The urgency to act to make a difference

Tomorrow, tomorrow… it’s already too late. The future is being built today. “I’m very impatient deep down,” Anne confides candidly, with a bitter aftertaste, tinged with a frustration that she has trouble swallowing. “We are aware that our way of life is harmful, no one can hide from it anymore. So, what more will it take for us to move? The boat is so slow to turn!”

An ethics teacher for seven years and trained in social studies, the founder of Panda roux, now Demain Demain, put her need to help and make a difference at the top of her list of priorities. “Teaching is also about educating. And you have to be consistent, it’s a question of integrity. At school, I had set up a community garden and a greenhouse project, but it wasn’t moving fast enough for me. Plastic wasn’t even recycled, apparently for administrative reasons! And all that over-packaging in lunches that ended up in the trash… It was like I was betraying myself; I had to do something.”

In 2014, Anne started her own business, making fabric snack bags in her basement, in the evenings and on weekends. “I got into it.” Since 2017, she has been putting her energy into it full-time, and it’s working! Demain Demain now has more than 100 points of sale in North America. The company even develops personalized eco-friendly promotional items for businesses, organizations and municipalities.

Trees, belugas… and our teenagers

“Teenagers are often unloved,” confesses the former high school teacher, “but they are in the midst of a transformation; you have to know how to support them. Identity is formed at this time, and the emotional burden is immense. There are many passages that mark this period. And right now, with the lockdown and all the health restrictions, young people are really affected. Yet they are our future generation.” The mother of two little girls didn’t have to look far: “It’s only natural to donate to Tel-jeunes. Since the pandemic, there has been a 25 to 30% increase in contacts at Tel-jeunes. There is a lot of anxiety and discouragement.”

Planting a pretty red fabric heart in front of a loved one's home or the workplace of people who make a difference in their community and inserting a few sweet words in the pouch: that's the idea proposed. It's a gesture of love and gratitude, a 2022-style rainbow, with a donation to the Fondation Tél-Jeunes, until Valentine's Day.

And that's not the only cause the owner has embraced. She was the first to make snack bags from recycled water bottle fibers. As for the straps of the bags, they are made from fishing nets and ocean waste. Indeed, the preservation of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is another of her many spearheads. "Whether it's fauna, flora or humans, we must take care of our village."

Customers are invited to purchase carbon offsets issued when their package is sent. Trees are planted locally through Arbres-Évolution’s SocialTM Program. A portion of the profits from the Béluga bag are donated to the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals (GREMM). “Of course, our mountain caribou are less sexy than the koalas decimated by the fires in Australia, but we also need to open our eyes to what’s happening here,” she says.

Solidarity between small businesses

“The message of buying local launched by the government to support our businesses has stuck in people’s minds,” rejoices Anne. “Customers ask where the products come from and don’t criticize the price. They understand. Before, it was marginal to ask the question.”

And to be local, Demain Demain is entirely local. She has built a network of suppliers in Quebec, which is her pride. The products are designed by hand in a workshop in Saint-Eustache, in the Lower Laurentians. “That too is less trendy than saying you come from Kamouraska, but that’s what being local is all about,” she smiles. Some components are manufactured in the city and the illustrations are created by local artists. “We have to support them too. In Quebec, they are still too often underpaid. My business model is to do good. So I give them back 20% of the sale price.”

"I am not here to seduce a consumer with a cheap product made in large quantities abroad. One of the pillars of sustainable development is also to contribute to the development of a local and respectful economy. We are not here to create a need, but to offer a solution ".

Several business partners have naturally stuck to the company, such as Savonnerie des Diligences: “I sense a real wind of change among small businesses; they support each other. Our working relationships are nourishing. We are not in competition, even if there are opportunists, as in everything. We are working in the same direction, which is to improve the society in which we live. It is the companies with the most strongly anchored social and environmental values that are here to stay,” predicts Anne Chabot.