When I first started at the Center for Rural Affairs, I made sure to bring my lunch from home. I figured there wouldn’t be a lot of options in Lyons. So it was a pleasant surprise to find Soup-N-More, a natural foods grocery, just down the street.

As the name suggests, it all began with soup. A few years ago Rebecka Fleischman wanted to do something with her thanksgiving leftovers. So she started dehydrating her own vegetables, throwing in some spices and giving away these ready-made soup mixes to family and friends.