ENCINITAS – Finicky eaters and food label readers are finding some common ground in local startup company Hidden Foods Co., which makes zero-sugar added products and incorporates healthy ingredients like pea protein, vegetables and fruit, and fiber into its pasta sauces, pancake mixes, cookies and more.
Hidden Foods, which was founded in 2022 and launched its first shelf-stable CPG products in 2023, has seen more than 400% growth since its beginnings.
Founder
Hidden Foods
“I’m on a mission to feed families better,” said Hidden Foods founder and CEO Kendra Vallone Matthews. “I am so passionate about making sure that people are educated and understand that there are vitamins that that kids are missing these days, and also that it’s not just about the protein content.”
Matthews, a former professional golfer who was also in the advertising industry, said she started her company in support of parents like her – challenged by children who won’t eat balanced meals with whole foods and whose snacks lack nutrition.
She said the company started when, as a working mom, she didn’t have the time to stand on top of her two children, one of whom all but refused to eat vegetables, to get them to eat. She said she knew there had to be a better way.
“I spent several years walking down aisles of grocery stores looking for a pasta sauce that has vegetables in it,” Matthews said, “not just a sauce that’s like, ‘Hey look, there’s carrots right there in our pasta sauce!’ but like legit, ‘We’re hiding this for people that don’t like vegetables and just need added nutrition.’”
She started considering ways to include vegetables in a marinara sauce “in a way that totally hit it.”
Matthews did a deep dive into her Italian heritage for inspiration and said she created an old-school Sicilian marinara sauce recipe using healthy ingredients – and found her own kids were devouring it, as were the children of some of her friends, who were early taste testers.
“And meanwhile I’m thinking, ‘You have no idea what you’re eating, you know!’” Matthews said.
Hidden Foods officially launched in 2023 and its products are currently available online, on Amazon, at two Sprouts locations in Chula Vista and myriad independent grocers, including Harvest Ranch in Encinitas and Seaside Market in Cardiff.
Pasta sauce is popular but has a lot of competition on the shelf. Hidden Foods’ best seller is its pancake mix, which goes head-to-head with pancake mix products from big names like Kodiak, Bob’s Red Mill and Birch Benders.
Executive Director
Naturally San Diego
Kierstin Rielly, executive director of local nonprofit Naturally San Diego, said Hidden Foods operates much like a “functional food” brand – food that offers benefits through healthy ingredients and fortification, and a trend that is on the rise.
Rielly said she believes the company has launched at an opportune time.
“Putting other healthy foods into foods that you already normally eat is very active right now,” Rielly said. “The consumer is looking for it, buyers in grocery stores are looking for it. Sneaking vegetables into pasta sauce might have been a weird thing 10 years ago but it’s not anymore. Even though shelf space is tough to come by and there’s a lot of competition, her timing is good. She’s definitely on to something.”
Par for the Course
Matthews said that while she learned “so many things in life” through her golf career, there is a deeper mission to be successful in running Hidden Foods.
“Where business is better, and why I prefer it, is you can put in a lot of work and a lot of time and you reap rewards, even though it might not always be what you want, ” she said.
“In golf, I could be grinding it out for hours and days and months and years, and go play a tournament and shoot 68, and then the next day nothing changed. And I then could shoot 80 and I’m out, you know? Your sense of worth is really in the score because that’s how it’s measured.
“I suppose you could say that for business it’s in your revenue or it’s in your number of sales but at the same time when I know I’m feeding kids and making sure they’re healthy, it’s so much more rewarding, and I feel like I I can grind that out.”
Not ready to officially look for new investors at the moment, but open to that possibility as soon as next year, Matthews said she is currently in preliminary talks with Costco to sell large bags of Hidden Foods pancake mix.
The company’s pancake mixes are currently made in Wisconsin, its pasta sauces in Illinois and cookie manufacturer in Washington.
Hidden Foods is preparing to launch its own brand of macaroni and cheese by the end of the year, a product that parents can just add hot water to, and it cooks in its own container.
Matthews also said she hopes her business will get an opportunity to get its products into the hands of local school districts, with the advent of California Senate Bill 348.
The bill requires that by 2025, schools offering food to students must cut the sodium content by 10% and cut off high-sugar foods. In the two years following, sodium must be reduced by another 10%, with sugar composing less than 10% of students’ caloric intake.
“With California starting to put the mandate on schools for less sugar added, I feel like we check so many different boxes that our competitors don’t,” Matthews said. “You’ve got some that are healthy but if you look at their sugar content it’s really high. And most of the pasta sauces also have a very high sugar content, and there’s really no added nutritional value.”
Hidden Foods Co. LLC
FOUNDED: 2022
FOUNDER AND CEO: Kendra Vallone Matthews
HEADQUARTERS: Encinitas
BUSINESS: Consumer Packaged Goods
EMPLOYEES: 6
WEBSITE: hiddenfoodsco.com
CONTACT: info@hiddenfoodsco.com
SOCIAL IMPACT: Woman-owned company
NOTABLE: CEO Matthews, when she was known as Kendra Vallone, was on the Futures Tour as part of the LPGA
