INDIANAPOLIS — Each and every Saturday, WISH-TV highlights a local company together with our partners at Indiana Grown.
This week, Jennifer Wiese and her son, August Wiese joined News 8 at Daybreak to talk about their company, BeeFree; an Indiana snack company grew from one family’s search for food that worked for their son and now gives people with autism hands-on job experience.
Jennifer Wiese started BeeFree in her home kitchen with help from her mother. The family was looking for food to support her son August, who is on the autism spectrum.
“We really leaned into good, clean food, like simple ingredients, nothing artificial, lower in sugar, no gluten, no dairy, no soy,” Wiese said. “There wasn’t much in the marketplace back then. So my mom and I got busy in the kitchen and we just recreated favorite family recipes.”
The company began before 2010 and has since grown beyond the family’s kitchen. BeeFree makes snacks with gluten-free ingredients, including a chocolate brownie bite named for August’s younger brother, Drake.
“Having tasty food first, like, we have to eat, right?” Wiese said. “We want our food to taste really good.”
As gluten-free food grew in popularity, BeeFree had years of experience cooking that way, Wiese said. The business also gave August job experience and helped the family recognize a broader need for workplace opportunities.
“There were a lot of other people who have some kind of disability or who need just a little something extra, and the workforce doesn’t always serve them in the best way,” she said.
BeeFree’s nonprofit Warriors at Work program offers a 10-week training program, primarily for people on the autism spectrum. Participants learn food-service and food-safety skills and earn ServSafe certification, August Wiese said.
The program helps participants build resumes and independence and prepare for other jobs. August initially described a 97% “hiring rate,” then clarified that he meant the program’s completion rate.
“It gives them the skill set to then do this and to have more work in their lives,” Jennifer Wiese said. “To build a resume, build independence, and all those things that are necessary to be successful in the workplace.”
BeeFree products are sold at about 4,000 retailers across the country, including Kroger, Meijer, Fresh Thyme and Fresh Market, as well as independent retailers and Indianapolis International Airport, Jennifer Wiese said. The company also sells products through its website, BeFreeGF.com.
BeeFree is included in Indiana Grown’s holiday gift box, which Wiese said is another way shoppers can support the company and other Indiana Grown makers.
During the interview, the hosts sampled Drake’s Chocolate Brownie. Wiese described it as a crunchy, sweet bite made with whole grains. One host said it was a convenient snack for children.
August Wiese said the company has also changed his relationship with food.
“It’s been really life-changing for me,” he said. “It’s been really good just to have a change in diet and to eat cleaner and to be around what a good, healthy relationship with food really means, like a meaningful relationship with food.”
He said he has valued connecting with other people on the autism spectrum through the program and seeing its effect on their lives.
“It’s been really special,” he said.
Jennifer Wiese said the company’s work combines food with employment opportunities that can have a lasting effect. The family hopes shoppers will consider BeeFree during the holiday season.