Shannon is an author, podcaster, and the founder of the global Rockstar Woman Brunch Experience.  She’s been named one of the 200 Most Powerful Business Women in West Michigan and recognized as one of the 50 Most Influential Women in West Michigan by the Grand Rapids Business Journal.  Shannon is also the founder and CEO of Shannon Cohen, Inc, a boutique firm that creates products, spaces, and experiences to invest in the emotional wellbeing of people who lead, love, and serve in transformational ways.

Jordyn Gudeman was just four years old when she had her first anaphylactic reaction to tree nuts…Her mother would let Jordyn bake cookies from boxed mixes to treat the family. “It was fun to make and bake our cookies, but I knew I could do it better, so I started creating my own cookie recipes.”

About a decade ago, Terrie Searer was browsing the aisles of a health food store and came across a bottle of vegan Parmesan cheese. “This tiny bottle was about ten dollars,” she recalls. After reading the list of ingredients, she thought, “Oh, I can make this myself.” She came home and went to work in her kitchen, experimenting with the different ingredients until she came up with a winner to create her signature product that started it all.

Entrepreneurs can start young. And there’s no better example than brothers Hunter and Gavin Green. Just 22 and 19, respectively, they are the two behind the push to get Bagel Bombs into Meijer Market Format stores.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, we sat down with 8 of our local makers from women-owned businesses so we could share their stories with our shoppers and community.

At first blush it would be easy to assume that Grady’s Garden is merely a company that makes pasta sauce. You may never think too much about the impact this seemingly routine purchase has on the wider world around you.  But we think you should.

 Last Mile Café is a local Black and woman owned small business bringing premium coffee, transparency, and ethical and sustainable practices to us from the southeast side of Grand Rapids. 

IRIE is a Jamaican term meaning “all right, cool, merry or great” – as in “everything is going great”.  To Vince McIntosh, it describes an overall feeling of good vibes – a feeling customers are sure to find when visiting Irie Kitchen.