Innovation

With no prior background in formulation or entrepreneurship, Just Toledo founder Courtney Fillion had to start from scratch. She began formulating in 2018, “testing recipes on family and friends,” before officially launching online around the beginning of COVID and had to learn everything along the way (Courtney Fillion). Driven through passion, she began making household items such as shampoo, conditioner, lotion, all-purpose cleaner, moisturizer, detergent, bug repellent, and more as sustainably as possible! Just Toledo is extremely aware of the miles each product endures through transportation so, raw ingredients are sourced as locally as possible. Raw materials are also bought in bulk with containers that get reused once empty, making their processes as clean as possible.  

While Just Toledo has a charming storefront full of local consumables, art, and refill stations, consumers can access their sustainable products in other ways too. The Toledo farmer’s market has community at its center and Just Toledo is a regular, sharing their products! Along with the storefront and market, Just Toledo believes in the “Milkman” model and delivers/picks-up products on a weekly basis in a surrounding radius of 20 miles, give or take. Consumers must place their order by midnight on Wednesday through the Just Toledo website, and they will get their delivery on Saturday. They fill these orders while also implementing an incentive to re-use the packaging and bottles their products come in by offering a three-dollar discount for each reused bottle.  

Just Toledo also offers a sliding price scale. Courtney explained that at Just Toledo, they believe everyone deserves the opportunity to live more sustainably. In their store, customers can simply ask for a discount to be applied to applicable items within the shop or free delivery. This discount ranges from 10% - 40% and is dependent on the customer’s needs. A discount system like this may seem too good to be true, but owner Courtney Fillion says the service is underutilized. She wonders if people feel hesitant since Just Toledo is a small business and states that it has, “been more of like an arm twisting sort of thing to get people to do it” (Courtney Fillion).  

By introducing sustainability to Toledo in a never-before-seen way, Just Toledo has opened the door to a more sustainable community in northwest Ohio. Since starting Just Toledo Co-Owner Courtney Fillion has found fulfillment in her work, she states, “we have everything we need and enough of what we want.” Just Toledo plans to service the Toledo area communities for many years to come.

Inspiration

Disheartened by the constant stream of single-use packaging constantly filling her recycling bin, Courtney Fillion decided to make a change. Encouraged by her own desire to live more sustainably and lack of available local resources, Just Toledo was created. Through hard work and dedication, Courtney and her team learned how to create more sustainable household products such as castile soap, shampoo, conditioner, all-purpose cleaner, and more at an affordable price point. With the goal to bring clean, affordable, and refillable products to Toledo, OH, Just Toledo accomplishes this with every product sold.

Overall impact

Without this innovation there would be no business. Just Toledo was founded to sell products that are sustainably sourced and reduce packaging by asking customers to come and refill. While Just Toledo is not the first business to focus on sustainability by refilling products, their twist of making most of their own products creates the biggest impact. Just Toledo’s unique business model and ability to forge connections between other small businesses has done good things. This innovation has laid the groundwork for the business model that has worked successfully for Just Toledo.  They took something from other companies but used systems thinking; buying in bulk and selling in reusable packages really didn't solve the problem as you still had to deal with shipping and distance travelled of the products. Making the product in town was a way to cut down on environmental impact.

Most people would say Toledo in the past was not considered pretty or up to date. Just Toledo is one of the many local businesses bringing life back into Toledo. There has not been a huge drive to be sustainable in the city except from a handful of business and Just Toledo could shine light by taking charge towards making Toledo greener. Helping the environment is the whole purpose of this business. The owners want to make an impact by having better, cleaner products that do less damage to the environment. They didn't invent the wheel but tried to make a faster and smoother wheel without as many steps. Many refill stores have been popping up around the U.S but this is the first one at least that we have heard of that has decided to make their own products, so they don’t have to worry about shipping giant barrels and worrying about emissions that may occur during transportation. Products are made in a lab in Toledo, so the distance traveled causes less emissions.

The short-term effect of Just Toledo is to make life more sustainable one customer or product at a time. The owner is happy when she sees new customers enter or interact at the farmers market because it shows that people are taking the initiative to be more sustainable. The long-term effects would be the store gets bigger, offers more products and has a large consistent follower base. Courtney mentioned she has some consistent customers that come in weekly to refill their products. People are bringing back their containers to refill and are trying new products every time they walk through their doors. “While we don't have exact numbers of sales,” Courtney said she is finally starting to see profit compared to the first year or so where the business was just making even. With the profits, she’s able to invest most of it back into her business to grow the store and product line. In the beginning, Just Toledo only sold and produced a handful of cleaning products, they now have items ranging from bath and kitchen accessories to pantry products and much more.

Business benefit

Just Toledo focuses on providing products made with clean ingredients in an environmentally friendly format. All cleaning and self-care products are made by Just Toledo, the customers' containers are then filled and re-filled with these products. Just Toledo reaches customers in three ways: people in the Toledo area can bring containers to the Just Toledo store front, the Just Toledo stall at the Toledo Farmers Market, or use Just Toledo’s ‘milkman’ style model where a driver comes by, picks up empty containers for re-use, and drops off a refilled container. These different methods allow Just Toledo to reach a wider range of people in the Toledo area.  

Just Toledo has a business plan that focuses on slow, sustainable, long-term growth. Just Toledo’s business model has not proven scalability as it has expanded very slowly. By re-investing profits into the business and slowly adding more partners, Just Toledo has created a self-sustaining business that grows at a rate that the current partners can manage, rather than the possibility of growing large quickly which can frequently cause issues for small business entrepreneurs. While this slow growing business model reduces the number of people that can be reached by Just Toledo in the short-term, it also increases the likelihood that this local business can remain locally owned and operated. Just Toledo has been profitable enough to survive, reinvest in business operations, and grow, but it is yet to be seen if Just Toledo’s business strategy will be a booming success like Amazon or Walmart.  

In addition, Just Toledo partners with other local businesses to give customers access to locally sourced and environmentally friendly products beyond self-care and cleaning products. Robust connections between sustainability-focused local businesses in the Toledo area create the opportunity for business innovation and can benefit both society and the environment. 

Social and environmental benefit

Just Toledo’s business model and innovation meets UN Goals 3, 8, 11, 12, and 17. UN Goal 3 is Good Health and Well Being. With self-care and cleaning products that don’t have potentially harmful chemicals people that use them can avoid the negative health effects associated with some chemicals commonly found in cleaning supplies. UN Goal 8 is Decent Work and Economic Growth. Small businesses and business alliances are essential components of local economies, and Just Toledo is a small business. UN Goal 11 is Sustainable Cities and Communities. Just Toledo helps with this goal by contributing to a downtown environment that allows people to purchase local and environmentally friendly goods in the same area where they may live, work, or shop. UN Goal 12 is Responsible Consumption and Production. With a focus on clean ingredients and making products that people want, as well as a business model that focuses on re-usability, Just Toledo supports responsible production. UN Goal 17 is Partnerships for the Goal. Just Toledo has several business partnerships for the local goods that line the shelves in their storefront. By working alongside other environmentally conscious businesses, the net benefit can be larger than what one business alone could do.  

Interview

Courtney Fillion, Co-Owner/Partner