Sandy VanDyke has been handcrafting small batch fudge for over 30 years.  The recipe, which she still uses to this day, was found in an old cookbook passed along to her by her father.  Sandy originally hails from Dewitt, Michigan, moving to Grand Rapids to attend the Grand Rapids School of Bible & Music and settling down in the area for over 40 years.  It’s here that she met her husband Tim, and her sweet journey from homemade treats to beloved woman-owned small business began!

Meet the high school friends turned chili cookoff champions behind 2024’s Golden Ticket Winner, Jedi Chili!

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.