Mission

Fed Up Foods is a woman-owned artisanal canned food business located in Stevens Point, WI. We create clean, delicious, whole food products with unique flavor combinations. Fed Up Foods creates community development through collaboration and educates people on the movement toward a nutritious and resilient food system. We work with local and regional farms, employees, vendors, and customers. 

Creation Story

Fed Up Foods was founded in December of 2019 by current owner, Melissa Haack and close friend, Miranda, who left the business early on to pursue other dreams. The two of us worked together to get Fed Up Foods off the ground and I am so grateful for Miranda's initial involvement. It seems like once you start a small business, you just figure out how to keep going, but you have to start first, and I am so glad that we started it together. 

Fed Up Foods is a beautiful illustration of what I know and continue to learn. It started with my bachelors degree from UW-Stevens Point, a focus on natural resource policy, philosophy, & political science. Using that base of knowledge and a long bike ride around the US and parts of Canada, I thought long and hard about how to fit the pieces of what I loved together to create meaningful change. I eventually found myself working at the Stevens Point Area Food Cooperative, getting to dive deep into the local food movement in central Wisconsin through buying and managing the produce department. I gained so much knowledge on retail grocery and what it means to have wholesale relationships. 

 

In my free time during those years I work-traded on farms in the summer. At the farms I saw less than perfect produce getting composted and 'graded out.' I wanted to find a place for all of the miscreant produce that I was surrounded by whether it was at farms, in the produce department at the co-op, or in my garden.  I wanted to create shelf stable products with any produce I could get my hands on. I knew how to can from seeing my Mother do it as a child, and with her only a phone call away, I refined my food preservation skills.

When I finished a canning day and looked over at a table of hot jars, listening to them 'pop' and seal, I noticed that I felt a deep sense of resilience, joy, and meaning. So, on track with everything else I tend to do, I magnified it. I started to write down recipes. I got excited about new flavor combinations based on what was in season, I turned the classics on their head, I reframed classic to include as many local ingredients as possible. What started as a small kitchen with a big idea transformed into what we know as Fed Up Foods. We continue to learn and thrive in Stevens Point, WI. Thanks for joining me on this journey!

 Why Fed Up?

People wonder...why Fed Up Foods? I think for a lot of us, the answer goes without saying but I explain more specifically below..

1. Fed Up about the food system, I'm angry.  There aren't a lot of options as a grocery buyer for organic and truly local products, which means there aren't many options for consumers either. Food gets wasted all throughout the supply chain, and people are going hungry all over! I plan to figure out how Fed Up Foods can be part of a solution to this problem beyond making artisanal canned goods. I know that one can't move a mountain overnight, but in my mind every jar is one step closer to a solution.

2. Fed Up like getting fed upwards and being full. There are so many foods that claim to be the answer to your problems, but are full of weird additives and ingredients that I can't pronounce or understand. I like the idea of being fed upwards as a way to feel really good about what you're eating and knowing the origin story of each ingredient. I plan to find ways for Fed Up Foods to help hungry people near and far.