Lucy: How's business?

Melissa: Now that the word is getting out, it's going very well.

Your press release has been all over the place. This is a big deal in the vegetarian community.

Yes. I was hoping it would be. We've been working on it for so long. I've been working on it since my daughter was born 4 1/2 years ago.

You became vegan in 1999 when your daughter, Sara, was born. Do you mind giving me a little background about why you became vegan?

I've been vegetarian off and on since I was in Jr. High. The first time I became vegetarian because of a PETA magazine. I remember reading it when I was maybe 12 years old. I had always loved animals. I was the typical child wanting to be a veterinarian. It was hard for me at that point in my meat-eating family to be vegetarian without my own means of getting or making my own food. I moved out when I was 18 and moved from Ohio to Florida to be with my husband. It wasn't too long before both of us became vegetarian and stuck with it for a few years. We decided, when I got pregnant, that we definitely wanted to raise the children vegan, and that became the catalyst we needed to become vegan ourselves.

There are very few parents out there who don't struggle with the misconceptions about vegetarianism. Was it the same for you when decided to have a vegan pregnancy and a vegan child?

The pregnancy wasn't vegan; it was vegetarian, and I did have issues with that. My obstetrician at the time was very much against me changing my diet in a major way during the pregnancy. He said, "Vegetarian is fine, but don't make any major changes." As it was my first pregnancy, and I didn't have a whole lot of support, I didn't go against him and really stand up for what I wanted to do, and I questioned my self too much.

That's very common.

It was not at all like that with my second pregnancy. That one was completely how I wanted it. Everything was exactly how I wanted it. It was a wonderful beautiful birth at home in the water.

We are all dying to find things for our kids that are vegan and get frustrated with our choices. What is it about you and your husband that got you to say "I'm going to do something about this. I'm going to fix it."

I'm a workaholic and a perfectionist at heart. That didn't change when I had children. That's sort of what did it. I remember very clearly sitting in my boss' office telling her I would be back within a week after my baby is born, working full-time! Then my daughter was born. I completely changed my priorities and thought, "Who cares about work? This is what's important." I decided before I even left the hospital that I was going to be a stay-at-home mom. I quit my job and then wondered what I could do for money from home.

During the pregnancy we had gotten frustrated looking for things. We looked everywhere. I was dissatisfied greatly with the selections, customer service, and with the technical aspects of the sites. I decided there had to be a better way to do it. Sara was about four months old, and I started writing the business plan for Kidbean.com.

Melissa in the storeroom and Sara testing vegan paints

What made you decide to add the additional agreement to have the companies sign?

Because I know vegans. You become vegan and you are educated about how horrible factory farming is and all the dangers of putting cow's milk in your body, the pesticides and the hormones, and you say, "Why don't people know this? Why isn't everybody vegan?" You have these new vegan eyes, you see people wearing leather, and you just want to go over and grab them and say, "What are you doing?" You just get so angry at people because they haven't realized the truth. You get over it and you realize it isn't beneficial; it doesn't help anybody. It doesn't help you either.

You strive for purity at that point. That's why it came about; because I wanted to make sure, should somebody ever ask, that I have the documentation to support it to say. "Yes, we really do know, and we've got certification."

How do you feel about companies that make one or two vegan items but all the rest are full of animal products?

We keep it open that that may be a possibility. If somebody has a super product but all their other things aren't vegan, then we may choose to carry it. I would of course look in every corner of the world for something different, something better made by a vegan or vegetarian, or at least a more environmentally-friendly company or I may just choose not to have a product like that at all. We keep ourselves open. We choose to do it on a product level.

You must be researching constantly. Do you have the list of animal products and byproducts in your head?

Most of it is in my head, but I choose not, whenever possible, to reference it because I go for simplicity sake. Even if a product is vegan, if it's got an ingredient list 50 things long, we're probably not going to carry it. I would rather have real things from nature. I'm much more of a naturalist at heart.

The vegan community is such a niche market, what's it going to take to expand where mainstream consumers will be interested in getting these kinds of products?

That's one of our primary goals, which is part of the reason for the name Kidbean rather than Vegan Baby or something similar. Another way is by setting lower prices. I've analyzed 150 of our competitors and keep a running log of them so we can set prices as low as possible and still be competitive. We're not in it to make money. We're in it to promote vegan products for the benefit of everyone. We are hoping the products will sell themselves.

It's wonderful that you have decided to offer your information and products to the vegetarian community.

What we went through looking for [vegan] things was just too frustrating. Not having the support makes it harder. It makes it harder for people when there are all these questions on all sides [about raising children vegetarian]. You need people around. You need a community of people saying, "Look, you can do this. We're doing it, too. And this person over there is doing it, too." To bring it all together, to have a place where people can go to get all the things they need to live that lifestyle makes it easier for them - that's what we feel we do.