2024 Business Women Awards
ACHIEVEMENT HONOREE: Mariana R. Silva-Buck
Little Maven Lemonade co-owner
WHEN LIFE HANDS you lemons, don’t just make lemonade. Consider Mariana R. Silva-Buck’s solution – a lemonade company launched from her daughter’s lemonade stand.
Since 2020, Little Maven Lemonade has sold 50,000 bottles. Many of the company’s 50 or so clients are in the food service industry and range in location from Rhode Island to Florida, California and London.
Silva-Buck’s daughter, Sofia, used to do all the labeling, but these days, aside from bottling, Silva-Buck flies solo, doing everything from marketing to sales. It’s a long way from her comfortable life growing up in Brazil, where she says kids don’t have lemonade stands.
“I was a typical kid from Rio, a bit of a beach bum,” she said. “I went to private school, and Sundays were at my grandmother’s house.”
As a teenager, Silva-Buck dreamed of being in show business, and spent six years in the theater and two years as a TV extra. Her parents weren’t exactly thrilled. Even after they saw her do an audition and understood her entertainment itch, they still pressured her to get a job. With show biz aspirations shifting to working behind the scenes, she went to college for journalism and communications through an exchange program abroad.
Silva-Buck spent five months in Vermont, fell in love with the United States, went home for a brief time, then came back to New Mexico. She worked in a restaurant there and got married.
By the time her daughter wanted to launch her lemonade stand, Silva-Buck, now divorced, had acquired the skills to turn a hobby into a business. She and Sofia began bottling homemade lemonade and taking it to different events.
What started almost as a lark took off as Silva-Buck and her daughter were invited to bring their lemonade to events at Lesley University and the Brazilian consulate in Boston. They moved from Massachusetts to Warren to be closer to the ocean. That’s where Silva-Buck discovered Hope & Main, the incubator for small food-related businesses.
Then in March 2020, the world shut down as COVID-19 began tightening its grip.
“In a way, it was a blessing,” she said. “Without the pandemic, I wouldn’t have had opportunities in the food industry. Those who saw gaps and how to fill them are the ones who became successful. I saw a boom in home deliveries and meal prep. I approached small, local food companies and asked to partner with them, making some of their deliveries.”
