What You Need To Know About Heather's Choice From Shark Tank
Since its inception, "Shark Tank" and food-focused businesses have gone together hand-in-hand. Just about every single season of the entrepreneurial series has featured at least a couple of companies looking to shake up the culinary industry in a key way. Season 15 is no exception, featuring memorable pitches from organizations like Rebel Cheese, Yum Crumbs, and, of course, Heather's Choice. An Alaska-based operation founded by Heather Kelly, Heather's Choice has developed a line of high-quality dehydrated foods for use while backpacking, hiking, and mountaineering — and its founder enters the Tank looking to take things to the next level.
Heather's Choice faces the scrutiny of the Sharks in "Shark Tank" Season 15, Episode 10, but fans may find themselves intrigued by the business and its products and want to learn more outside of the show. With that in mind, here are some important things to know about Heather's Choice and its offerings.
Heather's Choice was born from its founder's desire for a better option
Heather's Choice may have made its big "Shark Tank" debut in 2024, but the business has been around for far longer. In fact, 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of Heather Kelly's dehydrated food company. That level of longevity and success is quite the feat — especially considering that Heather's Choice was once little more than a germ of an idea forming in Kelly's head.
In an interview with the Journal of Mountain Hunting, Kelly recalled the story of how Heather's Choice first came to be all those years ago. At the time of its inception, Kelly already had a formal education background in nutrition and she had previously started her first small business, a company called OPENutrition. However, the entrepreneur's personal outdoor experience is what got her thinking about a new venture. "It was going on more of these rafting trips and pack rafting and hiking trips that I realized, wow there really aren't any good food options for me," Kelly explained.
From there, Kelly set about developing an array of dehydrated meals that suited her dietary style and struck a balance between providing refreshing nourishment while still tasting good. Her success prompted her to expand the concept into a business, and a warm reception back home helped Heather's Choice find its footing right out of the gate. "I went home to Alaska and started field testing and handing out the meals to my friends and getting really good feedback," Kelly said. "I started actually selling in August of 2014 and it very quickly exceeded my expectations!"
Heather's Choice offers a wide array of food options
In the years since Heather's Choice was first founded, the business has expanded its selection of products to cover quite a large swath of cuisine options. As of the time of this article's publishing, the business sells options for all sorts of meals. Breakfast options include Morning Glory Oatmeal and Swiss Muesli with Milk, while the list of dinner items includes African Peanut Stew, Shepherd's Pie, and Bison Chili. A sizable number of the products are also gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, or vegan. To top it all off, Heather's Choice even has its own line of coconut-based cookies called Packaroons, which come in a variety of flavors.
While Heather's Choice has a solid amount of variety in its selection, interested consumers may note that the prices of the business' products are generally higher than those of similar brands. In her interview with the Journal of Mountain Hunting, Heather Kelly said the price disparity was justified by the high-quality ingredients used in each meal and the decision to use dehydrated items rather than freeze-dried food. "The first thing you're going to notice is it's going to taste very different and it actually tastes like a meal that you would have at home," she said. "All of these recipes are ones that I make for myself on a weekly basis essentially, so it's all stuff that I would eat no matter where I am."
Heather's Choice is part of several alliances
Heather's Choice may still be going strong over 10 years past its founding, but it has also become a part of something greater — in more ways than one. In 2022, it became the very first Alaska-based company to join The Conservation Alliance, a continent-wide supergroup of businesses dedicated to nature preservation. "As a new member of The Conservation Alliance, we're excited to invest our hard earned dollars into an organization that is committed to deploying capital resources to organizations who need our support," Heather Kelly wrote in a blog post.
On a more local scale, Heather's Choice has also joined a coalition of women-owned businesses in Anchorage, Alaska called the Outdoor Alliance. The group is meant to serve as a support network for female entrepreneurs and their companies, and includes names like Elevated Oats, AK Coffee Company, and Alpine Fit. "There's just this awesome group of women-owned local Alaskan outdoor brands, and we get together quarterly and just share war stories, of whatever we're dealing with," Kelly said in an interview with Alaska Public Media.
While Heather's Choice may have attachments to its Anchorage community, however, a major change might be in the company's future in terms of its base of operations. In a 2023 interview with Alaska Public Media, Kelly revealed that she has considered moving Heather's Choice out of Alaska due to logistical issues as the company continues to grow. "Even though we've been really well supported here, whether it's through Launch Alaska, or the Alaska Accelerator Fund, or just the startup community here, there's definitely a tipping point at which it's like, okay, if most of your customers are not in Alaska, it doesn't necessarily make sense to continue to manufacture here," she said.
What happened to Heather's Choice on Shark Tank?
Heather Kelly hikes into the tank bearing tasty gifts for the sharks in the form of samples of her Heather's Choice ready-made meals and snack bars. The food blows the panel away. Unfortunately for Kelly, who is seeking $250,000 in exchange for 10% equity, that is the high point of her "Shark Tank" journey.
While Kelly's margins and sales figures are solid — 75% on her products and a cool $1 million in 2022 — she reveals that not only is her company not profitable, but she's badly in debt and recently failed to make payroll. The sharks are sympathetic to the earnest entrepreneur, who cites difficulty in figuring out how to scale manufacturing while keeping the quality of her ready-made meals high. However, that sympathy doesn't translate to a deal. Each of the sharks gives Kelly some tough love, with much of the feedback focused on encouraging her to let go of her perfectionist tendencies and think outside the box when it comes to who her target audience is. She has been primarily marketing the product to camping enthusiasts, but guest-shark Candace Nelson suggests that the Heather's Choice meals are so good she could imagine her kids having one as an after-school snack.
Ultimately, while the panel feels for Kelly and wishes her well, they each decline to invest in Heather's Choice, sending Kelly home with some well-received advice rather than the money she was seeking.