The Victory Garden of the Future: Why We Started Aera

We started Aera because we had to.

We live on an island in the middle of the North Atlantic — a place of jaw-dropping beauty, long winters, and just three days’ worth of fresh food on grocery store shelves at any given time. When the ferries stop, the trucks stop. And when the trucks stop, the lettuce disappears.

Over ninety percent of our leafy greens are trucked in from California — a journey of over 6,000 kilometres across a continent and an ocean. By the time that romaine reaches our grocery stores, it’s days (sometimes weeks) old, limp, expensive, and just one delay away from not arriving at all.

When our parents were both diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases, food became personal. We wanted more control over what we put on our table — more than just what was available or affordable that week. That desire became a mission when Stormageddon hit: an extreme weather event that brought Newfoundland to a standstill. Lines wrapped around buildings. Store shelves emptied. And the fragility of our food system was suddenly impossible to ignore.

Then came Covid. Suddenly, the whole world got a glimpse of what we already knew — that our food supply chains are far too vulnerable. From supply disruptions, wars and closed borders to climate-driven crop failures and economic shocks, we saw what happens when a just-in-time system collides with a just-not-now world.

What we felt on our island is now becoming more universal. Fires in B.C., floods in Europe, droughts in California, tariffs and trade restrictions — the system is cracking. And if you live in the North, on a coast, in a remote town, or even a city, you’ve probably felt it too.

But Newfoundland has always been a hard place to grow food.

Our soil? Gone — swept into the sea by a glacial event thousands of years ago. Our winters? Long, dark, and relentless. But our people? Resilient. From root cellars carved into hillsides to pickling, preserving, and drying, we’ve always found ways to make the most of what little we could grow.

Shawn’s family goes back generations in rural Newfoundland, where life is built on grit, community, and the seasonal rhythms of the sea. His roots are steeped in survival, in storing what little could be grown or caught, and in relying on ingenuity when the land (and sea) demanded it. Case in point: his grandmother’s home was resettled by floating it over the ocean (see house hauling). 

For me, it was my dad. He was born in Britain during the Second World War and spent his early childhood in a Nissan hut. I still have his ration card from that era — a powerful reminder of how food scarcity shaped lives. When he came to Newfoundland, he brought that resilience with him. He gardened. He composted. He showed us how to make things grow, even when the odds were against us.

That’s what inspired the name Victory – a nod to the Victory Gardens of the war years when ordinary people grew food in backyards, parks, and windowsills to support their communities. It’s also a nod to our roots — both literal and cultural. Aera is about getting back to that spirit. Growing what we can. Storing what we grow. Sharing what we learn.

We didn’t start Aera to sell gadgets. We started it because the world we grew up in was changing, and the future we want to live in requires new tools. Victory is a first step. It’s for people who want to take back control — who want to grow clean, affordable food without needing land, time, or perfect weather.

It’s for communities that remember what it means to be resourceful. For people who want to connect to something real. For anyone who looks at empty shelves or soaring prices and thinks, “There has to be a better way.”

There is.

Welcome to Aera.