BERLIN – The Maryland With Pride movement is coming to Berlin.
The Berlin Coffee House is now home to the first Maryland With Pride pop-up shop in the state. Going forward customers will find a display of made-in-Maryland goods set up in the Jefferson Street coffee shop.
“I wanted something to make us stand out,” said Peggy Hagy, owner of the Berlin Coffee House. “I’m hoping it works.”
The Maryland With Pride movement is designed to assist entrepreneurial enterprises based in the Free State. The effort promotes the array of goods produced by Maryland manufacturers, artists, crafters and farmers. Ivy Wells, Berlin’s economic development director, connected Hagy with the director of the program, as she thought a pop-up-shop of Maryland products would do well in Berlin during the holiday season.
“The shop local movement is extremely strong here,” Wells said. “To be able to showcase products made here in Maryland draws people here. A lot of people want to buy something local.”
At the Berlin Coffee House, Hagy has devoted a shelf of cubbies to made-in-Maryland products. She currently has a display of Cathy’s Ginger Spices and Mama Vida sauces and salsas. She’s waiting on shipments from Jill’s Jams, Mixes and More, a Carroll County company, and Sweet Cascades, a company known for its chocolate crabs, among several others.
“Nov. 13 is the big kick off during the Holiday Art Stroll,” she said. “We hope to have everything on the shelves by then.”
Hagy thought the pop-up shop would be the ideal way to expand the coffee house’s offerings and to continue to support locally made products. Though the shop already features coffees and teas made by Eastern Shore companies, the Maryland With Pride products will bring goods from throughout the state to Berlin. She even plans to serve samples of them in the shop so customers can get a taste of the various food products.
Hagy said she worked with program coordinators to narrow down the extensive list of Maryland-made products to decide which ones to feature in the Berlin Coffee House.
“We picked ones that nobody has down here,” Hagy said, adding that most were foods but that she would also be selling a line of organic lotions.
She says if the products she’s selected sell well, she’ll keep them in stock. If they don’t, she’ll browse the directory of Maryland products again to select new ones to set up in the shop.
“We can always switch,” she said.
For more information on the Maryland With Pride program go to www.marylandwithpride.org.