Heather’s Choice expects to create 20 new jobs initially, hopes to expand after that

By Nick Morgan, Rogue Valley Times

An Alaska food company that wowed the likes of billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban on national television with its just-add-water adventure meals is charting course for Southern Oregon.

Heather’s Choice, an Anchorage-based maker of lightweight packable meals featured in a Jan. 12 episode of “Shark Tank,” is preparing to move its operations to Ashland, according to CEO and founder Heather Kelly. She told the Rogue Valley Times earlier this week that capital is being raised to move into a 15,000-square-foot location in Ashland.

“Once I secure the funding, we’re picking up and moving the business and seven of our 10 employees are likely coming with us,” Kelly said.

She plans to move into a space in Ashland formerly occupied by natural nut butter company MaraNatha, and repurpose it to manufacture and distribute her freeze-dried, eat-in-pouch meals already sold online as well as at outdoors stores such as REI, Public Lands and Sportsman’s Warehouse.

Planning for the move began more than a year ago, well before Kelly got the opportunity to showcase her meals to a national audience. She remembers touring the Ashland facility on Jefferson Avenue, getting a taste of the Rogue Valley and making her decision in December 2022.

“We got a tour of the building, we went fly fishing on the Klamath River, we went wine tasting and flew home and decided, ‘I guess we’re moving to Ashland,'” Kelly said. 

It was last January when Kelly said she went on ABC.com, put her hat in the ring for the TV show where entrepreneurs pitch their products, then “promptly forgot about it,” knowing the odds were against her.

Shark Tank gets about 20,000 applications every year, according to an email from the show’s press contact at ABC. They pick roughly 150 companies and products for taping on a given season and 80 make it to air.

Kelly heard back from the show in April, and they taped in September.

Her freeze-dried meals unanimously impressed the five judges. Entrepreneur Lori Greiner told her on the show, “They taste fantastic,” while billionaire investor Mark Cuban confirmed that her African peanut stew was similarly delicious.

Kelly said she picked that peanut stew for Cuban knowing he doesn’t eat meat. She remembers stressing just before her big moment.

“It was very nerve-racking being backstage of Sony Pictures Studios rehydrating camping meals and preparing to serve them to a couple billionaires,” Kelly said.

The sharks each gave her the dreaded, “I’m out.” At issue was Kelly’s adherence to manufacturing the meals on her own instead of contracting with another commercial kitchen in what’s known as “copacking.” 

The entrepreneur judges told Kelly that such a business model would make it easier to expand production and scale up her business.

Kelly, who founded her company in 2014, refused to outsource her production for fear of losing quality control. She acknowledged on the show and during the interview that the high cost of making meals in her home state of Alaska is preventing her from eking out a profit.

She hopes the move to the contiguous United States will allow her company to lower production costs. Kelly said she’s actively fundraising, pitching to venture capitalists and seeking possible grant opportunities with the state. Most recently, she said her company closed a funding agreement with Oregon Sports Angels, an Oregon-based angel investor network focused on sports and adventure companies.

“We are also in conversations with Willamette University, Business Oregon and then fielding any inbound investor interest while we work towards this relocation and perfecting this strategy that allows us to expand in this new market opportunity,” she said. Once they complete the move, her business will immediately create 20 new jobs, though she hopes her company will expand.

“I’ve got big visions for this company and it’s going to take a lot of funding to get there,” Kelly said.

She shared plans to branch out beyond the adventure set into natural foods markets down the line, but until she makes her move to Southern Oregon those plans are on the back burner. In Alaska, her company is at capacity making 300 meals a day.

“The move and the facility is a really big piece of the puzzle,” Kelly said. “We just need more dehydrator capacity, we need the ability to make more meals at a time before we really expand our market.”

Her freeze dried meals are edible in their foil pouch, but Kelly said that she’s on the lookout for microwavable, compostable packaging to win at-home customers.

“For the everyday consumer who’s really accustomed to using something like a microwave or wants to simply simmer it on the stove at home, I think some new innovative packaging solutions are on the horizon for us as well,” Kelly said.

She’s made connections with the Ashland community, she said. Beyond Heather’s Choice moving to Southern Oregon, Kelly said that “on the table” are plans to open part of the space to other food producers.

“If we build it right, there is a world where the industrial facility will have capacity for other local businesses,” Kelly said. “That MaraNatha building would become a little bit of a food business incubator where we could help support other local food businesses in Southern Oregon while simultaneously making sure that we have the capacity for our products and that we’re able to maintain the product quality that we’ve promised everybody.”

Beyond Kelly’s business hopes, the lifelong adventurer said she’s looking forward to getting outdoors in the Rogue Valley. Especially the chance “to go boating year-round.”

“What we have in Alaska is closer to eight months of winter, and it’s beautiful, but I’m genuinely excited to be in Southern Oregon and to be able to be outdoors year-round and to perfect my gardening skills in a new place,” Kelly said.

For more info on Kelly’s business, see heatherschoice.com. This season of Shark Tank is available for streaming on Hulu and to Spectrum TV subscribers on the ABC app.

Reach reporter Nick Morgan at [email protected] or 458-488-2036. This story first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.