Gift baskets filled with Michigan-made products
ELLSWORTH, MICHIGAN -- MiFarmMarket is a family business that specializes in making gift baskets.
"We work with a number of local producers, local meaning Michigan-made producers," said Co-owner of MiFarmMarket, Scotty Bruce.
Located in Ellsworth, Michigan, MiFarmMarket is owned and operated by the Bruce family.
"I'm in charge of making sure orders come in, Dad is in charge of making sure orders go out, Mom is in charge of making sure the product is as best of a product as it can be, and Satin is in charge of making sure that none of us have our heads fall off!" Bruce said.
Scotty said if his family was going to talk the talk in selling all Michigan-made products, then they needed to walk the walk.
It's not just the products in the baskets that are made in Michigan.
"We, ourselves, are a producer," Bruce said. "We make hand-crafted wood crates in our workshop out back and then we ship Michigan-made products all over the country."
Bruce said they actually started out selling a few gift baskets at a fall festival in East Jordan in 2010 and only had about one dozen jars of preserves.
"When you look at that, compared to now, we've got all of these shelves around here in the store, and we've got our location in Traverse City, " Bruce said.
Bruce said MiFarmMarket started as an online business, but encouragement from the community led them to open up there retail shop in Ellsworth.
"We ended up raising $6,000 from the general community to get in here and be able to renovate the building," Bruce said.
Bruce said the family hopes to take the gift baskets beyond the borders of Michigan.
"We ended up shipping a gift crate to a soldier overseas, and we heard from his mom, she was like, 'Oh my God, he loved it!', and he was in Afghanistan actually," Bruce said. "He not only loved getting a piece of home, chocolate covered cherries and dried cherries, but he also shared it with his unit."
Bruce said this year they have shipped gift baskets to all 50 states and three different countries.
"You're helping to provide, either solace or comfort, or just something to brighten people's day, which sounds kind of cheesy but, it's very rewarding," Bruce said.
