Saul Good Gift Co. are pioneers in crafting meaningful gift experiences, with the goal to help folks and firms build genuine relationships. Their gift baskets are full of local artisan products. They’re on a mission to find Canada’s crème de la crème from Montréal to Vancouver, based on a network of amazing small-batch makers, bakers, chocolatiers, and social enterprises. All these small businesses weave a tapestry of Canada’s finest goods while boosting our local economy. By handpicking from the finest local artisans, we pour over 92,000 hours of living-wage employment into Canadian small businesses every year. Collaborating with these artisans not only enhances our offerings but creates a meaningful impact in the lives of ma’s, pa’s and the communities in which we operate. Our redesigned packaging slashes our paper use by 68%. And with 100% recycled cardboard, we’re giving 478 trees per year a new lease on life. Being a founding Canadian B Corporation in 2010 wasn’t just about the badge. It is a certification that captures our commitment to our planet, community, workers, and clients. We are proud to have been recognized internationally as “Best for the World” by B Corp. As a B Corp, we are devoted to continuously amplifying our impact every year.

Question: How are you supporting other local businesses?

Answer: When we recently measured our purchasing impact over the last 5 years, we found that 97% of the products included in our gifts are Made in Canada. Over this period we’ve sourced from 237 small businesses located in 82 cities across Canada, with 102 being small businesses based in ON and 98 in BC. During this period we created a local economic impact equivalent to over 314,000 hours of living wage employment by sourcing from local Canadian small businesses. This breaks down to 213,000 hours in small businesses in BC and 101,000 hours in small businesses in Ontario.

And it’s not just our inventory that we source locally. For almost all of our services, we estimate about 75-80%, we work with other Canadian businesses. Our gift box packaging is all made locally by Great Little Box Company, we bank with Vancity credit union, our web developers are based in B.C., and our graphic designers are based in the Fraser Valley. For marketing, we work with MyZone and Crisp Media, both based in Vancouver. For a long time we’ve done all our printing with Hemlock Printers, and 9 years ago we started getting them to do all of the fulfillment on our orders (putting all the products in boxes to get them ready to send to our customers). We were their first e-commerce fulfillment customer, and now it’s become a big part of their business. We love partnering with other local businesses so that we both can grow! For our office space, we use a non-profit co-working business HiVE Vancouver.

Question: What social practices are you proud of?

Answer: I’m proud that we use only 100% recycled paper in our gift box packaging. One of the reasons we started was to eliminate all the plastic waste that was typical of gift baskets in the past. A couple years ago we went even further and redesigned our packaging to reduce our paper use by 67%, saving 490 trees a year. We’ve also eliminated plastic from the branded packaging we offer, eliminating the equivalent of 12,800 plastic bags per year. Our old packaging had a plastic layer on the belly band that covered the box, and we replaced that with paper labels. We’ve been a certified B Corp since 2010, a leader in the early days of the sustainable business movement. We were the 8th certified B Corp in Canada! We care deeply about our employees, and pay living wages in B.C. and Ontario. Over the life of the company, we’ve always looked for opportunities to partner with social enterprises, but have outgrown the services they could provide. We do charitable giving when we can. Megaphone is one of the charities we like to support.