If you haven't eaten chicken fingers from Hip Chick Farms yet, chances are you will soon.
The company, which was founded by partners Serafina Palandec and Jen Johnson, began selling its chicken fingers in the frozen food aisles of 100 Whole Foods locations in 2013, and has since moved into 350 additional grocery stores.
Its chicken fingers, chicken meatballs and chicken wings are currently available in Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas. In February, Minnesota will be added to that list and later this year Hip Chick Farms plans to be in 100 stores along the East Coast.
Palandec said she expects the products to be nationally distributed before the end of 2015.
"Stores love it," she said. "We've had a great success in launching it into stores."
She noted the last quarter provided and "astronomical increase" in in store sales.
"Our in store sales, ( or ) sell through, ( which means ) how many are actually being bought off store shelves, that has increased 500 percent," she said.
Hip Chick Farms came about thanks to Johnson's popular chicken finger recipe.
Johnson spent the first half of her career at Chez Panisse working under great chefs, including Alice Waters, and the second half of her career serving as the executive private chef for Ann and Gordon Getty.
During that time Ann Getty launched a Montessori school in her home, and Johnson's role expanded to cooking a family style lunch for around 25 children every day.
Her chicken fingers became such a popular item with the kids that their mothers began asking her for the recipe.
The couple also had a child at this time and decided to relocate from San Francisco to a farm north of the city in Sebastopol, California.
"We really wanted to raise her in the country," Palandec said of their daughter. "And, really our beliefs around sustainable food systems so she would know where her food came from and learn about raising animals and all the beautiful things we believed in."
The couple also wanted to share the types of foods they brought to their own table with others and decided to launch their frozen food business.
"The ingredients are all sourced from farmers we know and have relationships with," Palandec said. "It's really important to us to know them and to have relationships with the people we are sourcing from.
"There's been a lot of bad press about chicken nuggets, 'What is in a chicken nugget?' Every kid loves chicken nuggets and every parent that I know is suspicious of what it is made out of.
"We made a line of products that was very clean—organic [as well as] antibiotic- and hormone-free. Very simple, but delicious, and you can really taste the difference of the quality of the product we make."
Palandec has handled the fundraising aspect of the business and said it's been a challenge to raise the necessary capital to support the business's rapid growth.
A recent report by Democratic staffers of the Senate Small Business & Entrepreneurship Committee found that while businesses owned by women account for 30 percent of small companies, they receive only 4.4 percent of the total dollars in conventional small-business loans. Additionally, women only receive 7 percent of venture capital funding.
"I've been to traditional funding sources like our banking institution and as a startup there is not really capital available," she said. "I went the route of looking to angel groups and that was really challenging because we are not in the tech industry."
So Palandec began a search for women led investing groups in hopes of discovering a source of funding that would be interested in investing in Hip Chick Farms.
"I found Pipeline Fellowship and I applied for a couple of their classes," she said.
Hip Chick Farms participated in the 2014 Pipeline Fellowship angel investing bootcamp held in Washington D.C.
Natalia Oberti Noguera, Pipeline Fellowship CEO, said the best way to understand Pipeline Fellowship is to think of the show Shark Tank.
"I am in the business of creating more women and men of color sharks," she explained.
Pipeline Fellowship is focused on creating a network of angel investors with an interest in funding women led enterprises.
"A lot of high net worth women have experienced making a positive impact with money through donations, through charity, through philanthropy, and that is great," she said. "( But ) guess what, you can make a positive impact with your money by investing in women entrepreneurs who are building businesses who are looking to do well and good. Hip Chick Farms is a really great example of that."
Hip Chick Farms was one of a handful of companies selected to present to the angel investing group, and were eventually selected to receive $25,000 in seed funding.
"I found the experience really quite delightful," Palandec said. "They understood what we were trying to do, both from a personal basis as parents and then from an investor basis, in that they could really grasp the business potential that we have."
Palandec said the frozen-foods sector of the organics industry is the second-fastest growing category right now in natural foods.
Hip Chick Farms has used the money to create new packaging for its products.
"That new packaging has been really the key to an incredible acceleration of our in store sell through," she explained. "It's the exact same product, its just better merchandised. That changed everything for us."
Pipeline Fellow has opened a call for applications for its spring angel investing bootcamp in Chicago. Visit pipelinefellowship.com to learn more about the bootcamps.
To find out more about Hip Chick Farms, visit hipchickfarms.com .
