{"id":517855,"date":"2026-06-30T07:57:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/517855\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T07:57:54","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T07:57:54","slug":"this-aroostook-family-of-entrepreneurs-is-running-3-home-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/517855\/","title":{"rendered":"This Aroostook family of entrepreneurs is running 3 home businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The entrepreneurial Chasse family of Hodgdon operates three small homemade or home raised businesses. In the photo, front left, James, 11, Josias, 10, Jada, 8, Joy, 4; top left, Sarah, holding Jedidiah 8 months and Jeremiah Chasses, holding Judah, 2. (Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli | The County)<\/p>\n

Jada Chasse\u2019s favorite part of her budding business in Hodgdon is licking all of the batter from the bowls when she\u2019s finished making her batches of cookies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Jada\u2019s mom, Sarah Chasse, who along with her 8-year-old daughter just started Shiretown Sweets & Treats<\/a> at the end of May.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the family\u2019s third business, joining her dad\u2019s small batch coffee roaster, Shiretown Coffee Roasters<\/a>, and alongside her brothers\u2019 egg-selling venture, James and Jo Co. This Hodgdon family of eight is busy juggling the ins and outs of three budding home-based businesses while dad Jeremiah Chasse is also the pastor of Shiretown Baptist Church <\/a>in Houlton.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Eight-year-old Jada Chasse operates Shiretown Sweets & Treats with her mom, Sarah Chasse, in their Hodgdon home. The entrepreneurial Chasse family operates three small homemade or home raised businesses.\u00a0 (Courtesy Jeremiah Chasse)<\/p>\n

The Chasses join a growing number of homemade food and artisan businesses in rural Hodgdon, a food sovereign Aroostook County town. And with the 2024 expansion of Maine\u2019s Food Sovereignty Act<\/a> and the passage of a local ordinance, unlicensed food creators can sell their goods face-to-face at roadside stands, community markets and events.<\/p>\n

Hodgdon officials unanimously passed the ordinance in 2023.<\/p>\n

The Chasses\u2019 stand is open every Saturday with fresh baked cookies and newly roasted coffee. The eggs \u2014 a business overseen by James, 11, and Josias, 10 \u2014 are not at the stand and instead sold to regular customers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The family\u2019s foray into home businesses started about two years ago, when Jeremiah started experimenting with roasting coffee beans after he tried coffee from a friend who was roasting his own.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really good,\u201d he said. \u201cI made it for myself and Sarah and then some friends wanted to try some and it grew organically from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two-year-old Judah Chasse helps his dad, Jeremiah Chasse, mix freshly roasted coffee beans. The entrepreneurial Chasse family of Hodgdon operates three small homemade or home raised businesses.\u00a0 (Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli | The County)<\/p>\n

Unlike Portland, there are barely a handful of coffee roasters in northern Maine. And once word spread about the local roaster, who does not advertise, business really picked up, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCoffee like this is so much different from what you get in a store,\u201d Jeremiah said. \u201cMass market coffee has been on the shelf anywhere from six months to a year and ours was roasted a few days ago. The freshness is our biggest selling point.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gets green coffee beans from an online supplier, selecting varieties by their flavor notes, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Often where the beans are grown affect their flavor. Kenyan coffee beans, for example, have orange flavor notes, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Two-year-old Judah helps his dad, Jeremiah Chasse, with his coffee roasting business in Hodgdon.\u00a0(Courtesy of Jeremiah Chasse)<\/p>\n

His most popular blends are The County Blend, a medium roast with a dark chocolate and raw sugar flavor, and Border Blend, a dark roast made from Guatemalan beans. It\u2019s been difficult to get Guatemalan beans recently, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDifferent beans and different blends have different flavor notes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t do any infusing, the bean is the flavor. And also how long you roast it, draws out different flavors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coffee roaster is a special popcorn popper with a metal coffee sleeve inserted. As the coffee beans roast they shed a chaff, and then when the beans are done roasting he puts them into a special container with a fan to cool them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t cool it down properly, that affects the taste as well,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to go from hot to cool pretty quickly and then chaff it some more by moving it with a spoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Chasse Brothers James, 11, and Josias, 10, operate a small chicken egg business with 15 chickens in Hodgdon. (Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli | The County)<\/p>\n

Jada and Sarah\u2019s Sweets & Treats business got started when Sarah thought that Jada might like to have a business like her brothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be fun to have something that she can make money on the side,\u201d Sarah said, adding it would also be a good learning experience for Jada.<\/p>\n

The pair will be offering fresh homemade cookies for weekend pickup and local delivery.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis week we have classic chocolate chip, cookies and cream funfetti with white chocolate chips, and a chocolate base with peanut butter chips,\u201d Sarah said. \u201cWe\u2019ve also done snickerdoodles and peanut butter blossoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The children\u2019s businesses are a way to teach responsibility, how to make money, profit and loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not just buying the stuff for their business and they are profiting 100%. It is a good learning experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The entrepreneurial Chasse family of Hodgdon operates three small homemade or home raised businesses. James and Josias operate James and Jo Co. a fresh egg business.\u00a0 (Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli | The County)<\/p>\n

With the 15 chickens, the boys have to give half of what they made back to the chickens for food and hay. The other half of the money goes to them and they split it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And last spring they had a hard lesson and business setback after weasels found their way into the coop and they had to start over with 15 new chickens.<\/p>\n

They hope to expand, but need a bigger building to do that,\u201d Sarah said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want our kids to be the best that they can be for the glory of God,\u201d Jeremiah said. \u201cAnd we want them to be good stewards of their money and learn how to save.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

To purchase coffee or cookies from the Chasses, their Calais Road stand is open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays or reach out on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The entrepreneurial Chasse family of Hodgdon operates three small homemade or home raised businesses. In the photo, front…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[114,293,85,46],"class_list":["post-517855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}