 A decade in the making, a community built jar by jar, and an opportunity now open for the right person to carry it forward. When Natalie Gaunt started layering salads into mason jars out of a Stratford kitchen in 2015, she was not thinking about franchises, operations manuals, or national expansion. She was thinking about the moms she had worked for as a nanny. She was thinking about what was missing from their fridges. "I was trying to nanny for more than one family at a time, but they all wanted me to do the same thing," she says. What those families needed, she had come to understand, was not just help with the kids. It was help with the food. Nutritious, ready-to-go meals that could hold up in the fridge for a few days and not require anyone to scramble at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday.
"I was the monopoly," she laughs, describing those early Stratford years. "I was that local." The growth that followed was real, and it happened fast. When a woman from Kelowna reached out wanting to buy into the concept, Natalie created the legal framework for a licence agreement and sold her first location. That opened the door for nine more. By the time the pandemic hit, Urban Jars had already been operating on a contactless delivery model for years. While many food businesses scrambled to adapt, Urban Jars kept moving. "I remember having so much guilt around this," Natalie admits, "but my business wasn't impacted at all."
After stepping back from operating her own Stratford location, she used the time to rebuild the brand from the ground up: a new website, fresh photography, and an entirely new product development phase. She also made a significant structural shift, transitioning from a license model to a full franchise model. That distinction matters. The franchise framework includes formal disclosure documents, ongoing franchisor support, marketing materials, and a structured onboarding process. To get it right, she worked with a global consultancy agency, which helped her build out a business plan, an operations manual, and a cohesive brand presence. Urban Jars now describes itself as Canada's first at-home franchise for moms, by moms. Locations are currently operating in Stratford, Halifax, Orillia, Cambridge, London, and Muskoka, with St. Thomas among them.  The St. Thomas location has had its own character. After relocating to the area with her family in 2022, Natalie expanded beyond jar delivery and used her property to host Yogassage and a Jar, a two-hour candlelit yoga experience paired with Reiki, massage therapy, and locally sourced food. She ran those events over a hundred times. She hosted morning-of-wedding gatherings, wellness retreats, and community dinners. She built a client base through real connections, not advertising. "I think that's how people really organically started to trust what I was doing," she says. "Getting them into my home, into an experience." Now, Natalie is stepping back from day-to-day operations to focus on two streams instead of three. Her family (having recently welcomed a daughter!) and her Urban Jars family. She is clear that Urban Jars is not closing, and she is not walking away. But when it comes to the business, her sights are set on her role as franchisor, including recipe development and brand support. What she is looking for is the right person to take over the St. Thomas location and run it as a franchise owner.
For someone interested in flexible, community-rooted entrepreneurship, this is a rare opportunity. The client base is already established. The brand is recognized. The framework, legal documents, operations manual, and marketing support are already in place. A new franchisee would be stepping into something with roots, not starting from scratch. The menu alone tells part of the story. The loaded Italian pasta jar, layered with noodles, salami, bocconcini, olives, parmesan, and greens, has been a consistent bestseller. The taco jar has been on the menu for eleven years and shows no sign of slowing down. The cookie dough protein bites are, by most accounts, the thing people order first and remember longest. When asked what advice she would offer to anyone considering taking on this kind of opportunity, or any entrepreneurial venture, Natalie does not hesitate. Be careful who you share your idea with at the beginning. Surround yourself with people who can problem-solve alongside you, not people who will hand you a hundred reasons it will not work. The energy you have at the start of something is precious. Protect it. "That imagination and energy is never going to be as high as it is in the beginning," she says. "If you can have somebody in your corner who can help you carry on rather than shut it down, that's everything." If the Urban Jars St. Thomas franchise opportunity sounds like a fit for you, reach out through stthomas.urbanjars.com or contact the Small Business Enterprise Centre, and we can help make the connection and chat about the opportunity.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
