Every March we celebrate women-owned local businesses carried at the Co-op. Here are four awesome small businesses owned and operated by savvy Maine women.
44 North - Coffee Roasters
44 North Coffee started in 2010 when then co-workers, Melissa Raftery and Megan Wood, decided they wanted to create a communal space and learn to import and roast organic coffee. Our company name comes from the line of latitude at which Deer Isle village sits, 44.23° North. We started with a wee little roaster, a tabletop Diedrich IR-3 kg and found out about Cooperative Coffee in our beginning exploration. Cooperative Coffee is a green coffee importing cooperative composed of 23 members in both the USA and Canada and is committed to building and supporting “Fair and Direct” trade relationships for the benefit of small-scale farmer families, their communities, and exporting cooperatives. In our 15th year of business, we are now roasting on two Diedrich IR-12 kg roasters, maintain MOFGA certification for 12+ years, run two cafes and a roastery that services over 70 wholesale accounts throughout New England. Special fact: the Blue Hill Coop was our first wholesale account! There’s a lot of love in our beans. Every bag of coffee is hand picked, roasted, stampled, hand written, weighed, and bagged, and delivered to you by an incredible 44 North team.
44 North Coffee was born in 2010 on a small island off the coast of Maine. Founded on the principle that fresh and ethically sourced coffee sips best, we custom roast organic Arabica coffee beans in Deer Isle village. We honor the hard work of the farmers who grow our coffee by fairly purchasing seasonal organic beans and roasting to levels that highlight the best tasting notes in each cup. Enjoy at your own line of latitude!
Graze
Graze is Maine’s first and only wholesale certified and licensed beverage producer that processes and bottles unpasteurized cold-pressed juice. Located in Northport, Maine, each of the 9 varieties of blended juices are crafted using the highest quality of local produce and superfood ingredients. Each bottle is filled with real goodness you can taste and feel great about enjoying. All of our juice varieties are labeled with a short list of ingredients that even kids can read! There are never any added sugars, preservatives, chemicals, stabilizers or sneaky ingredients in our juice products. Just full flavor, nutrient dense, vitamin rich superfood juice to energize and fuel your day.
Farm and company owner, Kate Hall, made her way back to her home state in late 2009 after twelve years spent in the fashion design world in New York City, Boston and San Francisco. Her self-curated path into micro farming was derived from an inherent love of color, texture, art, Maine outdoors and need for nutritional supplementation. In 2018 Graze cold pressed juice was created to fill a nutritional deficiency affecting Kate’s immune system. Today the farm grows and produces organic seasonal produce and wheatgrass which is harvested and pressed onsite at the farms bottle plant processing kitchen to offer these blended juices at
Page Eastman - Photography Cards
“I am a nature photographer from Bangor, Maine. My mother was an oil painter and my father and grandfather both photographers. I studied painting with several artists in the area, and hold a BA in English and an MA in Theology.
For the past 20 years I have managed a print and note card business. My artwork is carried by several shops in Maine, including The Blue Hill Co-op, and has been featured in a number of juried shows and galleries. I have also created several photographic books, ranging from Maine flowers, Maine wildlife and more.
In my photographic travels, I have found that inspiring subject matter will present itself to me when I am not holding preconceived ideas of what I want to photograph. The less I try to determine a specific outcome in my work, the more I am present to what wants to be photographed. “
Chai Wallahs
“We’ve always loved the conversations and connections that arise when people come together around a warm mug or glass of morning tea or coffee.
Chai is a word for tea in numerous languages. Masala chai originates from India and is comprised of a blend of black tea and spices.
Wallah means someone involved in an activity in Hindi and Urdu as well as other languages.*
We include both in the name of this business out of great respect for and recognition of the history, heritage, and tradition of making and serving chai. Though every chai wallah we have met has had their own way, they all were a distinct part of the experience of sharing in the chai they were brewing, pouring, and serving.
We began serving chai at markets and fairs here in Maine in 2009. We so appreciated the interactions that arose as people gathered and lingered while sipping chai. Folks would ask how to make chai in their own homes. And so we began preparing and offering a blend of spices and black tea in packaged form to create a way for others to make chai and enjoy not only the flavor but the cooking itself.
Customers have shared with us their appreciation of how slow cooking chai offers an opportunity to pause and be present. From sitting around the kitchen table with a friend to bringing a camp stove out into Maine’s wilderness, we love the experience of pausing as we tend the cooking pot and then sipping the chai’s warmth amongst friends, amidst the trees and moss of the Maine woods, on a wind-swept rocky shore, or in a moment of solitude.
We are grateful to be a part of this business. And humbled by the complexity inherent in being a part of this business.
It is important to us that we are engaged in and honoring the web that lends to us being able to offer this chai to you and that we are supporting more kind, just, and sustainable ways and initiatives throughout all the components of engaging with this web. We hope to approach this with humility and care.
This winter we are so grateful to have spent time connecting with two communities of rooibos farmers in the Cederberg region of the Western Cape of South Africa. Learn more about these communities and connections here.
We also hope to be part of a shift in business that is based in much deeper care of people and the Earth.
We have been grateful to learn about the wonderful organizations below and to be able to donate a portion of our proceeds to and through them. We are also grateful for the opportunities that come our way to give back on an ongoing basis. We donate through GITA Giving to engage with the greater web of peoples and lands from which our ingredients and the traditions of chai originate. We donate to Wabanaki REACH in recognition of the history of the land where we live and the people whose home this has been long before we came to live here. This year we also donated to the release of Ayana Elizabeth Johnson’s new book, What If We Get It Right? as her work looks to just such shifts we all can make toward a more just, kind, and thoughtful future.
Please feel free to reach out with other ideas and connections so that we can continue to make this business one that is about honoring and supporting the greater web involved in making this chai available to you. We are excited to continue to do this ever more thoughtfully, together with you.
And as we love the way a warm cup of chai brings people together, so too we love how this business has brought us in touch with all of you. Many thanks to you all, Leigh and Ruthie
*We drew from Wikipedia for these definitions.”
