Natacha Rey, Founder of Lemon Aide, on Turning Natural Cleaning Into a National Canadian Brand

This episode of The FEED powered by Loblaw features an inspiring and deeply practical conversation with Natacha Rey, Founder of Lemon Aide—the breakout Canadian brand reinventing how consumers think about cleaning products. Natacha's entrepreneurial journey is anything but conventional. Raised on an organic farm, connected to nature from an early age, and later trained in homoeopathic medicine in Australia, Natacha combined science and nature to build products designed to help the body—and the home—heal and thrive.Lemon Aide was born out of parental necessity when Natacha’s daughter was young. Frustrated by shelves full of harsh chemical cleaners on one side and weak, vinegar-based solutions on the other, she envisioned a line that was safe, effective, beautifully scented, and a pleasure to use. What started as a personal solution quickly caught fire once Natacha shared her products with friends and family—sparking demand that revealed she wasn’t alone in wanting a better cleaning experience.Today, Lemon Aide offers more than 15 products—surface cleaners, dish soap, glass cleaners, floor cleaners, hand wash, and even super-strength formulas—each grounded in performance and powered by lemons. Natacha credits her brand’s success to listening obsessively to customers who continually help shape new product development. Lemon Aide’s packaging, intentionally designed to leap off the shelf, has made the brand a destination for shoppers discovering it for the first time.Natacha also shares her path into retail—one that didn’t begin with knocking on a buyer’s door. Instead, a Fortinos executive discovered Lemon Aide in her Niagara-on-the-Lake store, leading to a listing and then conversations inside Loblaw and ultimately participation in the Small Supplier Program. She explains why this program has been transformational: it gives emerging Canadian brands access to scale, support, and advocacy they’d struggle to attain through traditional listing processes. The result is a win for Loblaw, for entrepreneurs, and for consumers seeking products aligned with values like sustainability, safety, and performance.Natacha also dives into co-packing, manufacturing at scale, and the emotional reality of entrepreneurship—how conviction, agility, reflection, and perseverance define the path forward. With international expansion underway, including meaningful traction in China, LemonAide is proof that the world is ready for natural products that work—and that Canadian innovation is having a moment.This episode is a masterclass for anyone who cares about retail, consumer behaviour, brand building, and the future of sustainable, nature-powered household care. About Your Host, Michael LeBlancMichael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur.  He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025 and 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail.   If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.