We're the Lackees.

Lackees is a Canadian company building premium chewable lactase in a tin worth carrying. It's named after the people it's for — including the person building it.

The story, from the founder

I've been lactose intolerant my whole life. Every Halloween as a kid, I blamed the stomach aches on trick-or-treat excitement. It was the milk chocolate. Nobody hands you a diagnosis with your candy.

Once I knew what to look for, the pattern was everywhere. My signature childhood dinner was penne with butter and parmesan (a bold, inventive dish, I know), and I spent swim practices wondering why my stomach was upset in the pool. I'll spare you the swim-team joke about extra propulsion. (You're welcome.)

The hardest part was that nobody quite believed me, including at home. I'd ask before dinner and get the classic reassurance: “Oh, you don't need a pill, it's just a bit of butter.” The stomach aches disagreed a few hours later. Eventually I could work out what had been in dinner the night before without asking, which is a skill no kid should need.

Everyone's line is different, and that's worth saying plainly. Some people are fine until the milkshake or the second slice of pizza. For me, a bit of butter was enough. Wherever your line sits, knowing it (and being believed about it) is the whole game. If dairy only catches you sometimes, you're still one of us.

By the time I figured it out, the label had become an identity. When friends ask, I don't say "lactose intolerant." I say I'm a Lackee: someone lacking lactase. It started as a joke and became the name on this site.

And here's the thing that bothered me enough to build a company: the fix has existed for decades. Lactase enzyme is licensed and sitting on pharmacy shelves. But it lives in a pill bottle in a medicine cabinet, which is exactly where dinner never happens. Nobody carries it, so nobody has it at the birthday party, the pizza night, the ice cream stop. The enzyme was never the problem; the format is.

Colby Founder, Lackees

Why "Lackees"?

A Lackee is someone lacking lactase, which is most of the planet — researchers estimate about two-thirds of adults worldwide have some degree of lactose malabsorption. We figured a product you'd happily pass across the table deserved a name you'd happily say out loud. The goal was never a pharmacy product with a pharmacy name. It's "pass me a Lackee," said at a table, without anyone lowering their voice.

What we're building

Premium chewable lactase tablets in a pocket tin, with flavours built for food — never mint. Made for the moment before the first bite, not the medicine cabinet. Canada-first: built to Health Canada's Natural Health Products rules, labelled bilingually, built for Canadian shelves and Canadian dairy habits.

We're pre-launch and pre-regulatory-approval. Lactase supplements are Natural Health Products in Canada, which means a product licence (NPN) from Health Canada before anything ships — we're working through that process now, and nothing here is a claim that it's done. The waitlist gets early access, launch pricing, and a founding vote on the first flavour once we're cleared to sell.

The standards we write by

Supplement marketing has an honesty problem, and lactase content online is either medical-journal dense or trying too hard to sell you something. Our Learn guides follow three rules:

Every claim traces to a source — regulators, peer-reviewed research, or official guidance, linked at the bottom of every guide.
No cure talk. Lactase supplements help digest lactose in the meal you take them with. They don't cure anything, and we'll never say otherwise — on this site, on the label, or in an ad.
The allergy line stays bright. Lactase is for lactose intolerance. It does nothing for milk allergy, which is a different condition entirely — we wrote a whole guide on the difference.
We tell you who wrote it. Our guides are written and fact-checked by the Lackees editorial team, not a physician, pharmacist, or dietitian — we say so on every article, and we point you to a doctor whenever a question needs one.

Say hi

Questions, ideas, or a dairy story of your own: hello@lackees.com. If you've ever done the math on a slice of birthday cake, you're one of us — join the waitlist.