Award for candy innovator
Verve Inc, a natural candy company based in Providence, has won the US Small Business Administration (SBA) award for Rhode Island Woman-Owned Small Business of the Year. The award recognises founder and president Deborah Schimberg’s leadership in developing a successful business, increasing jobs, growing sales significantly, and creating innovative products like Glee Gum and new Glee Gum Pops.
Schimberg founded Verve in 1995 as a result of her interest in sustainable development. While visiting an economically depressed community in Northern Guatemala, she learned that all chewing gum was once made with a rainforest tree sap called chicle – until 100 per cent synthetic gum bases became the norm. But the harvest of chicle provides an ongoing source of income for skilled laborers and their families. This in turn helps to conserve the rainforest in Mexico and Guatemala, giving trees more value standing than felled for lumber. Inspired, Schimberg returned to her RI home and used chicle to design Verve’s first product, a Make Your Own Chewing Gum Kit.
“While competing effectively in a crowded marketplace, Verve’s products stand out as inventive means of connecting consumers with producers and of supporting rainforest sustainability in Central America,” notes SBA district director Mark S. Hayward. “We applaud their hard work, determination, and dedication, and anticipate great things to come.”
“We’re grateful and delighted to receive this award. It encourages us to continue finding ways to meet our twin objectives: profitability and social benefit,” says Schimberg.
