.

The back of the boxes say how many times the box has been reused.

Each subscription box is $75, or you can sign up for a three-month subscription for $210, which works out to be $70 a month, or a six-month subscription for $390, which would be $65 a month.

You can visit the Georgina Small Business Collective Facebook page for more information and to subscribe.

Businesses interested in being included in the box can reach out on Facebook. There is a small fee for Campbell to collect the items and put them in the box.