A small business in Harrisonburg is opening up its space to help the community learn about a historical practice.
Red Root and Co., an herbalist shop that has been operating in the Friendly City for eight years, opened its new retail space last month. The business, initially started by Corey MacDonald from her kitchen, offers a variety of herbal supplements and cooking additives like oxymel vinegar and bitters made from locally, regionally or organically grown ingredients. While the business has called its space on Virginia Avenue home for six years, the retail space was a more recent project, according to MacDonald.
“As an herbalist, I knew that not everyone’s going to come see an herbalist, so I thought, ‘Oh, we can make some products, and then will maybe find herbalism this way, through some of the things we make,’” MacDonald explained. “We had a place on West Washington Street for a long time, and then we lost our lease. I always had a bigger dream of having an herb house, which is what we’re calling this, with a small specimen garden, a place for me to see clients, and then a place to bring herbs to the community. Being a resource for a community feels increasingly important, too, so this is our public-facing space.”
MacDonald said her hope is for her business to act as a resource for the community, where people can come to learn about plant-based wellness supplements. While Red Root has visited several farmers markets from Harrisonburg to Richmond and Charlottesville, MacDonald said the retail space is a “new evolution” in the shop’s growth, which she described as slow and steady up to this point.
The shop is run by a small team of four staff members and includes spaces for production, shipping and storage throughout the rest of the building. While MacDonald will use the retail space for the public-facing aspects of the business, Nathan Musselman, Red Root’s production lead, will be hard at work creating wellness tonics, elixirs and more for retail, wholesale and online availability.
“We’re all in,” MacDonald said. “In 2016, we started in my home, in my kitchen, and started very small. We went through the whole process of being legit with the state of Virginia and VDACS and just started doing it. I started experimenting, making things, and giving them to friends and family. I felt like I had some pretty good recipes to start, then I got my core formulas and recipes. Our very first farmers market was in Harrisonburg, a winter market.”
Some of the ingredients used by Red Root are even grown in Harrisonburg. Musselman said he has grown calendula sold at Red Root for three seasons on his farm, located near Red Root’s storefront.
“I bought this little farm over 10 years ago and have mostly grown things to improve the land and grow some food, but I wanted to get into this sort of niche market, and it was natural to grow medicinal herbs since I work for a company that uses them,” Musselman said. “Each year’s a little bit different. Like growing anything, weather conditions have something you have to deal with in a different way.”
Musselman said he plans to start growing ginger and turmeric in a greenhouse on his property in the near future.
MacDonald said she planned to expand the locally grown offerings at Red Root in the future, but a few obstacles needed to be removed before that could take place, and that may require up to $15,000 in funding.
“It sounds like a lot, but it really takes a lot,” MacDonald said of Red Root’s issues. “Some of these huge Bradford pear trees, which I don’t know how much you know about trees, are not good for our environment and cost a lot of money to take down. I tried talking to the city about taking them down, but they won’t. Personally, that’s really expensive. It would be thousands and thousands of dollars just for us to take them down, even though they’re a detriment to the Harrisonburg ecosystem.”
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