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.
