Local mother launches Grateful Grahams all natural, vegan snacks

After a career in marketing, Linwood mother Rachel DesRochers decided to stay home full-time after having her second child. Soon, she got the itch to work and create.

"I needed something to do," she says. "When you finally don't have a job, you get bored. You can only clean the house so much."

DesRochers turned to baking last year, specifically graham cookies and snacks. She started sharing them with friends and family and her tasty treats were a hit. That's when she decided to sell them.

"People loved them. So I thought, 'I'm going to do it," she says.

She unveiled Grateful Grahams, home-made, vegan graham snacks, at this year's Earth Day event at Sawyer Point. She developed and perfected the recipes for the snacks. The soft, square snacks currently come in two flavors, cinnamon and sugar, and chocolate. Snack packs retail for $4 and large bags for $6.

"I did research on grahams. I started playing around with ingredients and made a recipe that worked. It was important to me to use simple, green ingredients," she says.

You can find Grateful Grahams at a number of local stores including Picnic and Pantry, Park +Vine, and Joseph Beth and Blue Manatee bookstores. You can also find them at local Whole Foods stores.

DesRochers plans to expand her offerings with a pie crust and a line of holiday flavors.

She bakes in a commercial kitchen that she shares with a local bakery. She recently had a third child, and Grateful Grahams allows her to do something she loves and spend time with her family, she says. Like her grahams, she is grateful.

"I don't want to work 80 hours a week. I want to be a mom, and show my kids that I have something I love do to. It can be hard juggling a family and a business, but I have a network that supports me and really that's from where the company is driven," she says.

By Feoshia Henderson
You can follow Feoshia on Twitter @feoshiawrites