Eleven-Year-Old Lemonade Entrepreneur Lands Multi-Million Dollar Deal With Whole Foods

An 11-year-old girl from Texas has impressively built a successful business with her special homemade lemonade while saving endangered honey bees in the process.

Mikaila Ulmer, the brilliant kid creator of BeeSweet Lemonade who calls herself a “bee ambassador,” has recently landed a multi-million deal with Whole Foods enabling her to distribute her product to the retail giant’s 55 stores nationwide, NBC reported.

“I work on the business after school, after I do my homework, and on weekends and during spring breaks,” Ulmer told NBC. “There are not too many times when I feel stressed.”

But Ulmer didn’t always like bees. According to the company’s website, the young entrepreneur got her inspiration after she was stung by a bee twice when she was 4 years old. This experience led her to research more about the bees and later fall in love with the flying insects.

She then discovered the importance of bees in the ecosystem as pollinators for plants and found that their numbers are dwindling and that they are in danger of being extinct.

She also remembered her great grandmother’s special recipe for flaxseed lemonade when an idea came to mind.

“So then I thought, what if I make something that helps honeybees and uses my great granny Helen’s recipe?” Ulmer said.

“That’s how BeeSweet Lemonade was born. It comes from my great granny Helen’s flaxseed recipe and my new love for bees. So that’s why we sweeten it with local honey. And today my little idea continues to grow.”

And grow it did. From her humble little lemonade stand, where Ulmer actively educates her customers about the current state of the bees, she saw her small operation bloom into a highly lucrative business.

BeeSweet Lemonade has also become a huge hit in youth entrepreneurial events at which all her products sell out every year. True to her commitment in saving her beloved honey bees, she continuously donates parts of the profits to local and international organizations that aim to save bees.

Due to her growing popularity, the young businesswoman and her bee crusade have been featured in several TV programs and websites.

Last year, she received a cool $60,000 investment from the show “Shark Tank,”and was awarded as one of the “8 Coolest Kids” of 2015 by Scholastic magazine. Ulmer was most recently was named one of MVMT50’s Top 10 Innovators at the annual South by Southwest welcome reception on March 11.

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