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. 

Gabriela and Mario Rodriguez-Garcia are the powerhouse sibling duo behind Soldadera Coffee, bringing cultural cold brew to a store near you!