Sherri and Ken Vis, Owners
The past year has been a whirlwind for Sherri and Ken Vis. After starting their business, Honor Yourself, LLC, in September of 2015 it really came into full swing February 2016 and hasn’t stopped growing since then. Sherri spent more than 25 years in the banking industry; that background helped with connections to get their business established. Ken’s background as a pharmacist provided the knowledge about health and a healthy lifestyle. Neither had a food background so they relied on resources such as the Michigan State University Product Center for help. Ken attended classes obtaining his ServSafe certification, and they closely followed the checklist provided to them by Kitchen 242 to help them get rolling. Michigan Department of Agricultural & Rural Development (MDARD) helped obtain the required food licensing, MSU Product Center assisted them with product development, they also spent time reading and talking with and watching with other entrepreneurs working in the food industry.
Sherri’s original dream (and it literally came to her in a dream) was to own and operate a yoga studio with a café with healthy food that they would produce 
with the theme of honoring yourself. They attended the 2015 Veg Fest in Grand Rapids and walked out and said “we can do this” and quickly decided the name of the business should be “Honor Yourself” and so it began! After thinking further they decided to focus on the food offerings and originally came out with Cocoa Remedy which officially cannot be called chocolate because it does not contain milk and any refined sugar, so it is a vegan option for chocolate, a healthier option. Users of Kitchen 242 are provided the option of selling their products at the Muskegon Farmers Market, so they started by selling Cocoa Remedy at the market early in 2016 and that became their research and development phase and they quickly realized they needed to expand their product line and added handcrafted granola that is gluten free and several of the six varieties that they now offer are grain free.
Several of the challenges they faced (mostly because they didn’t have a food background) were sourcing ingredients at the right price, figuring out their price points for products, working through their production process, packaging and proper labeling and MDARD and MSU Product Center were crucial resources to help them through this process entirely. It has been a fast-paced learning curve: April 24, 2016 they started selling Cocoa Remedy, June 4th they added two flavors of granola and by their first trade show this past fall they had four flavors of Cocoa Remedy and six types of granola. “The Muskegon Farmers 
Market customers have been our test market and they provided valuable feedback to help us grow our product line,” Sherri said. “Recently a customer that we have developed a relationship with, who has a summer home in West Michigan but from the Chicago area, had us ship our products as gifts for the holiday literally all over the United States,” she added.
Honor Yourself, LLC can be found at the Muskegon Farmers Market every Saturday all year long. In the past few months they have also started selling through other outlets that they have connected with through exhibiting at Grand Rapids Veg Fest and as a Pop-Up at the Grand Rapids Downtown Market: Tom Otto Specialty Grocery in Middleville, Natural Touches by Kelly in Grand Haven and DeLass Garden Market in Spring Lake.
What is ahead for Honor Yourself? Granola bars will be a new addition to the product line and they also have been accepted to work with a Grand Valley State University Capstone marketing class that will advise them on their logo, website, branding, marketing and advertising. They are also exploring other retail options to place their products as well.
How can you reach them: (616) 842-3754, [email protected]