The expanding Quad Cities keto-friendly company WOE Foods has taken another stride in its long march to becoming a nationwide brand, Allen Parker, the company’s founder, said. The creator of the signature healthy Way Of Eating, or WOE, product line is moving into larger digs across the Mississippi River from his current location: A shared […]
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The expanding Quad Cities keto-friendly company WOE Foods has taken another stride in its long march to becoming a nationwide brand, Allen Parker, the company’s founder, said.
The creator of the signature healthy Way Of Eating, or WOE, product line is moving into larger digs across the Mississippi River from his current location: A shared commercial kitchen at the Spotlight Theatre & Events Center in downtown Moline.
That arrangement has served WOE Foods well since Mr. Parker moved out of the small apartment kitchen from which he began creating and selling his keto-friendly WOE pizza, phatCrusts and Bronuts (brownie-donuts). But the timing was right for this latest move for two reasons, he told the QCBJ.
“Our lease ended, but instead of renewing for two years we took a big leap of faith and took advantage of the time to move things over to Iowa since our market trends more heavily on that side of the river,” he said. “We believe the move will capture the overall support structure and the ability to eventually enter new business ventures.”
Mr. Parker declined to say where WOE’s new home will be located. He did say it is “in Bettendorf, Iowa, but the details are not finalized as of yet in regards to terms and conditions.”
He’s clearly pleased with the potential move, however. “The operating space is actually bigger for production and storage overall,” he added. That’s important as he looks to continue to increase production and grow his market.
He is still looking to find the right production partner to help take WOE to the next level, “but this move is getting us closer to that. The ultimate goal is to get a deal with a co-manufacture for bigger distribution,” Mr. Parker said. “This gets us closer to that goal.”
The effort to significantly expand Mr. Parker’s three-year-old business began when he rebranded his former WOE Pizza and WOE Bakery operations as WOE Foods this spring. He’s also been expanding and fine-tuning his product line, including the addition of his new Woekies: keto, vegan, paleo, gluten-free and dairy-free cookies.
The end game, he told the QCBJ in May, is taking his healthy Way Of Eating national. “The overall goal is to become a household brand name across the country,” Mr. Parker said. “Everyone should have access to WOE Foods.”
That will require expanding his growing product line to more companies and other locations beyond the Quad Cities Hy-Vee stores, coffee houses and restaurants which currently offer WOE Foods products.
“We have a few grocery stores outside the area who are interested in carrying WOE Foods and hopefully we’ll be able to make that happen very soon,” Mr. Parker said. That includes “getting in front of Whole Foods,” the largest American chain of supermarkets specializing in natural and organic foods, as soon as possible.
