Celebrating 3 years! The highs and lows plus what's next for HelloAmino!

I can't believe the HelloAmino name was born three years ago. So much has changed and yet so much is still to come for us!

Let's dive into the highs and lows of this last year and give you a sneak peek into what's ahead! ⤵️

We had some incredible wins this past year. It's still hard to believe that my original cookie mix wrapped up in a cellophane bag is now sitting on the shelves at Safeway! 

When I convinced Mclain to join me in growing this brand back in Fall of 2022 he had no idea that less than two years later we'd be celebrating 6 figure months.🤯

I share this with you less about bragging and more to show what's possible. Keeping numbers to ourselves I feel doesn't help other small businesses know what's truly behind the scenes and we pride ourselves on building this brand on transparency and honesty. It's important to me that you feel like you're on this journey with us because without you we wouldn't be here. 🫶🏻

Let's dig into some highs!

We brought out five new mixes; icing, lemon loaf, scones, matcha and the midway donut with huge success! 🍩

We increased our retail partners from a mere 4 to 17 including 4 Safeway locations! 🛒

We made it through another year at the Stampede, exceeding our previous years sales by over 30%. 🎡 

We were featured in Avenue Magazines top 25 foods to eat.🔍

I doubled our followers on Instagram from 4K to over 8k with zero ad spend.

We had a record month in July exceeding our last record by 29%! 🥳

We went on the road into Edmonton, Red Deer and Saskatchewan with new retail partners in each city.🚗

We were nominated a finalist in the Calgary small business awards for our huge growth and are attending the awards gala in October.🏆

Speaking of growth, we increased our sales by 250% over last year! 😲

We brought on our first full time employee, our oldest son. 

We took our first vacation in 8 years and still had the business run smoothly because our son could hold down the fort for us.☀️

And I made the massive decision to close my personal chef business of 17 years and trust HelloAmino could support three full time salaries.

It was a heck of a year!

But not all was sunshine and roses. 

I’m happy to say that 2024 brought a lot less stress than 2023. Whether that was because we were more experienced or because we’re better at handling stress and rolling with the punches I don’t know.

But the biggest low was a recent one and something that we haven’t even discussed openly about yet.

We pride ourselves on exceptional quality, it's one of our core values. Every product we bring out must be the best or we don't bring it out however we recently realized that was not the case for our limited edition Pumpkin Spice Latte. 

We originally dropped this last Sept and it flew off the shelves, to the point we ran out of stock and couldn't get more ingredients in time. So this year we were determined that wouldn't happen. We bought a huge amount of ingredients and record number of custom pouches.

However, this mix has not been as well received as we'd hoped. Our choice to use REAL dried pumpkin has been hit or miss. Some don't mind the texture and others hate it. So, it's left us needing to completely revamp the recipe and pull it out of stock for the year until we do. This has cost us a ton of money but it's something we're not willing to cut corners on.

Stay tuned for our revised recipe in 2025 and if you're one of those that loved it as is be on the look out for a special email.

What's ahead!

Mclain and I are so excited for the future of HelloAmino.  It really has us both giddy for what lies ahead.

Here's a few sneak peeks.

In Oct we're launching our first paid advertisement on 3 bus benches around the city!🚌

We'll be expanding our Safeway locations to increase that list to at least 10 in YYC alone.

In November we're releasing our Holiday Edition mixes in new custom Holiday pouches along with sample sized cocoa and matcha! 🎅🏼

We're travelling to Regina, Saskatoon and Lethbridge in October.

We've booked a record amount of holiday markets this year and will be utilizing our ambassadors to allow for a quadruple market in one weekend, including heading out to Banff. 🎄

I'll be releasing a new FREE protein and macro tracking guide just in time to get back on track in the new year.💪🏼

Next year will be HUGE!

We'll be attending our first big expo in Vancouver in effort to expand our retail partners across Canada. This is a big investment but one we know is important.

And in Summer 2025 we'll be moving HelloAmino HQ to a bigger facility! Stay tuned for BTS of the build and move!

We feel extraordinarily blessed that even during some challenging times you're choosing to spend your hard earned money with us. It's been a beyond successful year for us and we're so very grateful for your support.

Here's to another incredible year with our promise to continue to bring you the very best high protein products, stay true to our core values by prioritizing customer service and community and to evolve the brand in a way that supports you feeling your best.

xo Aelie & Mclain

PS: To listen to our brand story check out this beautiful video.