EXEC: Turtle Fur’s New CEO Erika Canfield Eyes Outdoor Way of life Alternative

Erika Canfield, who was promoted to CEO of Turtle Fur efficient August 1, spoke with SGB Executive about Turtle Fur’s legacy on the ski slopes in addition to the model’s strikes to broaden past winter gear into year-round way of life and efficiency equipment.

Canfield joined Vermont-based Turtle Fur in October 2022 as a part of a brand new administration group after the model’s sale to Camano Capital. Previously, she was VP of Global Marketing at Carbitex and VP of Marketing at Outdoor Research and held advertising and marketing roles at Stanley and Aladdin.

SGB: How did Turtle Fur get its begin?
Erika Canfield: Turtle Fur was based in 1982 by single-mom Millie Merrill, within the basement of the youngsters’s clothes retailer she owned, The Yellow Turtle, in Stowe, Vermont. Millie was (and nonetheless is, in her 80s!) an avid skier and noticed a chance to make skiers’ lives hotter and extra comfy. She invented the fleece neck hotter and dubbed it the Turtle’s Neck, which has change into a staple within the kits of skiers and snowboarders across the nation. Since launching the unique neck hotter, we have now expanded into different ski and way of life equipment, with our way of life assortment now being our fastest-growing assortment.

SGB: Who is Turtle Fur’s conventional buyer? Are you making an attempt to achieve a more recent viewers?
Canfield: Turtle Fur has been recognized and beloved by skiers and snowboarders for over 4 a long time, with individuals usually telling us that they’ve had their Turtle Fur neck hotter for years. We love that; it’s a pillar of ours to make sustainable merchandise that stand the take a look at of time and use. We additionally love the passion for our model, of our shoppers who’ve recognized us for many years. We need to lengthen that model love and enthusiasm to the following technology of people that love spending time outside, past the ski slopes to the paths and to city. We have been based by a lady and have primarily been a female-driven model. We see a chance available in the market to lean into this and serve the feminine outside way of life client with accessibly priced, high-quality equipment that provide as a lot fashion and self-expression because the consolation and performance we’re recognized for.

SGB: What plans do you need to maintain the core winter enterprise rising?
Canfield: Winter is actually on the coronary heart of who we’re, and we see an enormous alternative in winter way of life equipment. In Winter 2023, we launched a brand new assortment of each way of life and ski merchandise, that includes a high-pile, fluffy fleece materials that we name Comfort Lush. This has been our fastest-growing assortment in each ski and way of life classes. We provide children’ objects on this materials as properly (our bunny and bear-eared overhoods being fan favorites). The Comfort Lush bucket hat, tort fashion hat and overhood that matches over a ski helmet have been our massive winners. The client suggestions we hear is that folks love the softness and heat of the fabric, and the types that assist them stand out from the group. This winter, we’re launching extra types, extra colours and have a enjoyable and buzzy marketing campaign for Lush launching – I can’t reveal a lot, you’ll must keep watch over our social media for that.

SGB: Is Turtle Fur making any adjustments to its distribution?
Canfield: While we’re dedicated to rising our enterprise throughout our heritage core channels — specialty ski, resort, sporting items — we see a much bigger alternative to broaden distribution to specialty and huge outside and way of life retailers. We have a robust DTC enterprise that far outpaced the anemic DTC market final yr, and we have now a robust e-com market enterprise, each of which we are going to see proceed to develop over the following few years. We consider we have now a sizeable alternative for development right here in North America by means of our give attention to ladies and way of life, though we’re taking a look at when an growth to wider worldwide markets is true for us.

SGB: How are you set as much as deal with tariffs?
Canfield: We have been impacted by the tariff roller-coaster, as have been many in our business. The influence got here not solely within the monetary burden it’s inflicting all alongside our pipeline, but additionally within the time and assets we would have liked to dedicate to navigate the state of affairs: the monitoring of the ever-changing tariff panorama, market intel, working varied monetary eventualities as tariffs modified and growing and speaking our method, monitoring and monitoring the influence. We selected to honor our pre-season pricing to help our buyer base, and carried out small, strategic will increase to wholesale and MSRP pricing to attenuate the influence to our clients and finish shoppers.

SGB: Where do you see the expansion alternatives over the following 3 to five  years?
Canfield: Turtle Fur has a small however loyal following on the ski slopes and with individuals who have recognized about us for many years; over the previous 40+ years, the model has been very quiet within the market with very restricted funding into advertising and marketing and model constructing. To obtain significant development, we must be louder, prouder and broaden that love and loyalty to a brand new technology of outside fanatics. With the funding of Camano Capital, we will likely be laser-focused on being consumer-obsessed, constructing buzz available in the market to drive demand, nurturing new and present clients by means of group constructing and client participation, and increasing our wholesale distribution within the US. We are in a superb place with a robust working platform and optimistic client sentiment – now we get to pour fuel on the flame that was lit by Millie 40-plus years in the past.

Images courtesy Turtle Fur