Opening a food business is a lot more complicated in the United States than Bermuda.

Myah Ballentine learnt that setting up a cookie business, Mama Leche, in Cleveland, Ohio.

“It is so different out here,” the Bermudian businesswoman said. “You have to get approved by the Food and Drug Administration. There are a lot of hoops you have to jump through that I did not think I would come across.”

She hired a good lawyer and she is managing well.

In contrast, when she set up the business in Bermuda, it was fairly easy to get her products into grocery stores.

“We trust each other in Bermuda,” Ms Ballentine said. “In America, a lot of people do not trust home bakeries. Building that trust in Ohio has been pretty hard.”

She moved to the United States a year ago and opened Mama Leche in the Beachwood Mall in Beachwood, a suburb of Cleveland, on June 3.

“When I moved, I did not know this was going to happen,” she said. “It is something I have always dreamt, and it happened when the time was right. It took two months of planning, so it happened pretty fast.”

Although she sells cookies, teas and brownie bites for everyone, her main focus is breastfeeding mothers. She makes lactation cookies containing ingredients such as flaxseed, brewer’s yeast and oats, which are thought to promote breast milk production.

She discovered lactation cookies when she had twin daughters, Karstyn and Karter, five years ago.

“When they were born, they were not able to handle formula,” Ms Ballentine said. “They would projectile vomit. I had to figure out how to feed these chunky babies.”

She was astonished and thrilled when someone told her eating certain things baked into a cookie could help her breast milk production.

“The biggest thing was that it worked and that it was yummy,” she said. “It was a breastfeeding mother’s dream.”

She had always been a baker, so she started making a slew of cookies for herself and her friends who were in a similar predicament.

“I put my own touch on the recipes I found,” she said. “My friends started saying I should start my own business.”

Now she bakes 250 to 400 cookies a day out of her home kitchen. Sometimes she has to get up at 4am to get things done. If she has a particularly large order for an event, she rents a commercial kitchen.

Since opening Mama Leche, Ms Ballentine has been very busy.

“Business has been booming, especially since I am the only cookie business in the mall,” she said. “There was a cupcake lady but she left, so I am the only sweet provider.”

She finds helping mothers to be rewarding.

“I am working with doulas and health food markets,” she said. “We are slowly starting to gain the trust of breastfeeding moms. I know how frustrating it was to be awake during those late long hours and not be able to produce milk and the stress and depression that resulted. Knowing that I am helping to get rid of that stress is a great feeling.”

You do not have to be lactating to enjoy her baked goods.

“There is nothing crazy in there,” she said. “People ask me that on a daily basis. Guys ask me if they eat the cookie will they start producing milk. No, they will not.”

Sometimes it can be a little challenging running a business while raising two little girls, but she said the key is organisation.

“I have a big support system, which helps,” she said. “Now, I am trying to find help to run the store. Once I do that, I will have more time with my daughters.”

But, she said, running Mama Leche does not feel like work.

“I have such a passion for it and feel so blessed,” she said. “I wake up excited to go to work, and I like working in the mall and meeting new people.”

However, she is still selling her cookie mixes in Bermuda out of Lindo’s in Warwick.

“I have two flavours of cookie mixes in the grocery store, birthday cake and chocolate chip,” she said.

She is hoping to introduce more flavours in the near future.