Bekka Valley product

Bekka Valley

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Another Making It In Michigan Success Story: Bekka Valley

As a registered nurse at Beaumont Hospital in Maternal Child Health, Lauren Yacteen and her coworkers would not take long enough breaks to go to the cafeteria for lunches and dinners so they brought food from home. Lauren would bring her homemade hummus and fattoush salad and soon her nurse and doctor friends encouraged her to bring it to work and sell it. Her company, Bekka Valley, was literally born in the labor and delivery department at Beaumont Hospital.

Lauren leased a space in April of 2015 in Rochester and built a commercial kitchen. Named after the region in Lebanon where her family is from, the Bekka Valley product line includes classic, roasted red pepper, zesty and habanero hummus. They also offer a signature green garlic dip, baked sea salt and olive oil pita chips, fattoush salad dressing, chicken shawarma, beef shawarma and chicken tawook marinades.

Lauren’s four children all help out at Bekka Valley in various rolls from helping cook, package, and deliver goods to manning the farmers market booths. 
Bekka Valley products are currently available at the Birmingham, Farmington and Rochester farmers markets and online through www.bekkavalley.com. Lauren also sells to the Beaumont Hospital in Troy and Sola Life and Fitness where they have a full vegetarian food line in their cafes. She is looking to expand little by little into small gourmet grocery stores and is also looking for preservative-free ways to lengthen the product shelf life soon to be able distribute to a wider delivery area and ship.

“Our MSU Innovation Counselor helped me throughout the planning phase,” states owner Lauren Yacteen. “We were instructed on where to start from my application for the business license to packaging and labeling to guidelines for doing everything safely and properly. All in all, it felt like the MSU Product Center had my back no matter what I needed!”

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