Alabama Goods: Distinctive Food and Gifts Made in Alabama
When looking for the perfect gift or gift basket, look no further.
Alabama Goods features art, jewelry, pottery, crafts, and food items from around the state. (Photo/Steve Babin)
Homewood-based Alabama Goods has expanded northward to the Valley Bend shopping center, next to Fleet Feet.
“We’ve been wanting to open a location in Huntsville for a couple of years,” said owner Sherry Hartley. “We would go to Huntsville and ride around, looking for the right spot. When we found this one, we just thought it was a good match for the customer base that will be shopping there.”
What’s so unique about Alabama Goods is the merchandise they carry. It’s all handmade by Alabama artisans.
Alabama Goods got its start in 2008 when Hartley and her business partner Beth Staula teamed up to create their online corporate gift basket business. While serving on a committee with the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Hartley and Staula discussed potential business opportunities.
Staula had been in the business of corporate baskets and Hartley was in website development. So, the pair began their business venture as a website and a corporate gift company.
There’s a lot of thought that goes into assembling the perfect corporate gift basket.
“Our main thing is that we want our customer, the company to look good,” said Hartley. “We put together pottery, food, all types of gifts. We will put together gift concepts that are not just gourmet foods. We will put together a pottery item and a food item. A lot of times, it’s going to be artwork, a wide variety of things for companies.”
When Hartley and Staula were looking for vendors, they often would come across awesome products that were just not quite “corporate material.”
“We kept finding these really cool items from Alabama but didn’t really qualify to be on the website,” said Hartley. That’s when they decided to open a store.
Alabama-made sauces, spices, jams, jellies and the like will please your palate. (Photo/Steve Babin)
“We opened the Homewood store eight years ago and doubled our space three years ago,” said Hartley. “We decided that we need to be somewhere else in Alabama. I was reading articles all the time about the growth of Huntsville and that’s why Huntsville had been on my radar.”
Along with assorted gift baskets, Alabama Goods boasts one of the largest selections of Alabama-made pottery. The merchandise in the store is highly curated before it reaches the sales floor. Hartley and Staula search far and wide throughout the state for just the right art, jewelry, pottery, crafts, and food items.
“We have so much talent in Alabama,” Hartley said. “it’s just a matter of finding it.”
