As of this month, Beehive Meals employs 130 people and is delivering across the country.

In a press release earlier this month, it was announced that Beehive Meals — a meal-prep company specializing in slow-cooker freezer meals — is now delivering to all 50 states.

“Since its founding, Beehive Meals has focused on helping busy families spend less time stressing over what’s for dinner and more time together around the table,” the release said. “What began as a local Utah solution has steadily expanded through years of intentional growth, investment in logistics, and a commitment to quality. Nationwide shipping represents the culmination of that effort.”

Beehive Meals co-founder Adam Jackson recently spoke with the Standard-Examiner about how the company has expanded from its humble foundation in 2019 to serving the entirety of the United States.

Meal-prep

Photo supplied, Beehive Meals, photo by Parker Shaw

Beehive Meals is one of a growing trend of companies such as HelloFresh and Blue Apron that are offering meal solutions in an increasingly busy world.

“We’ll take a bag, put in the protein — chicken, pork, beef — put in the sauces and the seasoning, vacuum seal it, freeze it, deliver it to the customers,” Jackson said. “Customers will cook it in their slow-cookers for a few hours and serve it over rice, pasta, tacos or sandwiches depending on what the meal is.”

He said families are one of the biggest demographics they serve.

“We do really well with busy moms — they tend to be our buyer,” he said. “Our servings, on average, are looking to feed a family as opposed to an individual.”

Jackson said the company has been recognized as one of the fastest growing companies in both Utah and the country by various organizations, including the United States Chamber of Commerce.

‘I was about to lose my job’

Photo supplied, Beehive Meals; photo by Parker Shaw

But before any of that growth was to happen, the company had to start from somewhere.

And according to Jackson, the loss of another job sent him and his wife down this path.

“My wife Allyse is the one who founded the company,” he said. “I was about to lose my job. She rolled out of bed, wrote down a list of things that she was good at, with these slow-cooker freezer meals at the top of the list. She took that to Facebook and basically said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea. I’ll do all the prep work, I’ll do all the shopping, I’ll prep these freezer meals and then I’ll deliver them straight to you.’ Took that to Facebook to see if there was any interest and, immediately, she basically started a company.”

He said that Beehive Meals didn’t quite resemble the company it is today at first, but it wouldn’t take long to take off.

“Initially, when she first started that, she used to handle all of the shopping, the prep, the delivery all by herself to the point we would be delivering out of our own vehicle,” he said. “Getting into early-2020 when the pandemic happened, growth was so high that we had to go out and start buying our own refrigerated vehicles. It went from our personal vehicle to about 20 vehicles.”

Jackson said by 2023-2024, Beehive meals was serving the whole state and was branching out to serve other western states.

Nationwide service

Jackson said by 2024, the company had an active shipping model that was able to deliver to 12 western states. By late-2025, they were able to cover the contiguous United States and, beginning Jan. 8, Beehive Meals could serve all 50 states.

“This is a moment we’ve been building towards for a long time,” Allyse Jackson, founder and CEO of Beehive Meals, said in the press release. “From our very first year in business, customers kept asking when we would go nationwide. Getting here took years of building the right systems, infrastructure, and standards so we could do it the right way, not the rushed way. Now the doors are fully open, and families across the country can finally enjoy Beehive Meals.”

Adam Jackson said one of the keys to being able to go from regional delivery to nationwide delivery came down to ensuring quality and safety of the food.

“The biggest aspect is ensuring food safety,” he said. “We want to make sure that, not only do our meals arrive safe, but customer expectation is that they arrive frozen because it’s a freezer meal. They want it to be rock-solid. We took our time getting to national expansion because we were wanting to ensure that we were taking all of the right steps.”

He said that this included making sure the packaging could sustain frozen meals for at least 72 hours and making sure the logistics would work out.

Jackson said that, within 48 hours of launching nationwide service, they had received orders from all 50 states.

“There were a lot of people that knew about us that had been patiently waiting for this day for quite a while,” he said. “In states like Florida, North Carolina, Virginia we’ve seen a lot of sales.”

Even with this word-of-mouth, he said there are still plans to spend a lot on marketing to the new states via paid social media advertisements and other traditional methods.

In the meantime, Jackson said the reception for nationwide service has been extremely positive.

“Because of the Internet and social media, we’ve had so many people follow us for a long time,” he said. “We’ve actually had comments about how people have cried because we’re finally available in their area, or there have been people that have purchased us in Utah and then moved out to various states and they’re able to be our customers once again. It’s something that we’re really, really excited about.”

Coming to Ogden

While Beehive Meals now delivers across the nation, the company is on the verge of yet another big move.

“We’re going to finish a brand new building in Ogden,” Jackson said. “Right now, we’re in Layton and we have two buildings we work out of right now. Come April-May, we’re going to have a brand new 60,000-square-foot building that will allow us to be able to handle the demand. As we grow in these different areas, we expect demand to go up. We’re going to need to make sure we have all the prep procedures, all of the operations in place, the logistics to make sure we’re keeping up with demand.”

The new location for Beehive Meals — located on what used to be the site of the Ogden Union Stockyards — is also in a fitting location, according to Jackson.

“There’s a cool story for us to tell, going forward,” he said. “If you walk around the back, there’s trails where you have old steps where the cows used to come down. It’s kind of neat to say, ‘Hey, not only are we a meal-prep company, but we’re sitting on this ground that, for 100 years, was vital to Ogden’s economy and feeding the west.'”

For more information on Beehive Meals, visit https://beehivemeals.com/.