Excellence NB Launches Holiday Gift Guide With Local Products
MONCTON – If you want to support local businesses this holiday season, Excellence NB’s Holiday Gift Guide could be a good starting place.
Excellence NB, an association dedicated to promoting local goods and services, is printing 100,000 copies of its gift guide, which features 148 products from New Brunswick makers.
“This has been a very challenging year for businesses of all sizes,” said executive director Carol Holmes. “Whether your sales increased because you’re online and people want to buy your products, you’re still probably having issues getting supply, being open, being able to process orders.”
Many New Brunswickers are “showing great love and support for their community businesses” because they’re understanding the negative impact that the Covid-19 pandemic has had on local companies, said Holmes.
“Supporting local has never been more top of mind for people,” she said.
They’re also understanding more how critical local businesses are to the economy.
“They employ our people and they continue to spend money in our economy with their supplies and their expansions. So they’re an important part of what makes New Brunswick, New Brunswick, both culturally and from an economic point of view,” Holmes added.
The gift guide features products by businesses that are registered with Excellence NB, and those that the association reached out to regardless of registration. Village Bay Oysters and Potatoes New Brunswick were the major sponsors of the project.
The guide will be distributed via local papers, select gift shops and cafés around the province, and online at NBMade.ca, an online shop for local products run by Excellence NB.
Holmes said overall, there are 250 to 300 businesses currently registered on the online shop, offering approximately 500 products.
Businesses interested in having their products on NBMade.ca can register for free. Holmes said Excellence NB has been able to absorb the costs of running NBMade.ca and printing free gift guides thanks to local companies and organizations that are sponsoring it.