At the Belfast Community Co-op, we love supporting our local businesses! This month, in honor of Women’s History Month, we are featuring a selection of women-owned local businesses whose products you can find at the Co-op! Check out these business owners and click on the links to find out more!
Briana Warner – Atlantic Sea Farms
Founder of Atlantic Sea Farms, Briana Warner and her team forged a new path for seaweed aquaculture by working with fishermen to grow kelp as a climate change adaptation strategy, proving that a model that puts farmers, the planet, and people first can drive an entirely new way of producing food.
Kate McAleer – Bixby Chocolate
Kate McAleer started Bixby Chocolate in 2011. The Bixby name comes from Kate’s great-great-grandparents who were native New Englanders. Bixby Chocolate’s innovations include producing its own vegan, organic, non-GMO chocolate straight from ethically sourced cocoa beans.
Jill Miller – The Maine Pie Co.
With over a decade of professional baking experience, and heading off many requests for gluten-free products, Jill with help from her husband, built a designated gluten-free kitchen in Biddeford, Maine, where they create all their lab-certified gluten-free pies and products.
Nancy Durand – Ancestral French Soaps
Nancy Durand of Ancestral French Soaps revived an old soap recipe from the Mediterranean area using 100% olive oil as a base with only organic and native ingredients. Started as a side business to raise funds for a circus summer camp for one of her daughters, and it is now a solid successful enterprise.
Christine Pistole – Gryffon Ridge
In 2009, Christine Pistole started her spice business as her first Farmers Market in Brunswick, Maine. Gryffon Ridge is the only certified organic spice company in Maine and one of the highest-quality organic vendors in New England.
Katheryn Langelier – Herbal Revolution
Working with plant medicine and sustainable, organic farming is the heart of this business, started in 2010. Owner Katheryn Langelier states “Growing the plants that go into the products that are created is everything. Without this connection, there would be no Herbal Revolution.”
Sarah Speare – Tootie’s Tempeh
Tootie’s Tempeh was founded in 2019 by engaged citizens and vegans Sarah Speare, award-winning food entrepreneur, and Barbara Fiore, fermentor and long-time educator, who has since moved on. They aimed to model how food production can support local and sustainable agriculture, eliminate single-use plastics, and not harm animals.
Kate Hall – Graze
Graze began in 2016 in Kate’s basement as a small microgreen business selling to restaurants. At this time she was sick with an autoimmune disease and a single mother on the eve of divorce with no income. Her health improved when she started juicing the microgreens and this was the beginning of a successful expansion.
Veronica Stubbs of The Scone Goddess
After a move to Midcoast Maine, Veronica Stubbs realized she had an opportunity to do what she most loved: bake! She started by selling scones at the farmer’s markets until the pandemic hit, then she switched to selling her scone mixes online and wholesale.
Deb Soule – Avena Botanicals
Deb is an herbalist, gardener, teacher, and author of The Woman’s Handbook of Healing Herbs and How to Move Like a Gardener. Raised in Maine, Deb began organic gardening and studying the therapeutic uses of herbs at age sixteen. As a lecturer and instructor, she was named one of the most influential gardeners in the Northeast.
Lynne Rowe – Tortelleria Pachanga
Lynne Rowe, a former Spanish teacher, uses Maine organic corn to make a local variety of the delicious tortillas she discovered while living and working in Mexico. Tortilleria Pachanga makes fresh corn tortillas in Portland and distributes them across the state of Maine.
Heather Kerner – The Good Crust
Heather is an organic grower and home baker with 26 years as an Occupational Therapist. Her pizza dough company features the grains of Maine’s own grist mill, with a social mission to help people with unique needs enter the workforce.
Lisa Reilich – Painted Pepper Farm
Painted Pepper Farm is home of Dairy Delights Creamery, FarmHers Lisa Reilich and daughter Margaret Mae, their delightful herd of Nigerian Dairy goats, and many other animal familiars! They host goat snuggle socials, Wintersea Theatre Experiment performance art, and have a Farmstand CSA.
Tanya & Cheryl Rudy of Wandering Goat
The mother-daughter team located in Union, Maine with a shared passion for goats, gardening, creativity, and natural products. The soap is made in small batches using ingredients of the finest quality. They use fresh goat’s milk from their herd, blending it with organic oils, organic herbs and spices, and pure essential oils.
Elaine Waldron – Hootin’ Gluten-Free Bakery
Elaine Waldron started Hootin’ Gluten-Free Bakery in 2009 after finding a dearth of appetizing, gluten-free options available in stores. Having recently adopted a gluten-free diet herself, Waldron took matters into her own hands and began baking gluten-free bread and English muffins.
Betty Crush – Mom’s Munchies
Betty Crush created Mom’s Munchies when she was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. Needing a digestible snack that would provide energy and nutrients was the impetus behind Mom’s Munchies. Created gluten-free, low in sugar, and dairy-free with clean ingredients.
Amber Lambke – Maine Grains
Amber Lambke understands that by re-localizing grain production & milling, the livelihood, health, and economies of local farmers and communities are served. Maine Grains has been creating jobs, improving land use, and providing healthy food for all since 2012.
Everyone is welcome to shop at the Co-op; it is our mission and our pleasure to bring locally-sourced, reasonably priced, organic, and natural products to all.
Owned by you. Food for all.
