Celebrate Black History Month with local producers
February is Black History Month, providing an opportunity to highlight some of the co-op’s extraordinary producers.
Year-round, you can find them on our shelves and learn more about some through PCC’s Inclusive Trade Program. For just a sampling, though, don’t miss:
Bite Me Cookies:
Deborah Tuggle sees her cookie company as a bakery that also empowers people. Starting out as a single mother selling cookies to her college classmates, she opened her first bakery in Tacoma in 1995. (The best advice she got back then: Double the chocolate chips in any recipe.) Since then she’s grown to a business employing dozens of people, welcoming new immigrants and offering on-site English classes while producing decorative cookies that taste as sweet as they look. Read more here.
Boon Boona coffee:
A West Seattle native, Efrem Fesaha participated in traditional Eritrean coffee ceremonies with his family growing up. His trip to Eritrea in 2011 solidified his love for coffee, when he saw first-hand how cafes can build community when visiting the capital, Asmara. Boon Boona, the company he launched in 2012, brings a taste of East African coffee culture to his hometown. Read more here.
Lanier’s Fine Candies:
Herman Lanier’s nut brittles were originally made as gifts for co-workers, based on a Louisiana recipe from his Aunt Marie. He launched Lanier’s Fine Candies in 2011, after retiring from the University of Washington, where he worked as a project manager in facilities services. The family business’s exceptional cashew, pistachio and peanut brittles are made from cane sugar and honey, rather than the corn syrup that many commercial brittles contain. Read more here.
The Pickled Chef:
Mahogany Williams created a bright and briny future after a long career working in restaurants. The Tacoma native’s pickled grapes, carrots, beets and other products are influenced by everything from her family’s homestyle cooking to her work in New Orleans to time working with Seattle star chef Tamara Murphy. Read more in an archives article here from the chef who’s committed part of her proceeds to supporting multicultural communities and causes that benefit people experiencing homelessness. Pickled Chef products are now carried at all PCC stores.
Farming stories:
Check out our Sound Consumer interview with Melony Edwards and Mark Bittman on “Black Farmers and the Way Forward,” and this interview with Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm on “Farming While Black.”