Heirloom Kitchen

Heirloom Kitchen, run by chef Christine Ilich, is dedicated to being eco-conscious. Ilich sells vegetarian and vegan soups made with seasonal, local vegetables, all packaged in compostable containers. Everything she grows is pesticide-free.

“I don’t spray anything,” Ilich said. “If a bug or a critter gets to my tomatoes, I just deal with it.”

Ilich was a professional chef in New York before she decided to move out to the Virginia countryside and live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. She grows a majority of her ingredients in her own garden and buys the rest from other vendors at the farmers market. 

Ilich also sells other products, like hummus and ratatouille, but soup is her biggest seller.

“People love soups, and I’m really good at making soup,” she said. “I thought that would be a really creative way of using a lot of different vegetables and herbs.”