When Nada first started working on an idea for a less wasteful toothbrush, They were 100% sure they would have it manufactured in North America.
But they were wrong.
After some initial work on the designs, I reached out to a Canadian company that made custom toothbrush prototypes for a quote. The cost for one handle and one brush head? $18,500. 🤯
My industrial design team then referred me to a Chinese prototype company to get a quote. The cost for one handle and one brush head? $350.
This is typical when comparing Chinese with local manufacturing.
So without Chinese manufacturing to get Nada up and running, it simply would not exist.
Fast forward to 2024 and we're proud to announce we’ve moved our manufacturing to Canada.
All you smart business minded people out there might be wondering why. After all, our product costs are now double.
Here’s why we did it:
- Our mission is sustainability. Moving manufacturing to North America means we no longer have to ship thousands of toothbrushes across the world.
- We want to support local manufacturing. Since globalization began, manufacturing in North America has moved overseas where labour costs a fraction of what it does here. This needs to change and we want to encourage that change.
- Customer demand. Some of our potential customers refuse to buy Chinese made products.
Will the prices change?
We've had to raise the price of our toothbrush (the starter kit with a handle and three brush heads) from $20 to $23.
We know this is not ideal (we try to keep our prices low to allow everyone to switch from wasteful disposable toothbrushes to Nada). But the fact is we simply have to or else we won't be able to stay in business.
We will NOT however, be raising the price of our replacement brush heads.
We hope that a $3 increase in price is accepted in exchange for supporting local manufacturing.
If you have any feedback, please email Christina at christina@debutproducts.com
As always, thank you for your amazing support.