small businesses : Featured Stories

The Stylist Box is a first for Toronto, a showroom of designers including emerging and established Canadian labels alike, and a one-stop shop for busy actresses getting ready for TIFF. Jaime Woo takes a look behind the scenes of this celebrity showroom.  

Despite our love of local brews, many of the ingredients in our favorite beers are not sourced locally. Yet that's changing as brewers tap into the local farming movement in their communities to add more fresh ingredients

Find out how a group of Toronto-based startups are rethinking how stores, brands, and retail floors interact with consumers. As customers become more informed shoppers, stores need to match and expand their expertise. 

Black Creek Community Farm is a small, seven-acre farm in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood that is bringing fresh local produce and unique learning opportunities to one of the city's most challenging areas.

A two-year pilot program introduces local winemakers to Toronto markets, one sip at a time. Yonge Street talks to several wineries to learn more about how the city's various farmers' markets are supporting VQA wines. 

After more than a dozen years in the Annex, Sonic Boom is relocating to Queen West. We talk to the owner of the iconic record store about his decision to switch neighbourhoods and his experience owning a record store in the digital age. 

Canada is not known for its hot sauces, but a number of Toronto food enthusiasts are challenging that. Combining local ingredients with a passion for flavour, these chefs are spicing up the city's culinary scene and taking over restaurant tables across town. 

In the latest in our series reporting on innovations coming out of MaRS Discovery District, we look at several cutting-edge medical advances currently in development--from revolutionary cancer treatments to personality-based patient care. 

The MaRS Discovery District's bee initiative adds its hives to the growing list of urban beekeepers using rooftops to enhance the biodiversity of Toronto's concrete jungle--and source delicious, organic, homegrown honey while they're at it.

After emigrating from Hungary to Toronto with nothing at the age of 19 in 2000, Christian Szabo is now the founder of two companies that help builders and developers protect birds from their buildings, and buildings from the birds.

By bridging Toronto and the Kitchener-Waterloo area, both through collaborative networks and the facilitation of a high-speed rail system, regional organizations aim to create a powerhouse of Canadian talent. 

In Toronto, finding quality child care can be a daunting and expensive affair. Arlene Francis has an answer. The single mom is gearing up to launch her own business: a platform for other moms to find qualified, pre-screened caregivers. 

A series of 25 murals celebrate Islington Village's past, while looking to its future. Igor Bonifacic reflects on how the street art represents his own experiences growing up in the area as a new Canadian, and what it means to the neighbourhood now.

I hear the bomb go off. I am a reporter and suddenly I am rushing to bandage the wounds of a bleeding soldier. His screams startle me and I pull the headset off. I am not in a warzone after all. I am in George Brown College's School of Design. 

Sure women and men aren't yet equal in the tech and innovation sphere, but that doesn't mean entrepreneurial women aren't working together to succeed. We talk to a new pack of industry leaders making it work with a little help from their friends.