Weekly Regional Business Intelligence
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Written by Kieran Delamont, Associate Editor, London Inc.
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Local entrepreneur launches London-based watch company
London has its own watch company. Founded by entrepreneur and watch enthusiast Ryan LeClair, who previously owned furniture retailer Warehouse 74, the Makoto Watch Company is launching with about 10 timepieces in the $795 to $1,000 price range. The watches are conceived and designed by LeClair and produced by a manufacturing partner located just outside of Hong Kong. “I have partnered with one of the best manufacturing facilities in the area known for their excellent build quality,” LeClair told London Inc. For now, Makoto is pretty much a one-man show (“everything with the company is done by me; I do the design, marketing, photography, social media, accounting,” said LeClair), and the sales strategy primarily revolves around direct-to-consumer, including employing Kickstarter campaigns to help fund initial production runs. “I am open to showcasing my watches in some local stores if that opportunity arises,” said LeClair. “I market mostly through Facebook and Instagram, however I also send watches to YouTube reviewers, which gets the watches in front of thousands of viewers.”
The upshot: If the ever-rising price of that Rolex Submariner has you in a funk, take heart. In the world of timepieces, the term “microbrand” has been gaining momentum and swiftly reshaping the watch industry landscape. Unlike the traditional watchmaking giants, small entities like Makoto are embracing the digital age, collaborating with established overseas manufacturers and leveraging ecommerce to produce timepieces that punch well above their weight in terms of quality and value. Makoto currently has two timepieces available for shipping, with additional models taking pre-orders on the company’s website. LeClair said he also has plans to launch a second, affordability-focused brand called Paradigm Watches.
Read more: Makoto Watch Company
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Aspire Food Group ordered into receivership
Aspire Food Group, London’s high-tech cricket farming operation on Innovation Drive, has been placed in receivership. Last week an Ontario court appointed FTI Consulting out of Toronto as the receiver for the company, which reportedly has debts of around $41 million. The company has now laid off even more employees (recall that it laid off around 100 of its 150 employees in November) and is now down to a team of 16, CEO David Rosenberg told AgFunderNews. “While we’ve increased our yields very significantly, we need more capital to make the changes we need to make, and it’s very hard to raise capital with a lot of debt,” Rosenberg said. “We needed to negotiate a solution with debt holders, some secured, some unsecured. And it was best to do that via a court-supervised process.” The hope for Aspire remains that they can sort out their short-term cash issues and make “structural changes,” though it’s unclear at this point what those might be. The company told AgFunderNews that it had “signed two term sheets with prospective partners” and “is in active discussions with stakeholders to pursue a transaction that could preserve operations, allow it to scale and renew long-term value.”
The upshot: There remains some hope that something can be done with the 150,000-square-foot Aspire facility, experts say. “There’s tremendous potential for that plant,” food industry analyst Sylvain Charlebois told The London Free Press, noting that the factory ― which became fodder for all sorts of conspiracy theories ― had “suffered from bad PR.” It also suffered from the fact that the cricket protein market simply never materialized in the way Aspire’s founders would have hoped (Aspire also operates another plant in Austin, Texas). Several other cricket protein producers in Europe have also run into financial challenges. “We have seen a lot of capital not achieving very much in this space,” said one executive from Singapore-based Entobel, which also produces insect proteins. Charlebois suggested that one challenge here is that the factory can’t really be retooled: it’s a highly specialized operation built to farm crickets, and not much else. “That plant is state of the art,” he said. “If it survives, it has to be refinanced and it needs people who know and understand the cricket market.”
Read more: AgFunderNews | London Free Press
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Yaya’s kitchen to open at Museum London
After the closure of the Rhino Lounge Bakery & Coffee Shoppe, a new tenant is moving in to fill the void at Museum London. Yaya’s Kitchen, run by the husband-and-wife team of Malvin and Maryam Wright (pictured), is expected to open shop later this summer. “It’s a continuation or an expansion of our existing culinary project,” Malvin Wright told CBC News London. Wright describes their food as “afro-forward,” and the pair says their café menu will feature Afro-Caribbean ingredients and baked goods, plus “coffees and teas from the global south.” Museum London’s executive director Julie Bevan said that “their vision fits nicely with our purpose and our trajectory here.” The café will have a soft launch next month, before a full opening later this summer.
The upshot: Yaya’s Kitchen is building on a successful stint in Old East Village’s Food Incubator Hub at 630 Dundas Street, where they operated a fine-dining supper club and pop-up experience celebrating the flavours and traditions of West African cuisine. The café project will be a bit of a different one compared to their usual fine-dining fare, and it’s something the Wrights seem keen to explore. “Once you come in, you will always see that element of Yaya’s Kitchen, but at the same time, it’s something of its own,” Maryam Wright told The London Free Press. “We think this is something that would add to the flavour profile that already exists in the café’s space. We want to use rare things . . . to enhance baked goods.”
Read more: CBC News London | London Free Press
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EV adoption ticks up in London even as consumer interest declines
More drivers in London are turning to electric vehicles, according to a report from London Hydro. “London is seeing a steady increase in electric vehicle adoption, with 4,550 electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles on our roads as of March 30th, 2025,” the report stated, noting that it represents a 50 per cent annual increase over 2024. London Hydro is talking up the number in part to promote the investments it’s made in the charging infrastructure in the city. “We can accommodate new electric vehicles on the London hydro grid,” said London Hydro’s VP of engineering and construction, Allan Van Damme. “We do long-range planning up to a five-year window to make sure that we have the right supply coming into the City of London, and we also look out even further ― ten years, when we’re building new transformer stations.”
The upshot: Every good news story about EV adoption is inevitably followed by an enormous, “Yeah, but…” While EV penetration is up, the broader EV market overall is on shaky ground ― one needn’t look any further than Honda Canada’s announcement this week to postpone a $15-billion electric vehicle project in Ontario, citing market demand. A recent AutoTrader survey found that intent to purchase an EV declined for the third straight year in Canada, down to only 42 per cent of consumers. “For one, consumers don’t think that the infrastructure has expanded enough,” said AutoTrader’s Baris Akyurek. “Number two is the range anxiety ― you know, whenever you do this road trip or if you want to drive for a few hours, where am I going to charge my vehicle? And the third one is higher purchase costs.” That hesitancy looks to be accelerating, too. EV sales in March 2025 were down by 44 per cent over last year, even as new vehicle sales were up nearly 10 per cent. Analysts point to the end of federal EV incentive programs, plus the tariffs, plus general consumer uncertainty, as all being part of the tepid state of the EV market right now.
Read more: London Hydro | CTV News London
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Two London manufacturers settle three-year collective agreements
Amid the anxiety-laden backdrop of U.S. tariffs, two local manufacturers have at least managed to settle two new contracts with workforces this month. Both 3M Canada and Autoneum Canada ratified deals with their Unifor locals, the companies said. A total of 119 workers at 3M Canada’s sandpaper and duct tape plant on Oxford Street signed a three-year deal that will give them three per cent wage increases each year, plus signing bonuses, while the 122 workers at Autoneum (which makes carpets for vehicles) will see increases of 7.2, 3.9 and 3.7 per cent over the next three years. Both said that while tariffs are now an ever-present part of the work environment and contract negotiations, that “it was not a factor in bargaining,” according to Unifor local officials.
The upshot: If you’re reading anything in the tea leaves here, it might be that the manufacturing sector is showing itself to be a bit less flighty in the face of tariffs than some have expected. “We received reasonable assurances that these plants have a long-term future here, but they want clarity on trade before deciding on more investment,” Luis Domingues, London-area director for Unifor, told The London Free Press. Industry insiders expect that the U.S. and Canada will likely be heading back to the negotiating table over a renewed free-trade agreement, possible as soon as this summer. Settling three-year contracts should stabilize at least one aspect of the business for both 3M and Autoneum. “There’s concern about renegotiation and they won’t make investment until they know,” Domingues said. “Investments may stop until there’s trade certainty. That’s the problem, that’s the issue for workers in southwestern Ontario. Investment will be curtailed until we have clarity on this.”
Read more: London Free Press
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Odd Burger announces distribution deal with Dot Foods Canada
Odd Burger’s retail food product division, London-based Preposterous Foods, announced this week that it had secured a distribution deal with Dot Foods Canada. According to a company press release, the initial deal with Dot Foods will see five retail SKUs available for distribution, including the company’s ChickUn Fillet, Smash Burger, Chickpea Burger, ChickUn Pretenders and Breakfast Sausage. “We believe that this is a very significant step forward for Odd Burger,” said CEO James McInnes. “This distribution deal will allow us to secure listings with national retailers and will greatly increase our ability to grow revenue. Dot will also simplify our logistics and production process, which will drive efficiency across our manufacturing division.”
The upshot: The hope for Odd Burger here will be that Dot’s less-than-truckload business model will allow its products to be spread more widely, in turn increasing consumer exposure and uptake. Odd Burger’s fast-food franchise expansion hit some bumps recently when they first pivoted towards, and then away from, expansion into the U.S. On the other hand, they have been slowly adding more retail partners to their consumer packaged goods side, which may be the more sustainable long-term play for the company. Analysts still seem to have faith in Odd Burger’s unique mix of automation, vertical integration and franchising, though: in February, analyst Clive Maund rated Odd Burger a “Strong Buy.”
Read more: Newswire
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Dispatch: May 16, 2025
A summary of recent business appointments and announcements, plus event listings for the upcoming week.
View listings here
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