Snacking With Purpose

The Story Behind Our Snack & Give Back Initiative

Earlier this year, I showed up to a market completely exhausted.

If you’ve ever done trade shows or markets, you know the feeling.

Carter and I had just come off something like 60 straight days of shows in the fall. It’s just the two of us running the business, and we have four kids at home. At the same time, we were in the middle of completely revamping our jerky line to create the cleanest jerky we possibly could.

We were stuck in the endless cycle of:

• packaging revisions
• cut and die lines
• ingredient changes
• regulatory back-and-forth

And I remember standing there setting up our booth thinking:

“What am I even doing here?”

What made it stranger was that from the outside, everything looked like it should be going great.

We were having massive success.
Record-breaking jerky sales.
People reaching out for interviews.
Provinces asking to partner with us.

But inside, I was at my absolute lowest.

The Jewelry Maker Who Changed Everything

Across the aisle from me at that market was a jewelry vendor.

She had a tiny little six-foot table. No fancy backdrop. No big display. Just a few photos and some jewelry laid out on the table.

If you’ve ever been to markets, you know there are hundreds of jewelry vendors. Incredible products, beautiful displays everywhere.

So I assumed she must be new.

But when the doors opened, something fascinating happened.

Women would walk into the show and visit these beautiful booths. They would say things like:

“Ooh I love this.”
“This is gorgeous.”

And then they would put the jewelry back and walk away without buying.

Then they would walk down the aisle toward this small table.

And before they even got close, something changed.

They would hear this woman telling her story.

And I swear to you — before they even looked at the jewelry, they had already decided they were going to buy.

Then they would look at the jewelry… and purchase.

I did too.

These earrings I’m wearing today? I bought them right there.

The Power of a Story

The reason people were buying had nothing to do with the display.

It was the story.

This woman had gone through a terrible divorce and taken an “Eat, Pray, Love” trip to Bali. While she was there, she met women begging on the side of the road, trying to sell handmade jewelry just to survive.

So she decided to do something about it.

Her idea was simple:

Bring that jewelry back to Canada.
Sell it here.
Send most of the money back to those women.

Her business existed for a purpose.

And standing there watching it happen, I realized something uncomfortable.

We were doing something wrong.

We Had Lost the Thing That Mattered Most

When I got home, I told Carter the story.

We had both been feeling the same thing.

We love Carzan. We love what we’re building.

So why did it feel like something was missing?

The answer was simple.

The things we were most passionate about in our business had slowly slipped into the background.

They were still there.

But they had become buzzwords on our signs instead of the heart of what we talked about.

So we went back and found those things again.

Then we pulled them out of the mess and built something around them.

That’s how Snack & Give Back was born.

The Three Things That Drive Our Business

When we stepped back, we realized there were three things that mattered to us more than anything else.

1. Creating Real Health Through Food

First and foremost, we are in the business of creating health.

We produce grass-fed, low-sugar, hormone-free beef jerky.

And we have been working incredibly hard to make it even better — a jerky that people can truly think of as a health food.

That’s why we’re doing all the hard work behind the scenes.

It’s why we’ve been so tired.

But it’s also why we care so much.

2. Regenerative Ranching and the Planet

Before we were jerky business owners, we were ranchers.

We are deeply passionate about regenerative ranching.

Grasslands are one of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet, and properly managed grazing animals are one of the few things that can actually help restore them.

That story needed to move from the background to the front of everything we do.

It’s now on our packaging.
It’s part of our messaging.
It’s part of our identity.

3. Feeding More People

The third thing we remembered was something we had talked about from the very beginning.

We wanted to give back.

When we first started Carzan, we kept saying:

“Someday when we’re big, we’ll give back.”

But then we remembered that jewelry vendor in Bali.

She didn’t wait until she was big.

She started from the very beginning.

So we did too.

Today, we donate 2% of our proceeds to help feed people across Canada.

We partner with organizations doing incredible work, like Canadian Feed the Children, helping communities grow food and feed future generations.

Because while we’re in the business of feeding people jerky, we believe we can help feed many more people than that.

Purpose-Driven Businesses Create More Value

There’s a principle that business experts talk about all the time:

The more value you create, the more your business will grow.

But we often think of value in terms of things like:

• better packaging
• innovative features
• clever marketing

What if value came from something deeper?

What if value came from connecting to people emotionally?

Emotion is the strongest driving force in human decision-making.

It’s why we buy the houses we buy.
Why we choose the schools for our children.
Why we support the brands we support.

When a business connects to that emotional driver, something powerful happens.

People feel like they’re part of something bigger.

Purpose-Driven Consumerism

This idea isn’t new.

Companies like TOMS built their entire brand around it.

Buy a pair of shoes → give a pair of shoes.

Brands like Tentree do something similar.

Buy clothing → plant trees.

These businesses created massive followings because people felt like their purchase meant something more.

That’s the idea behind purpose-driven consumerism.

When someone buys from you, they feel like they are doing something good.

And that emotional connection builds loyalty that goes far beyond the product itself.

The Perfect Trifecta

What’s incredible about purpose-driven businesses is that they create a cycle.

The more value you create →
The more your business grows →
The more impact you can make.

Growth allows you to do even more good.

And that’s the part that excites us the most.

A Question for Every Business Owner

If there’s one thing I would ask other entrepreneurs to think about, it’s this:

Is the thing you are most passionate about in your business sitting quietly in the background?

Or is it leading the story?

Because chances are, the reason you started your business in the first place is the thing that should be at the very front of it.

The Power Behind Our Business Today

I can honestly say I’m not the same business owner I was when I showed up to that market.

Now when we show up to a show — tired, hauling boxes, juggling life and kids and business — there’s something behind it.

There’s purpose.

We know that we can grow.
We know that we can make a difference.
And we know that as we grow, we can do even more good.

And that’s a pretty powerful reason to keep going.

Help spread the love of our Snack and Give Back initiative by purchasing our products!

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Check out Carmen's FCC Food and Beverage Summit speech here--->