In 2019, Beehive Meals founder Allyse Jackson was a stay-at-home mom of two, trying like mad to solve a small problem before it became a larger one. It seemed her husband might lose his job and the entire company might go under. There were still mortgage payments to be paid. There were still two children to feed and care for. If her husband’s job disappeared altogether, the future was harder to predict. They needed another option.
Instead of waiting for what felt inevitable, Allyse brainstormed an alternative way forward.
“I asked myself what I was good at that could also make money, and started a list,” Allyse says, admitting that most of what she wrote down centered on homemaking skills like crocheting.
Near the top of that list was batch prepping and creating freezer meals, something she’d done so often throughout her marriage that it was practically second nature. Leaning on recipes passed down by her mother, she’d combine raw ingredients (such as chicken, potatoes and spices) in a Ziploc freezer bag and store it in the freezer for later use.
It was an easier way to tackle feeding her family and a predetermined answer to “What’s for dinner?” Because it had worked so well for her small family, she thought, maybe other families could use help, too. Using stock photography and a few tested recipes, she posted to a local Facebook group of moms, offering to shop, compile and deliver ready-to-cook meals to their homes.
“Within minutes, the commenting started,” Allyse remembers, and moms started hitting the “like” button. Not only did they take to her idea and praise her for it, but many wanted what she was selling. By the end of her first day, she’d done $10,000 in sales.
First-time customers turned into repeat shoppers. Month after month, Allyse’s expected short-term solution turned into a more permanent one. Just a few months after starting her business, Allyse hired a few employees to help with demand. Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 — when grocery store shelves were often bare and uncertainty was at an all-time high — Beehive Meals saw an unexpected surge in growth.
More than five years later, momentum hasn’t stopped.
“When I started in 2019, by the end of that year, I’d produced and sold 1,500 meals. In 2020, we produced 50,000+ meals. In 2021, we did 400,000 meals,” Allyse says. Now, the company has ballooned to employing a staff of nearly 100, many of whom are female, formerly stay-at-home moms. The company has evolved to service 12 states and is on track to sell more than 1.5 million freezer bag meals before the end of 2025.
Because the company was initially intended as a short-term solution, Allyse says, she and her team responded to growth as it happened. When Beehive Meals needed another employee, they hired one. When more meals were being made, another freezer to house them was purchased. Growing incrementally allowed the company to pay along the way without ever taking on investment dollars.
“That entrepreneurial scrappiness is what allowed us to grow whenever we needed to grow,” Allyse says.
Proof of concept came easily
“[Freezer meals] were top of mind because she’d done it before,” says Allyse’s husband, Adam Jackson, who also serves as Beehive Meals’ chief commercial officer.
As far as Adam is concerned, the company’s proof of concept — or collected evidence that the idea would work — actually surfaced a few years before in 2016, just before the couple’s first daughter was born. Allyse was deep into her nesting phase at that time, preparing for their new addition. One way Allyse prepared was by creating freezer meals for her family to use later. By the end of the week, she’d prepared nearly 80 meals, filling her and Adam’s deep freezer with mostly chicken-centric dinners that were ready to heat and serve.
“Once the baby came, it was still just Allyse and I [eating them], and she discovered she’d overprepped,” Adam says. That led to sharing whenever the need arose. Allyse began dropping off a couple of meals at a time around her neighborhood, providing welcomed assistance to new moms and church members, whoever needed them most. By the time she landed on the company idea, she had a treasure most new business owners would pay handsomely for: proof of concept.
“The more I get into this, the more I discover it’s more stress and hours than I originally intended, but the impact I’m able to make on my own family, employees, and the community is so much bigger than I ever planned for.”
— Allyse Jackson
Out of the home, into the office
For Allyse, beginning a business as a mother with no formal business background took some getting used to, and she admits she has sometimes felt out of place. She never finished college. Her one-time plan to become a dental hygienist never gained appropriate traction. The unpredictable feast or famine mentality nearly soured her on ever wanting to begin a business herself.
But Allyse has since discovered that being a mom has worked as a secret weapon. It’s allowed her to offer opportunities to other stay-at-home moms, as many of her longtime employees are. They have returned the trust she’s placed in them with a similar trust in the direction she’s leading them.
At first, Aubrey Christensen, a mom of four and Beehive Meals’ current director of operations, was only working part-time doing what was needed, whether that was printing labels or prepping delivery for the nearly three dozen routes scheduled for the following day. She worked nights and attended to her kids during the daytime, the youngest being newborn twins.
“Early on, I recognized [Aubrey] as someone with a lot of untapped talent,” Allyse says, and she asked Christensen to consider a full-time role as her office manager. She said yes. The ability to develop and grow has kept her at Beehive Meals almost as long as the company has existed, allowing her to switch from simply supplementing her family’s income to actively pursuing a now flourishing career.
“I’ve become so much more empowered,” Christensen says. “I work for a woman. I’m a woman. I love that my leadership team is made up of mostly women. I know that we can do amazing things together. With Allyse as a mentor, I can be a mentor to my team in turn, and both of us learn together as we go. Whatever is needed, we’re able to figure it out.”
Impact has no expiration date
Allyse is proud of the impact she makes. She’s proud of the financial stability she’s providing her immediate family, and she’s able to set an example for her daughter. She invests time, resources and money into her staff, helping improve their lives.
One of the biggest ways Allyse has influenced her own community, however, is by donating what amounts to “hundreds of thousands of dollars” worth of meals via Utah Foster Care and a partnership with Utah First Lady Abby Cox and her Show Up Utah initiative.
Cox says the partnership formed through a shared desire to both support and uplift Utah’s educators.
“As part of that initiative, we were looking for meaningful ways to show appreciation for teachers and administrators who work to support our children. Beehive Meals immediately stood out, not only because of their product, but because of their heart for service,” Cox says. “They partnered with us at the Show Up for Teachers conference to provide five frozen meals to every teacher and staff member at five local schools, and have returned to do so over and over, again and again. … I am blown away by their generosity. From the beginning, it was clear that Beehive Meals is a company that understands the power of bringing people together and making community a priority.”
Cox points out that Beehive Meals is doing more than providing dinner options — they’re delivering peace of mind, quality time and connection for families.
Alleviating mom guilt for good
For as much as Beehive Meals has already grown, Allyse hopes to continue delivering frozen meals to even more homes and states. This might mean purchasing additional freezers, a larger space, or hiring more employees. The end goal? Allowing even more working parents to be relieved from deciding what’s for dinner every night.
As a working parent, Allyse knows firsthand the kind of “mom guilt” that can coincide with getting home exhausted after a long day at the office, knowing you still need to feed your family. It’s a feeling she’s familiar with, but one she no longer experiences, as her family eats Beehive Meals a few times a week.
“Customers come up to me, just in tears, saying I’ve made them feel like they’re a good mom,” Allyse says. At the Beehive Meals Layton headquarters, where we’re speaking, there’s a playpen in the corner of her office and a few stuffed animals and toys inside. It’s evidence of her blended worlds, of sometimes needing to bring home to work, and vice versa. And that’s exactly as she’d have it.
“The more I get into this, the more I discover it’s more stress and hours than I originally intended, but the impact I’m able to make on my own family, employees, and the community is so much bigger than I ever planned for,” Allyse says. “I wouldn’t change any of it, and that includes all the failures we’ve experienced. They’ve happened for a reason and have allowed me to grow personally and professionally. … I love the journey.”