Hard to believe, you say? Well, we made it happen. We picked some mesquite beans from our trees, bought a jar of honey from a local beekeeper, extracted the sugars and flavor from the beans, combined that with the honey, and voila, Velvet Mesquite Honey Caramels. And man o man are they delicious. Next came the prickly pear fruit. After walking out into the desert and harvesting some prickly pear fruit, we repeated the process, and Honey Caramel #2 was born. 20 Honey Caramel flavors later, we have invented a start from scratch idea into a growing, thriving business. But we lost our kitchen (overcrowded) and half our home (boxes boxes boxes), so now we need a bigger space and better back and arm saving equipment. So we launched a Kickstarter campaign
We started with this in mind – create a model that can be duplicated by anyone in any locale, with a little creativity and a lot of passion. Just look around your environment, find resources and services that you can pull together to help get your project off the ground. We contacted local beekeepers, local organic farmers, found local businesses that could supply eco friendly materials for our packaging, and connected with local farmers markets and festivals to help get our products in front of people. Doors began to open that we never thought of. And we did this all from our home kitchen. We had to jump through a few hoops, like registering our kitchen with the state and taking a county food handler’s class, but this cost less that $100. Adding a lot of determination, we were ready to begin a home based business.
We built this business on two foundations. 1. We’re going to support other like minded local entrepreneurs and buy from them. 2. We’re going to be part of the solution, not the problem, so everything we do must be earth friendly, from packaging down to the tires on the car. Seems to have struck a cord with folks. We now contribute to the bottom line of over a dozen local individuals and businesses, and several cooperatives. We’re asking for your help to get our Kickstarter campaign funded. Please take a look at it, and if you decide what we’re doing is worthwhile, we would love to have you join the Untamed team. Expansion helps us, helps others, and helps continue our business model built on responsibility, sustainability, and community. Get Untamed.
