Where We're Shopping on Small Business Saturday This Year

Josu’s salts are represent family legacy and all-around flavor powerhouse in equal measure. The brand is owned by Hae-Sin Thomas, who created a line of flavored salts made with salt from her family’s farm on the tiny island of Imjado in South Korea. The flavors draw inspiration from Korean and Asian flavors, such as seaweed or garlic chive, and are often developed in collaboration with other food creatives and small businesses. We especially love The Korean Vegan’s Spicy Ramen Salt, which lends a not-too-spicy, round umami flavor boost to just about anything, from noodles to popcorn to jammy eggs on toast. You can use the salts as either a finishing or cooking salt—Thomas’s advice is to use it wherever a recipe calls for salt and promises it’ll immediately make it better. She also keeps a mortar and pestle handy to grind down larger grains—like Just Salt or Five-Year Aged Salt—into sprinkling size.

Soap Distillery

Founder Danielle Martin was inspired to start Soap Distillery to create product and owner diversity in the beauty space. This translated into a line of quality soaps, oils, balms and candles, crafted with sustainably sourced ingredients and compostable, colorful packaging, all dreamed up in original, crave-worthy scents. Naturally, we’re partial to the “foodie and gourmand” category, where you’ll find holiday-ready soap bars in scents like peppermint hot cocoa, or an iced coffee body scrub bar that’s guaranteed to keep dry skin at bay. If your recipients’ tastes skew boozy, shop “cocktail and spirits” scents for gifts like a bourbon soy wax candle or a duo of Whiskey Soaps. To upgrade your kitchen hand soap to a nourishing formula, look no further than soap pump dispensers (that double as body washes) in scents like Limoncello or Sunset Fig.

We can’t think of a better way to sate your favorite foodie’s sweet tooth (or your own) than with an assortment of bite-size blondies from professional pastry chef Auzerais Bellamy. After working in some of NYC’s top kitchens, she developed her now-signature treat and direct-to-consumer bakery (rumor has it she took three years to perfect her blondies). You can’t go wrong with an assortment of core flavors, such as birthday cake or Brooklyn blackout, but don’t sleep on the holiday line-up. The mix includes whimsical creations you won’t find anywhere else: think, Gingerbread studded with candied ginger, Coquito, paired with a layer of coquito cheesecake (a nod to the classic Puerto Rican holiday eggnog-esque drink), Cranberry Orange and Dark Chocolate Peppermint, topped with dark chocolate ganache and crushed peppermint candies.

It’s hard to decide what we love most about Storied Goods’ sugar cubes’ gift-giving potential: the flavors, the beautiful packaging or the delicious, drinkable promise that each cube holds. The Cinnamon-Vanilla cubes jazz up cocktails and coffee drinks alike, while the Orange-Cherry is ideal for your favorite cuppa tea or cocktails like an Old Fashioned or mulled wine. We’re partial to the Rose Petal, which turns any sparkling wine into a luxe cocktail, but some fans swear by adding it to coffee, too. Founder Martha Bourlakas is especially excited for the seasonal limited edition Celebration Sparkle Sugar Cube, crafted with Brew Glitter edible glitter and Fee Bros Rhubarb Bitters. It makes an ideal addition to a flute of bubbly or a non-alcoholic spritz, but the brand’s site and Instagram are chockful of recipe inspo should you need it.

Family-owned business Modern Sprout have earned a well-deserved reputation for their user-friendly garden jars, grow kits and indoor gardening staples. The mission-driven brand, founded by Sara Burrows and Nicholas Behr, has taken the Safe Seed Pledge, meaning they only source domestic seeds for edible plants that are certified organic and/or non-GMO (talk about a growth mindset). We especially love the Mason jar indoor herb garden and the gift-ready, botanically inspired soy candles which are poured into reusable planters and are accompanied by a matching seed packet, like the herbaceous-fresh rosemary and cucumber candle plus rosemary seeds. For an especially whimsical present, opt for the Winter Wonderland Microgreens Pop-Up, a foolproof kit for even the most green-thumb-averse, or the holiday-edition Tiny Terracotta Kits (we’re partial to the Peppermint Cosmos).

Black Bee Hot Sauce Co.

After more than 20 years in the music business, Biambu “Bee” Garrett parlayed his creativity and love of cooking into a hot sauce company with his business partner and creative director, Megan Balli. But his bottles of hand-crafted spicy sauces are not spicy for spicy sake—they’re designed with Garrett’s predilection for unique flavor combinations and preference to add heat that complements food rather than masks it. To wit, Apple Rosemary Habanero Hot Sauce is as excellent paired with grilled pork chops as it is with roasted squash, while Citrus Thyme Jalapeno is destined to become your next Taco Tuesday flavor upgrade. Proof of the sauce’s versatility is the Pineapple Coconut Ginger Habanero, which we can see adding to tropical-leaning stews and spicy punch or margarita riffs.

Lagusta’s Luscious

These vegan chocolates and sweets have earned a following beyond New York for its obsessive commitment to not only flavors and techniques, but to their social justice and environmentalist values, too. Perennially popular picks include filled bonbons, such as Peanut Butter Cups, Tahini Meltaways and Yuzu Cashew Creams, and the fan-favorite caramels and toffee, including best-sellers such as the salted Galapagos turtles and maple honeycomb. Seasonal flavors and one-of-a-kind-confections rotate throughout the year, but we can’t stop thinking about the Holiday Bark. Each bar is a work of edible art, swirled with white chocolate and festooned with candied citrus and mint, cranberry, hibiscus, raspberries and a green-and-white chocolate leaf. If you’re in NYC, drop by Confectionary to peruse the latest offerings and to sample mind-bendingly good vegan baked goods from Sweet Maresa.

Kola Goodies was founded by Sri Lankan immigrant Sajani Amarasiri as a first-of-its-kind line of functional wellness beverages. The vegan superfood smoothies and tea lattes are crafted with ingredients sourced directly from South Asian farmer collectives, including Ceylon tea leaves, aromatic spices and Ayurveda-inspired herbs and adaptogens, like stress-busting ashwagandha. The mood-boosting Super Green Latte makes an ideal addition to any morning wake-up routine with an herbaceous, birght mix of moringa, gotukola (to aid focus), Ceylon cinnamon and ginger. This season’s Special Edition Kit includes ten servings of delicious instant chai packaged in a chic, embossed gold-foiled tin paired with a custom gold strainer keepsake. Shop the brand’s website for the best Small Business Saturday deals or to sign up for a subscription, or score tea latte kits at Uncommon Goods.

You might know East Fork Pottery for The Mug, a thoughtfully designed cup that basically breaks the internet every time a new glaze comes out, like the recently released Henri Red, a scarlet hue named for founder Alex Matisse’s great-grandfather’s foundational painting, The Red Studio. Beyond the iconic mug, East Fork boasts a full-line of top-notch, wood-fired ceramics, all made with clays from the American Southeast and backed by a values-driven business that centers diversity and giving back to the Asheville community. We especially love gifting The Coupe, which combines the best features of plates and bowls into a lipped dish that’s perfect for plating saucy pastas, hearty salads and all manner of side dishes, and doubles as a dredging dish for kitchen prep, too. For a two-in-one-gift, opt for the candles, developed in collaboration with Joya Studios, which are poured in reusable ceramic vessels and come in earthy scents that are as collectable as East Fork’s glazes, such as Forage Moon (hinoki, mushroom, dirt, firewood) or Quiet North (leather, jasmine, sandalwood).

These snackable, giftable, almost-too-pretty-to-eat chocolate bars prove that natural, beautiful and delicious are not mutually exclusive concepts. Founders Kathryn Shah and Sarah Bell were inspired to create a better-for-you chocolate bar, so they opted to sweeten the bars with dates and chose flavor profiles inspired by their travels and the seasons. We love the Lavender, Bee Pollen and Rose Petal, a 72% cacao bar that “tastes like an aromatic bouquet” and “feels like Sunday on the balcony, and the Mixed Berry, chockful of dried strawberries, blueberries and raspberries, which has been known to stave off deadline-induced stress and pairs well with a glass of jammy red wine. Peruse their website for the widest range of flavors, including the new Pear, Ginger, Rosemary, or holiday-gift-ready themed collections like Garden Party or Spice Market; select bars are available at Anthropologie.

Sana Javeri Kadri founded Diaspora Co. with a mission to reclaim and revitalize the spice trade in a way that centers farmers, sustainability, equity and flavor. Since she launched Pragati Turmeric in 2017, she’s grown the brand to 30 single origin spices from 150 farms across India and Sri Lanka, paying farmers an average of six times above commodity price. This ethos extends to the beverage blends, including Chai Masala, with an ideal sweet-spicy profile from a mix of cardamom, ginger, fennel and cinnamon plus a dash of pepper and cloves, and Haldi Doodh Masala, a golden elixir made with cinnamon, ginger and cardamom. The Hot Cocoa mix is guaranteed to deliver cozy sips this winter and beyond; it gets its velvety texture from Anamalai Cacao’s cocoa butter and caramelly sweetness from Madhur Jaggery. For an inspired seasonal sipper, gift the Hot Cocoa Mix with Panneer Rose or Pumpkin Spice Masala, plus a spice spoon for good measure.

Since Cara Barde took over the heritage brand Crow Canyon — known as the O.G. splatterware design brand — she has put sustainability front and center. The durable yet stylish enamelware brand helps reduce waste from disposable paper and plastic products, whether you’re picnicking, camping or sitting down for weeknight supper. The product line-up spans everyday items like plates, bowls and cups and giftable serve ware such as festive serving platters and display-worthy teapots. One of Barde’s favorite items to gift is the enamelware pitcher, which makes a beautiful hostess gift that doubles as a flower vase. Her personal favorite brand is the splatter jelly roll pan, a workhorse piece of oven-safe dishwasher that she uses as a roasting pan or cookie sheet and that can be purposed as a serving tray too.