News

We are a small shop located in Toronto (Canada) producing unique and durable baby accessories.  Our products use natural fabrics and are locally made, with love and respect for the world around us.

Hey Pomelo was founded in early 2013 by Charmaine Baan and Manny Berenguel, with the goal of producing stylish and highly functional products for today's parents and their babies.  At Hey Pomelo we believe that we have the ability to impact the world by living the changes that we want to see.  Through our production and fabric choices, we hope to support an earth friendly textile industry, and send a message to our children that we strive for a clean planet, and a strong local economy.

All of our fabrics are purchased in small quantities and are used to produce limited runs of sturdy diaper bags and attractive accessories.  We offer custom embroidery and coordinated sets; simple touches that are designed to make our products as unique as the families that use them.

Charmaine is a trained chef and pastry chef, with years of workaholic chef type behaviour under her belt.  No one is more surprised by the life altering affects that a child can have on a woman’s life, than Charmaine.  In 2011, little Q arrived, and with him came free time and an entirely new lifestyle.  At home with a baby, Charmaine’s rural roots suddenly emerged in an unexpected burst of domesticity.  Where once was a drive to work 80 hours a week making food for other people, there was now an urge to preserve local produce, garden, and sew.  Rather than fight it, Charmaine embraced the change and Hey Pomelo was born.

Manny trained as an audio engineer and is a modern day renaissance man.  Hey Pomelo gives him a chance to indulge both his addiction to technology and his odd affinity for organizing things into categories and lists.  As it turns out, these obsessive compulsive traits come in handy when putting together a DIY online business.

Hey Pomelo would like to gratefully acknowledge Charmaine's mom, who provided the original design inspiration for a lot of our products and the skill of sewing. Oh! and the sewing machine in the first place, love you Mom!  We would also like to thank all those that have helped us along the way, family, friends, and other small business owners, who have been amazing and so supportive in helping us get this website off the ground.  We highly recommend the Shopify platform in terms of ease of use and technical support, along with their fantastic array of app developers, specifically those who provide some essential parts of this website (OutoftheSandbox, Shappify, Yotpo, Mailchimp, and Beetailer).