If you like supporting locally-owned businesses, it doesn’t get much more local than Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co. Owner Matt McClutchy lives on the same block in Bay View where he runs his café and coffee roasting company.

Rebecca Scarberry started making caramels as a hobby. It was something she did to sustain herself during her first two winters in Wisconsin. She’d always found herself making sweets to give as gifts to family and friends. Caramel by caramel she turned her hobby into a business. In 2007, she started Becky’s Blissful Bakery.

Necessity got Linda Mulholland into the food business. While her husband was looking for a new job, she knew she needed to do something to help bring in some money for her family. As Linda lay in bed thinking about things she was good at and enjoyed doing, one thing kept popping into her head: enchiladas. 

Andrea and Brian Strom didn’t aspire to run a granola business, but they came up with a name, and it was too good to not do something with it.

Dr. Alison Levitt, MD and Donn Kelly started their company, Doctor in the Kitchen, after bumping into each other at a Twin Cities dog park. 

Six years ago, Lauren Tisljar and her family decided to start making tortilla chips. When it came time to name the company, they wanted something different, a name that would stand out on a shelf and intrigue customers. They decided Donkey Chips would do the trick.

It’s all dark browns and grays, the landscape now. Nature, in this small stand of trees an hour north of Milwaukee, seems fast asleep under the worn blanket of tired snow. Even on a crystalline-blue early March day, it’s whisper-quiet in the woods. In this forest, farmed by the Drewry family for more than 160 years, it’s the dawn of a new season producing maple syrup.

American palates are accustomed to the taste of old olive oil. It’s partly because many people think that olive oil is a shelf stable product. Josh Saiia is here to tell you, it is not.

For most of us, a cup of coffee is nothing more than a pleasant and pretty much necessary start to our day. Coffee, shower, breakfast and out the door. But for the folks at Just Coffee in Madison, and the hundreds of coffee farmers they work with around the world, a cup of coffee is so much more. 

Lonesome Stone Milling got started two years and a summer ago when Gilbert Williams purchased a grain cleaner at auction. Williams started cleaning rye for cover crop and was asked to run some seed wheat. Turns out that, together, the wheat and rye flour made a tasty pancake.

C’mon, admit it, you’ve always wanted to take a big swig from that bottle of REAL maple syrup. The stuff is THAT good. We’ve all been there. The folks at Maple Valley understand. 

Kombucha is definitely a conversation starter. If you’ve never tried the fizzy beverage, then you might not understand why. If you make it for a living, like Vanessa Tortolano and Alla Shapiro, owners of Nessalla Kombucha, then you quickly learn that people are fascinated by the stuff.

After retiring from modeling, Nikki Taylor needed a job. She wanted to make and sell a better cookie, one with a list of ingredients people could understand and one that tasted homemade.

Rachel Kruse grew up in a family of vegetarians. For as long as she can remember, salad has always been one of her favorites — her mom would grind it up for baby food and her grandmother made homemade, organic salad dressings.

Long before they started a business, even before they married, Jack Fallucca and Zina Feliccia met in a town in Sicily … Palermo. Jack developed his love for food growing up in Sicily.

Owned by Jay Patterson, this apple orchard and store is a true local, family business. It was founded in the late 1950s by Jay’s grandfather, Jean, and his dad, Dennis. Today, the store sits on the same parcel of land in New Berlin.

Lauren Schultz figures, if you’re going to enjoy ice cream, you might as well go all the way. Lauren and her husband, Steve, make their super premium Purple Door Ice Cream right here in Milwaukee. 

It started with a book. After reading “Salt: A World History,” by Mark Kurlansky, the wheels started turning for Andrew Sauter Sargent. He knew he liked sauerkraut and kim chi and decided to make his own.

It all started with Sloppy Jo, well a meatless version. Barb and R Jay Gruenwald were dating and they both volunteered for Outpost back when the store hosted community meals. The Saucy Jo that Barb and R Jay made, out of tofu, was such a hit they decided to start a company, The Simple Soyman.

Chris Covelli found his way into farming through his interests in plants, weather and natural systems. For the past 19 years, Covelli has been trying to make a living growing vegetables on his 12-acre Tomato Mountain Farm, south of Madison. 

Don and Jane Wienke bought their 40-acre farm in 1966, back when it was still a cherry orchard. Both their mothers canned and preserved the fruits and vegetables, mainly strawberries, cherries and tomatoes. That’s where the idea for Wienke’s Market was born.