While Canadian female-founded and led businesses have been on the rise over the past five years, female entrepreneurs still face barriers when trying to get their products onto shelves. Creating spaces for new female-led brands on grocery shelves. Online grocery retailer Spud takes pride in supporting women in business. However, they also recognize that there is always more they can do to promote equity for women. That’s why, this International Women’s Day, Spud is introducing #HerFairShare—a commitment to getting more women-led brands on grocery shelves, starting at Spud.
With #HerFairShare, Spud aims to grow its selection of women-led brands from 20% to 25% by 2025. This initiative begins with Spud creating 5 new openings on its storefront exclusively for women-led brands, with applications opening on March 4th.
The grocery retail landscape presents a myriad of distinctive and challenging obstacles. In 2023, many large retailers began telling suppliers the cost of getting products on shelves would be rising to help fund improvements to the retailer, ultimately pushing the vendors to pay more for their spot. For female-led businesses trying to enter the market, this listing rate increase can discourage them from even attempting to break into the space.
Spud does not charge a listing fee for vendors to be stocked on their shelves, nor does it implement price change fees. These seemingly small practices can have a major impact on vendors who are entering the grocery industry or launching their business.
#HerFairShare aligns with Spud’s long-term priority of enhancing visibility for women in the CPG and grocery category while fostering economic growth for female founders and the broader local
economy.
To apply as a vendor under the #HerFairShare initiative or to help every woman in business get #HerFairShare visit Spud.ca/herfairshare. Spud is also making it easier to support and shop for women-led/founded brands with a curated page of Spud’s women-led brands to shop from at
Spud.ca.