Author: Alexis Gutter (Alexis Gutter)

Satiating a craving is logical: find it, obtain, and eat it. But after a 2007 diagnosis with celiac disease, Karen Freer desperately wanted a dinner roll and was without options. Celiac is an autoimmune disorder in which the small intestine cannot tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, barely and rye. With Freer’s diagnosis came...

In January 2011, Matt O’Leary and his business partner, William Frischeisen, started The New York Stock Company to provide an alternative to cooking stock that has no added salt, additives or preservatives. The brand also focuses on environmental sustainability and local agriculture. O’Leary had been managing Christopher Norman Chocolates, a New York chocolate factory, and...

Kelsey Leland has always loved baking, so after graduating from Manhattan’s Natural Gourmet Institute in 2011, where she specialized in vegan and gluten-free pastries, she was ready to catapult her hobby to a business. Leland quit her marketing job and hit the kitchen to “make something that would taste good and that everyone could enjoy.”...

Paul Hine of Uttapam & Co. has always had the do-it-yourself gene, but when he switched tracks after a decade from software developer to a food purveyor, he had a bit of learning to do. When Hine, a long time vegetarian, was working with Barry Schwartz in the production of Barry’s Tempeh—a meat replacer—he learned...

Alex Crosier is both the driving force behind Granola Lab and a part-time librarian at New York University. It is difficult, she concedes, to maintain both jobs. But without a business partner, she is frightened by the thought of abandoning the security of the library for her food venture. “I hope to be ready to leave...

When Michelle Lewis launched Spoonable, a decadent line of caramel sauces, in September 2011, she knew it was a risk, as all entrepreneurial endeavors are, but with one failed startup already under her belt, she had a better idea of what not to do this second time around. The online art gallery where Lewis was...

Before opening for business in November 2010, Chris Woehrle was an art director in the music industry. Since he cooked nearly every day and it enjoyed it much more than his day job, Woehrle decided to team up with his neighbor, Robert Stout, and go into the food business– or rather the snack business. They...

Before she was a Korean barbecue sauce producer, Ann Chung Mellman was an engineering student at Columbia. She got her degree but never worked as an engineer. Instead, Mellman held out to work with her sister, Janet Chung to do “something they would both find fun.” The sisters saw a growing demand for Korean barbecue...

A love story turned business venture, Chickpea and Olive serves what its owners call “peace on plate”– farm-to-table organic, vegan, local fare which they sell at markets year round. They also do catering and host cooking classes. Danielle Ricciardi and Daniel Strong met at Dell’Anima, the West Village Italian restaurant where he was a sous...