eye on business Breakout of the Local Brands

Milford is home to many a splendid thing. Among them are its entrepreneurial residents and the innovative products and services they’ve created that succeed not just within city limits, but regionally, and in some cases, nationally and internationally. Here is a look at six such companies and the people behind them.

The Growing Strength of Strong Sauce

The night that Elissa Brown was at a loss over what to make for the family dinner became the inspiration behind Strong Sauce (https://strongsauce.com). She texted close friend Callie Bundy stating she only had pasta to serve. Bundy, a fitness model who believed in good nutrition, jokingly suggested, “Just throw some protein powder on it!”

The next morning, Bundy realized just how great of an idea she’d hit upon. Instead of adding ground beef or quinoa to pasta sauce for protein, she imagined sauce with the protein already in it, making for a healthier ready-toserve option for busy family cooks.

Sharing her idea with Brown resulted in the duo crossing paths with Chef Stephen Roth who became equally enthused. Guided by Bundy and Brown’s vision for a high-protein, plant-based, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, and low-sugar pasta sauce, Roth formulated sauce recipes until the trio settled on the perfect blend.

“We knew we had the right recipe when kids were asking for seconds,” states Brown. “They didn’t care about how healthy and strong our sauce was, they only cared about how it tasted!”

SedMed Lifts the Bodies—and the Spirits—of Aging Loved Ones

According to company CEO and co-founder Jeremy Bronen, SedMed is a mobility products company dedicated to improving the safety and independence of those who struggle with the activities of daily living (www.sed-med. com). The company’s first product, the Toilet Lift Assist, helps older adults and those with mobility challenges access and dismount from a toilet with minimal effort.

It was Bronen’s friend Timothy Krupski who conceived the idea of the Toilet Lift Assist after witnessing an older woman with whom he was close friends struggle with the physical aftereffects of a stroke. Bronen and Krupski partnered to form SedMed and co-develop its first product with the help of a third executive team member, Glenn Bayer, and an advisory board of medical and business experts.

SedMed’s Toilet Lift Assist “lifts up to 80 percent of somebody’s weight when getting on and off the toilet,” says Bronen. The device also helps caregivers avoid injury when helping patients.

As the company moves forward, Bronen and his team are developing additional products to help those with limited physical mobility.

Like Swimming in the Skin You’re In

Hayley Segar, founder of body-forming swimwear for women known as onewith (https://onewithswim.com), says she’s been athletic all her life and spent years searching for a swimsuit that would allow her to move freely without binding or pinching while at the beach or the pool. Unable to find such a suit, Segar decided to develop her own line of products and after more than two years of development launched onewith in 2021.

During the product development phase, “I prototyped and conceptualized everything myself,” states Segar. “When it came time to put my design into a language that factories could understand, I hired a technical designer.”

With patents-pending on the unique use of existing fabrics, Segar has created what she describes as “dig-free elastic-free and edgeless body-forming swimwear that fits like no-show underwear.”

Segar’s onewith swimwear has been featured in over half-a-dozen media outlets and her sales have been a splashing success since hitting the market. Her product line has gone viral on the social media platform TikTok several times, and her products are now selling internationally.

Handcrafted Ice Creams at Walnut Beach Creamery

Each summer for the past 17 years, beachgoers in the Walnut Beach neighborhood of Milford line up for the gourmet ice cream founder Susan Patrick and her staff serve on hot summer days (www.walnutbeachcreamery.com).

When Patrick first moved to Milford nearly 25 years ago, she found the area around Walnut Beach “to be pretty run down at the time,” she says. “At the turn of the century up until about the 1960s, Walnut Beach was a great beach town with a lot of shops and an amusement park.”

Each time Patrick drove by the small building located at 17 Broadway—which first served as a post office and then a tooling shop—she thought of doing something with the building. On the day she spotted a ‘For Sale’ sign out front, she returned to memories of the pizzerias her father ran in New York during her childhood. She bought the building. Someone suggested it would be a great place for an ice cream shop since it was situated just a block from the beach.

At first, Patrick looked for ready-made ice cream to resell, but due to her careful approach to all projects she undertakes, making her own became the logical choice. Now, Walnut Beach Creamery is a Milford institution known for its small batch gourmet flavors.

“I can’t believe it’s been 17 years,” states Patrick, and she thanks all her customers through the years.

Adoring Kathy’s Famous Cookies

If the old saying “that’s the way the cookie crumbles” has any application to Kathy Klein, it’s an explanation of how she turned a negative moment into unbridled success, selling delicious cookies and other baked goods to retail locations around Connecticut and beyond

(www.kathysfamouscookies.com).

Klein started her cookie company in 2000 when the stark reality of corporate downsizing forced her to rethink her life and career. On the day she was handed a pink slip at the advertising agency she’d worked at since college, Kathy says, “I said to myself I would get my bakery license since I had a great love for baking.”

That was May 1999, and Klein had a 3-month-old and a 2-year-old at home. “During nap times I called and researched information for selling cookies wholesale,” recalls Klein. After procuring a commercial kitchen, getting her bakery license, and having a label produced, Klein was on her way.

Today, Kathy’s Famous Cookies is a wholesaler to grocers and coffee shops around Connecticut and beyond, and there is also a retail shop located at 1365 New Haven Avenue in Woodmont.

“If the OPEN sign is up, we are here!” states Klein.

Legrify candles and products are also used as corporate gifts and for community fundraising events.

Illuminating with Legrify Candles

Over the past three years, Milford native Juliana Shabarekh and Stratford’s Joe Carrano have combined their creative and business talents to do their part lighting up the dark of night through their all-natural candles. The idea for Legrify Candles (www.legrify.com) came about after the couple left corporate America to pursue their own joys and passions.

From their studio, the couple—along with occasional help from friends and family— produce all-natural, U.S.-farmed pure soy wax candles containing essential oils which, according to Shabarekh are scented with toxin-free fragrance oils and use cotton wicks “so the candles burn slow and clean,” she notes.

“We also produce lip balm and hand creams,” says Shabarekh, and they sell their products, mainly wholesale, to nearly 60 stores throughout Connecticut.

“We love working business-to-business,” notes Carrano, harking back to their corporate days. They have a goal of supplying to over 100 retail stores by the end of 2023, and expanding their handmade offerings well beyond Connecticut.

—Jason J. Marchi