WINNER: Peekaboo Beans is an active wear clothing company for kids that takes its commitment to play seriously.
The company’s mission is to provide kids with durable, high-quality clothing that facilitates an active lifestyle and emphasizes the importance of play.
Founded nine years ago by Traci Costa, it was an effort to create a brand for children that allowed them to move and grow like kids. Originally selling in retail stores across Canada, Peekaboo made changes to its business model in 2010, transitioning away from wholesale retail boutiques to a direct sales model, which empowers parents to become entrepreneurial “stylists” for Peekaboo Beans.
Through community play dates, and its PLAY-ducation workshop series, Peekaboo supports local parents to encourage healthy play. With its partnership with Playground Builders, the company has raised more than $46,000 and built seven playgrounds in war-torn countries.
“Thank you to everyone and the chamber for this acknowledgement,” said Costa, who added Canada received a “D” in the Canadian Physical Fitness Report Card in the category of free, unstructured play.
She also noted the report card observed that the average Canadian child spent seven and a half hours in front of a media device each day.
“Peekaboo Beans makes the most amazing products to live in and play in,” she said. “But our legacy is preserving play in the world.”
FINALIST: Mogiana Coffee was established in Richmond, August of 2008. Named after a beautiful valley in Brazil, where the founding family’s award-winning, sustainable coffee is grown, Mogiana is Richmond’s only coffee company sourcing Arabica beans of the very finest quality.
Since opening, Mogiana Coffee has doubled revenues nearly every year. In the last six months alone, sales increased by 60 per cent and projected sales for the next fiscal year will be another 60 per cent bump.
Mogiana Coffee’s growth does not happen by chance. It is the result of hard work and dedication. Seeds that have been planted since the early stages are in some cases just starting to come to fruition. From the focus in their quality cup of coffee to outstanding customer satisfaction, Mogiana’s excellence is evident throughout their business.
FINALIST: 505-Junk was founded in 2011 by Barry Hartman and Scott Foran. Theirs is a story of true entrepreneurial spirit. The founders designed, created, and implemented an industry-changing competitive advantage — a hydraulic scale system that allows their customers to see the exact weight and total cost of the service prior to the truck departing the site. This game-changing development contributed to their receiving the 2014 Young Entrepreneur Award.
The company recycles as many items as possible and donates any reusable items to charities throughout Richmond and surrounding municipalities.
They’ve kept their focus on encouraging young entrepreneurs and were recognized by being invited to represent Canada at the G20 Young Entrepreneur Alliance Summit in Istanbul, Turkey to raise awareness of issues and opportunities pertaining to young entrepreneurs on a global scale.
