Our Story
It Started With
an Egg.
Every idea at Shaffer Farms begins the same way — as a small, fragile thing that needs warmth, patience, and a little stubbornness to survive. Some hatch. Some don't. The ones that did built everything you see here.
The Partnership
Gerald & Alex
Shaffer
We're a husband-and-wife partnership based in Roberts Creek on the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. Gerald is the writer, inventor, and restless idea-generator. Alex is the artist, ceramist, and the one who makes things beautiful and lasting.
This isn't our first time around. Before Shaffer Farms, we built Youngsters Innovations — a multiple award-winning ideas company. We ran BC Clays Works, a ceramic slip foundry supplying the paint-your-own industry. We opened Lallibugs Paint Your Own Cafe behind the Gumboot in Roberts Creek. Some of those ventures thrived. Some taught us hard lessons. All of them led here.
Shaffer Farms isn't a corporation — it's a partnership. No board of directors, no shareholders, no layers of bureaucracy. Just two people building things they believe in, one project at a time.
Every brand you see in our universe — from Just Gerald Magazine to Alex Ceramics, from Squintwerks to Wildlife Wise Canada — operates as a DBA under Shaffer Farms. One entity. One set of books. One story.
Every egg is an idea. Not all of them hatch.
Where We've Been
Eggs That Hatched Before
Youngsters Innovations
The Shaffers' first venture together. An ideas and innovations company that won multiple awards, proving early on that Gerald and Alex had a talent for turning raw concepts into recognized products.
BC Clays Works
A ceramic slip foundry creating product for the paint-your-own industry. Alex's deep knowledge of ceramics — making slip, glaze, and molds from scratch — turned into a B2B supply business, providing studios across British Columbia with quality product. That same expertise now powers Alex Ceramics.
Lallibugs Paint Your Own Cafe
A paint-your-own ceramic cafe snuggled in behind the Gumboot Cafe in Roberts Creek. A charming spot — but perhaps a little too far off the beaten path. It closed from lack of use, but the experience shaped everything that came after.
Youngsters Innovations
Awards & Trade History
Before Shaffer Farms, Youngsters Innovations built a national and international wholesale business from the Sunshine Coast — winning industry awards, filling trade show floors, and landing accounts with some of the world's most recognized retailers.
Industry Award
Oppenheimer Award
Won the prestigious Oppenheimer Award — one of North America's most recognized toy and gift industry honours — for the paint-your-own mug kits. A product developed and manufactured by Youngsters Innovations.
Show Award
Best Booth — Vancouver Gift Show
Awarded Best Booth at the Vancouver Gift Show — recognition for presentation, product design, and the ability to create a compelling retail environment on the trade show floor.
2,000+
Wholesale Accounts
5
Trade Shows Per Season
NY
Gift Show & Toy Show
London
Paul Smith Account
Distribution
Mail Order Catalogue Distribution
Youngsters Innovations products were carried in major mail order catalogues including Beautiful BC — reaching consumers directly across British Columbia and beyond. Catalogue placement alongside trade show presence and wholesale accounts created multiple revenue channels for the product line.
Notable Account
Paul Smith
of London
Paul Smith of London — the iconic British fashion house — was among the 2,000+ wholesale accounts carried by Youngsters Innovations. They stocked our paint-your-own boots: a craft product that found its way into one of the world's most design-conscious retail environments. A small Canadian company on the Sunshine Coast, selling into a London fashion institution.
The Real Farm
A Research Farm.
For Real.
Shaffer Farms isn't just a metaphor. It's an actual research farm. We trial varieties of grasses to find the best species for making natural drinking straws — zero waste, designed for thin drinks both hot and cold, with the right mouthfeel. We also research types of seaweed to ferment into organic fertilizers.
But the research doesn't stay on our farm. We teach other farms how to grow straw grasses, sharing our methods and knowledge so they can add a new crop to their rotation. And we act as buyer of last resort — if a farm grows the grass and can't find a buyer, we'll buy it. That's the deal. We're building a supply chain from the ground up, one farm at a time.
Grass Straw Research
Trialling grass varieties for natural drinking straws. Zero waste, optimal mouthfeel, suitable for hot and cold thin drinks. Teaching other farms to grow and guaranteeing purchase as buyer of last resort.
Just Gerald Seaweed
From shoreline to shelf-stable product, right here in Roberts Creek. We harvest seaweed from the coast and process it locally — both as a food product under Just Gerald Seaweed and as fermented organic fertilizer for sustainable agriculture. Ocean to soil, closing the loop.
Programs & Initiatives
More Than Business
Cratemakers
A program under Shaffer Crate & Block giving work to the underemployed and life to piles of junk wood. Salvaged lumber becomes handmade crates. People who need a break get one. It's work that matters on both sides of the equation.
Part of Shaffer Crate & Block — a Shaffer Farms DBA.
West Coast Wildlife Research & Education
Wildlife Wise Canada is a product of West Coast Wildlife Research and Education — bringing safety to the animals by teaching the people. Gerald's 25+ years of field experience in human-wildlife conflict, distilled into free resources, species guides, and an AI-powered wildlife assistant.
Powering wildlifewise.ca
The Man Behind the Farm
Gerald Shaffer
Before the ideas, there was the river. For ten years, Gerald served as a Search and Rescue swift water technician on the BC coast — the one they call when someone is trapped in whitewater, caught in a flood, or swept downstream. He still remains on standby.
That SAR background shaped everything that came after. The discipline to build systems that work under pressure. The instinct to solve problems with whatever's at hand. The understanding that sometimes you have to jump into fast-moving water and trust your training. Every brand in our universe carries a bit of that ethos — move fast, stay calm, get the job done.
Gerald is also a Google Guide Level 8 with over 20 million views — one of the most prolific local guides on the platform. Bear Aware Coordinator. Inventor of the first smell-proof wildlife garbage container. Publisher of 25+ books. The voice behind Just Gerald Radio. Creator of Squintwerks' AR technology. Frontman of Gerald & The Doonesbury Band — whose album "Slow Down... You're On Creek Time" is on Apple Music and Spotify. But ask him what he's most proud of and he'll probably talk about the river.
Gerald Shaffer
SAR — BC Coast
Swift Water
"Slow Down... You're On Creek Time" — Gerald & The Doonesbury Band
Alexandra Shaffer — Roberts Creek Studio
Alex Ceramics — Fired with love. Made to last.
The Ceramist Behind the Studio
Alexandra Shaffer
Before the mugs, there were the moulds. Alex has spent decades working with clay — developing her own stoneware formula through years of studio experimentation, learning the chemistry of slip and glaze, and building the kind of deep craft knowledge that can't be shortcut. She is not a hobbyist who turned professional. She is a ceramist who built a supply chain.
Her first venture, BC Clays Works, was a ceramic slip foundry — creating product for the paint-your-own pottery industry across British Columbia. That same expertise fed into Youngsters Innovations, where her paint-your-own mug kits won the Oppenheimer Award and her paint-your-own boots found their way onto the shelves of Paul Smith of London. She understands ceramics from the raw material to the retail shelf.
Alex Ceramics is the current expression of that lifetime of work. Every piece is slip cast from her own recipe, hand-illustrated with Pacific Northwest wildlife — octopus, Dungeness crab, humpback whale, garden snail — and fired to cone 6 high-fire stoneware. The drip glazes form naturally in the kiln. No two pieces are identical. Every mug is signed with her "A" mark. She draws inspiration from the great chinaware houses — Wedgwood, Royal Doulton, Spode, Moorcroft — and brings that tradition to the Sunshine Coast.
She is also the quiet engine behind Shaffer Farms — the one who keeps the studio running, the books straight, and the partnership grounded. Gerald writes the ideas. Alex makes them real.
Oppenheimer Award
Paint-Your-Own Mug Kits
Paul Smith of London
Paint-Your-Own Boots — stocked
BC Clays Works
Ceramic slip foundry, BC
Alex Ceramics
Roberts Creek studio, est. 2023
The Journey
How We Got Here
Youngsters Innovations — multiple award winners
The Shaffers' first venture. An ideas company that won multiple awards and proved that Gerald and Alex could turn concepts into real, recognized products.
BC Clays Works — ceramic slip foundry
A foundry creating ceramic slip products for the paint-your-own industry. Alex's expertise in ceramics turned into a supply-chain business serving studios across BC.
Lallibugs Paint Your Own Cafe
A paint-your-own ceramic cafe tucked in behind the Gumboot Cafe in Roberts Creek. A little too far off the beaten path — it closed from lack of foot traffic. But the lessons stayed.
Squintwerks founded — Gerald invents the AR Future Cam
The idea that images could speak. Point and watch, not point and shoot. The AR platform that tokenizes images to deliver video content.
Just Gerald Magazine launches
A travel and lifestyle field guide: 'Coffee 'til Cocktails — bottled and bound.' Alex Ceramics studio opens in Roberts Creek — making slip, glaze, and molds all locally.
Just Gerald Radio & Wildlife Wise Canada go live
Premium ad-free jazz and lounge for bars and venues. Wildlife Wise Canada — a product of West Coast Wildlife Research and Education — launches as a national resource, bringing safety to animals by teaching people.
Just Gerald Books publishes 25+ titles
Fiction, thrillers, self-help, science, children's books — all from the desk of Gerald J. Shaffer. The research farm begins trials on grass varieties for straws.
Shaffer Farms — the umbrella takes shape
Every brand, every idea, every DBA — united under one partnership, one farm, one story. The research farm, the straw grass program, Cratemakers, and a growing universe of brands.
Our Philosophy
The Egg Theory
We lay a lot of eggs. That's the honest truth. Not every idea survives incubation. Some crack too early. Some never hatch at all. But the ones that do — the ones that push through the shell and find their legs — those become something real.
Youngsters Innovations hatched and won awards. BC Clays Works hatched and supplied an industry. Lallibugs hatched but didn't survive — too far from the road, not enough foot traffic. That's farming. You plant, you tend, and sometimes the crop doesn't come in. But you plant again.
Just Gerald Magazine started as an egg. So did Alex Ceramics. Squintwerks was an egg that nobody expected to hatch — an AR camera that lets images speak? But it did. Wildlife Wise Canada was an egg that Gerald carried for twenty-five years before it finally cracked open.
And now we're researching grass varieties for straws and fermenting seaweed for fertilizer. We're teaching other farms to grow crops and promising to buy what they harvest. We're turning junk wood into crates and giving work to people who need it. The farm metaphor isn't clever branding. It's how we actually live.