At just 11-years-old, little Mikaela Ulmer had the guts to launch her very own lemonade stand. And now her BeeSweet Lemonade has landed a distribution deal with United Natural Foods worth $11 million.
“I really love my new label,” young Ulmer says of the bottle branding for her newly minted lemon-flavored drink. “It actually has my face on it, so it makes me feel really special.”
Elmer started her first lemonade stand when she was just 4-years-old. It was a bee sting that prompted Ulmer and her mother to research bees. The two decided that they wanted to make lemonade and insisted on using local honey to sweeten it, instead of sugar.
Ulmer’s first brush with national prominence came after a 2015 appearance on ABC’s hit invention investor show, Shark Tank. It was then and there that Fubu CEO Daymond John decided to invest $60,000 into Ulmer’s BeeSweet Lemonade.
A year later, BeeSweet’s initial regional distribution deal with Whole Foods had morphed into a national deal through United Natural Foods, worth $11 million.
BeeSweet Lemonade is now available at 55 Whole Foods stores, from Texas to Oklahoma and Arkansas, Louisiana, and New York.
A portion of the profit from Ulmer’s lemonade funds research to find ways to reverse the dwindling population of honey bees. And Ulmer says she’s also helping her friends become accomplished entrepreneurs, too.
Check out the promotional video for BeeSweet Lemonade below:
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