Meet Our Mentors: Celeste Lopreiato and Simone Weinstein
Simone (left) and Celeste (right), two sustainability-focused pioneers in the agriculture industry.
Meet Celeste Lopreiato and Simone Weinstein, the two newest mentors for Fast Lane Plus™.
Together, they founded Slow Growing — a food and agriculture consulting company that offers one-on-one coaching and bookkeeping services.
Slow Growing is breaking barriers and creating space for folks traditionally underrepresented in agriculture to connect and thrive in the traditionally male-dominated industry. This winter, Slow Growing hosted its first annual conference to teach business-related aspects of agriculture to marginalized groups. The event featured five talented speakers and attracted 40 women, trans, and non-binary farmers.
As queer, young, and BIPOC entrepreneurs, representation is crucial for their business.
“I think there is a big lack of representation among consultants or business programs,” Celeste said. “When you're a new business owner and part of a marginalized group, it can be hard to see your success because there's not a lot of examples of people who look like you and are successful.”
Simone added, “I would really like to see more [queer and BIPOC] people — with real life experience running successful businesses — be confident as a consultant and coach because there's a lot of Imposter Syndrome in being that person.”
Despite collaborating nowadays as business owners, the two partners began on different paths.
Celeste has always had a passion for cooking since she was 10. After graduating from the University of Guelph with an Environment and Agriculture degree, she noticed a demand for locally and ethically sourced food within Kitchener, Waterloo, and Guelph. So, she founded The Conscious Kitchen as a farm-to-table meal delivery company at 22 years old with only $7,000 and her car.
In the summer of 2021, she expanded to the Grey Bruce region and built her own vegetable farm.
“Previously, we were only selling in the Guelph-Kitchener-Waterloo area,” she said. “And, when we added this new area — mainly Collingwood — to our business, we doubled our sales almost immediately. . . . It catapulted us into a new scale of business that allowed us to hire a lot more people, expand our production, and just expand our customer base by a significant amount.”
Within two years, The Conscious Kitchen accrued over $250,000 in revenue and amassed 200 weekly customers, enough to provide their employees a starting salary of $22 per hour.
“There’s a lot of knowledge that goes into what Millennials are looking for in terms of online sales, sustainability, and ethics. They’re not too concerned with prices or value as with older consumers, so for specific entrepreneurs geared towards Millennials, we can provide what they’re looking for.”
In contrast, Simone started their career as a food industry consultant after graduating from the University of Waterloo. Throughout their four years of employment, Simone noticed a lack of diversity among the clients they assisted.
“[There's] a lot of talk about how you get those large companies to be more sustainable and do better,” they recalled. “It's like trying to change and shift a Titanic, whereas I think there's less focus on supporting and helping small businesses that already care about sustainability and have all of these values.”
Additionally, Simone felt underrepresented among her own colleagues.
“I saw a lack of consultants that represented and understood other awesome young female BIPOC entrepreneurs,” they said. “So, what inspired me partly was Celeste and working as partners, but then also wanting to be a resource and a support for entrepreneurs that look like us and share our values.”
Together, the duo combined Celeste’s entrepreneurial expertise and Simone’s consulting background to begin their own consulting company, Slow Growing.
Both Celeste and Simone signed up as mentors for Fast Lane Plus™ because they want to help local food and farming businesses succeed in the Grey Bruce region.
In addition, they believe their youthfulness would provide them a unique voice to diversify the mentoring landscape.
According to Celeste, “I think being young is a big thing. When I was going through these programs, most of the mentors were in their 50's and 60's, so it was hard to connect [to them]. I know some of the participants range in age, so there's going to be some younger participants. And, I think it's nice for them to have someone they can connect to a bit better who has similar ideas and lives.”
One of their biggest strengths as mentors is that they have first-hand experience on what their demographic is searching for as customers.
“We're Millennials and Millennials are the biggest buyers right now with the most buying power,” Celeste explained. “There's a lot of knowledge that goes into what Millennials are looking for in terms of online sales, sustainability, and ethics. They're not too concerned with prices or value as with older consumers, so for specific entrepreneurs geared towards Millennials, we can provide what they're looking for.”
For Simone, their biggest piece of advice is to balance an entrepreneur’s own values with the needs of their business.
“Your business should be designed to support your lifestyle and your employees,” they said. So [for us, it's] being able to have a comfortable lifestyle and pay your employees well, all while sticking to your ethical, sustainable values.”
And for Celeste, she wants to empower her own clients to lead with pride.
According to her, “I would just say to build [your own] confidence as a business owner. [That means] working through Imposter Syndrome and low confidence in general, which is really common among female entrepreneurs.”