The inspiration for these soft-sole shoes came from my desire to give custom, 'made-with-love' gifts to the many babies born to our friends. I made the first pair in 2013 out of left over scraps from Jeff's handmade leather wallets that he gave to the groomsmen at our wedding. After gifting a few pairs to newborns I started receiving orders, we've been working on improving our design and growing our company ever since.

-Amanda Penner

Our shoe factory is located in Abbotsford BC. We’ve focused on building a factory with modern manufacturing techniques in our hometown because we value our community, and we value having a close connection to the product we make. This allows us to relentlessly focus on quality and consistency

Our soft sole shoes are exclusively manufactured at our own facility in Canada.

We are currently adding phase two so that we can make sneakers in Canada as well.

There are very few companies making sneakers in Canada. In order for us to offer sneakers we needed a little help from our friends. We call this our Friendship Manufacturing Initiative.

We partnered with a Chinese factory to offer our sneaker designs with the goal that we would eventually make our sneakers in Canada. We've been learning from our partners, and testing the market to make sure we can reach our goal successfully.

In February 2020 we are starting on the next phase of this journey, as we build infrastructure to eventually make sneakers in Canada. We are filming our experience so you can follow along.

Simple Packaging: Our boxes are made from 100% recycled material, they are 100% recyclable. Our box designs are foldable so they do not require glue or additional plastics to function.

Recycled Materials: All new sneakers produced in 2020 starting with our adult lineup will contain recycled plastics. This is outlined in the product descriptions where available.

Thoughtful Process: If a defect occurs at any point in the process we stop the affected piece from being made into finished product immediately. These pieces are collected and eventually sewn into functional shoes to be sold as seconds in our Warehouse sales.

Efficient use of material: Through design and investment in new machinery we've significantly increased the material yields in our products over the past 6 years. Our processes have increased our material yield 75%-80% to above 97%

When we source our leather we work back in the supply chain as far as we can. We work with suppliers who have relationships with reputable tanneries who treat their workers well. This means everyone involved in the process to make our soft sole shoes works in a safe environment, is respected, and treated fairly. Ethically sourced materials allow us to freely pick out unique styles and make each pair with love, care and attention, something the little feet in your life deserve.

Part of our diligence in our overseas factories includes BSCI compliance. On top of this Heyfolks owners are able to freely visit our factory partners in China. We also have Heyfolks representatives on site performing inspection during all production runs.