
/ Tasting Bazaar Feature /
EMERGING ENTREPRENEURS SHOWCASE
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 8 – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
PACK SQUARE PARK
ASHEVILLE, NC
*Tickets to the Tasting Bazaar required to visit the Emerging Entrepreneurs Showcase.
- All
- Friday
- Saturday
- Sunday
- Artists






Corry Blanc is the founder and owner of Blanc Creatives, a kitchenware + barware brand known for its tried-and-true line of carbon steel cookware, barware, cutlery, garden tools, grilling tools, and more. Based in Waynesboro, VA, Blanc fuses quality materials—like Carbon Steel, Copper, and Walnut, for example—with strong culinary roots to craft enduring products that combine design and functionality. Born and raised in North Georgia, Corry Blanc’s childhood memories are filled with the sights, smells, and sounds of his grandfather’s welding shop. A tinkerer by nature, Corry has always had a deep interest in understanding how things are made, and watched in awe at the care and craftsmanship that went into every hot rod or farm equipment repair. After exploring ceramics in high school, Corry’s foray into metalworking came during a four-year apprenticeship at his uncle’s metal fabrications studio, where he truly fell in love with the craft.
In 2007, looking to carve his own path as an artisan, Corry took his passion to Virginia, where he worked at a local blacksmith studio outside Charlottesville. Here, Corry learned to forge metal, an important blacksmithing skill that went beyond the standard fabrication techniques he was previously taught. A quick study, he went on to start his first company in 2008, Silver City Iron, which focused on the production of hand forged railings and hardware.
In 2012, started his namesake company, Blanc Creatives. Born from his past experiences and drive to create, Blanc Creatives fuses strong culinary roots and an artistic approach to craft enduring products that combine design and functionality to elevate the culinary experience.


Embrew created premium grade, lightly-sweetened tea bags so that tea time (and me-time) can be easy and inspiring without the hassle of an infuser or sticky honey. The blends are for a culinary palette who want tea-house quality at home.


Our Sauces can be found in 100’s of the Best Restaurants in Asheville, NC including those
on the Biltmore Estate and collaborate with Wicked Weed Brewery, Pisgah Brewery, and
Hi-Wire Brewing. I grew up loving spicy foods and searched for a hot sauce with the
perfect combination of heat and flavor. Growing up I remember eating a lot of wings and
sampling hot sauce, but always craving more flavor and heat from Mild to Medium to Hot
and beyond! Good times and great food have been my passion for years, but as I got older
I realized that there was something lacking in most hot sauces I tried: they were barely hot
enough to get my endorphins going or were all heat and devoid of flavor. So, I made it my
mission to create what I had been craving. The results are FIREWALKER Hot Sauces.
Crafted from the freshest natural ingredients to enhance every bite, never to overpower.
We are committed to handmade small-batch production with locally grown produce from
our 3 Farms, creating hot sauces with complex layers and depth to brighten and intensify
your food. We are proud to say that we Never use artificial preservatives, low sodium, non
GMO and no added sugar Yet always Vegan and Gluten Free. I am passionate about
making every meal an adventure. If you feel the same and are ready for a truly dynamic
sauce, lets FIRE-WALK together!


Flora’s primary goal is to make the world a more beautiful place and we work diligently to bring this dream into reality. We offer a wide range of products and services that are inspired by natural landscapes and are meant to help our audience cultivate a lifestyle focused on intention, sustainability and botanical living.


Folk Saints specializes in the traditional craft of artisan dulce de leche.
Dulce de leche is a sweet, caramel-like confection made from milk, cream, sugar, and baking soda. It is a popular treat in many Latin American countries.
It is owned and operated by Florencia Sanchez Schilling, a South American native. Florencia is passionate about making dulce de leche the traditional way, which involves slowly simmering milk and cream with organic sugar over the course of 9 hours. This method produces a rich, creamy, silky texture and a deep caramel flavor. You must try it to understand what sets it apart from other caramel-like products.
The name Folk Saints is inspired by the spiritual subcultures of Latin America and the magical realism of our rich storytelling.


Jess Fager is the creator of Asheville Dragonfly. She has a passion for sewing and embroidery.
She started her business with sewing handbags to sell online. As she learned more and more about the effects of single use plastics on our planet, she wanted to make items that would reduce single use plastic waste. She decided to design and sew reusable produce bags. She bought a small embroidery machine to embroider the tare weight onto the produce bags. This is when her love of embroidery was born. She started embroidering kitchen towels and reusable napkins. She sews bags out of reclaimed fabrics, reusable hankies, roll up grocery bags, utensil carriers, and more. She also offers custom embroidery to local businesses.
Dragonflies are a symbol of new beginnings. Every scrap piece of fabric that turned into a bag and every towel or napkin embroidered gets a new beginning. But for Jess, deciding to do what she loves and live where she feels the most at home is the most important new beginning.


Kokada coconut spreads are made with simple, organic ingredients. Each of our spreads are refined sugar free, vegan, and peanut free, making them the perfect breakfast addition, school lunch ingredient, or after school snack!
As a minority and woman owned business, we are on a mission to create stronger, healthier communities through our products. We live this every day by committing 2% of sales to community projects in North Carolina and in Sri Lanka, where we source our ingredients directly from farmer owned co-ops!
If there is anything in there that you think we could change, I would love to hear it! Thank you again for this awesome opportunity. Our team is very excited to attend!


LOOM Imports is an artisanal home goods company, based in Asheville, NC.
We work directly with master craftspeople in rural & Indigenous communities around the world, designing collections of custom rugs, textiles, hand crafted home goods & accessories.
LOOM’s goal is to make sure that traditional handmade techniques are not lost to history & continue to thrive & evolve with modern needs & styles, all while
providing stable & sustainable jobs in underrepresented communities.
LOOM offers made-to-order commissions, along with curated collections of kitchen, home & gift items.


Macon York is an artist and letterpress printer in Hendersonville. She creates a colorful and vibrant line of nature-inspired letterpress paper goods out of her letterpress studio on her homestead.


The Moonrise Project puts the sustainability message of Diamond Brand Gear into action. The fabric we use for our American Boro and Rescue series would normally be destined for the landfill; instead we save it and repurpose it into unique handcrafted items. From unused cutting room scraps to old canvas wall tents, we see beauty in these materials and want to give them new life and new meaning. We hope you like what you see!


We started growing tomatoes and peppers in our home garden that led to the creation of specialty foods that bring flavor and taste to everyday meals. Our Southern Chow Chow relish is a spicy crunch mix of veggies loaded with green tomatoes. Our pickled vegetables include: a mild orka, a hot okra, beets, carrots, asparagus, and green beans. We produce a fresh alternative catsup for ketchup lovers. Our nutty caramel brittles finished with Fleur de Sel pair well with coffee and as a delicious snack. The Cacio e Pepe Frico crackers brighten up your salads and charcuterie boards. We enjoy making recipes to share with our customers using our products and bringing these dishes to markets for sampling.


Poetry On Demand by Eddie Cabbage has been a staple of the Asheville Art,Music and Craft Beer scenes since he began typing custom poems for locals and tourists on his vintage typewriters in 2013. You can typically find him along the AVL Ale trails, or setup at a myriad of locations across the country at different times of the year in his ever evolving adventures. Just give Eddie any subject and within a couple minutes he will type,read,sign and deliver to you, an original piece of art.


Round Mountain Sauces LLC is owned and operated by Holly G. Duncan and Mark Duncan. We started the company in 2022 to market our products after experimenting and testing recipes at home and found the results were delicious. With encouragement from friends and family, we bottled our first commercial sauces and set out to see if there was a broader market by selling our sauces to the general public at farmers markets and festivals in the summer of 2022. We were thrilled to discover that people do love our sauces and for 2023, we have started to expand into local stores, selling online and at larger food festivals.
What makes our sauces unique?
Smoke! We smoke our sauces with various woods; pecan, hickory, apple, maple which creates an amazing flavor combination with chiles, onions and other spices. We balance the smoke flavors to make sure it’s never too smoky or not smoky enough. All of our sauces are hand crafted, made in small batches with the finest, freshest quality, locally sourced ingredients available. We are a certified Got To Be NC company.


Sarah and her husband live on a beautiful 10-acre farm just outside of Asheville, in Candler (Hominy Valley), NC. Their property has been in her family for over 100 years. Sarah has a degree in Ecology & Environmental Biology from UNCA. This is when her love of farming & wildcrafting really began. In 2014 she started Well Seasoned Table, a seasoning company that grows, wildcrafts, and locally sources 80% of the ingredients that go into their products. Well Seasoned Table was recently featured in Edible Asheville, and Taste of the South Magazine just named Well Seasoned Table one of the top 50 Influential Tastemakers in the South.


Sow True Seed is a small, dedicated employee-owned cooperative committed to making gardening approachable for everyone. We provide high-quality, open-pollinated seeds in support of sustainable food production and regenerative agriculture. We strive to help our customers cultivate a sense of empowerment and connection in an era of disengagement from nature, food, and community. We’re proud to call Asheville, North Carolina home.


Meet Spice Witch. The daughter of a magician and a culinary expert, Sabrina created Spice Witch to spread joy, magic, and inspiration in your kitchen. But Spice Witch isn’t just about cooking; it’s an invitation to savor the rich experience of life and delight in the everyday. Asheville based, female owned company is the hot new kid on the block to the Asheville food scene. Don’t miss this booth.






We’re building a vibrant and inclusive entrepreneurial community in Western North Carolina.
Mountain BizWorks was founded by entrepreneurs in Asheville, NC in 1989.
We believed in the WNC region way back then—before it was a nationally acclaimed destination for outdoors, tourism, food and beer. We knew it was possible, so we set out to create a supportive local business environment where entrepreneurs could thrive. And it worked!
We are a U.S. Treasury certified non-profit Community Development Financial Institution or CDFI—what’s a CDFI?

