Five companies are finalists for this year’s Oregon Angel Food competition from Oregon Entrepreneurs Network.
The annual event includes funding opportunities and an education series for food and beverage business founders.
The finalists are:
- Bend-based Altitude Beverages, which makes a line of non-alcoholic, CBD, canned mocktails.
- Portland-based Creole Me Up, which makes organic, allergen-free Haitian food products.
- Portland-based Mickleberry Gardens, which makes honey tonics and beeswax-based skincare.
- Portland-based Plant Bomb, which makes organic, gluten and dairy-free, plant-based sauces.
- Portland-based Renata, which makes a line of frozen, wood-fired pizzas.
The companies' founders all completed the education aspect of the program within the past year. The winners will be announced June 6 at an investor event.
OregonAF is one of three education and funding programs that OEN runs each year. The other two programs are Angel Oregon Life & Bioscience and Angel Oregon Tech. OEN started launching industry-targeted Angel events in 2018.
This year, they are running a second cohort of food and beverages companies through the education sessions. Those sessions will run in late summer and early fall, said OEN Executive Director Cara Turano.
“OEN recentered our work around entrepreneurs in 2024 particularly around education, paths to funding and building their business networks. With only one program a year, companies that missed attending (or were founded after the program ended) had to wait an entire year,” said Turano. “That didn't feel good to the OEN team; therefore, we decided to host two education cohorts a year for all the Angel Oregon programs.”
Separately, food and beverage startups will be highlighted at a pair of pop-up marketplace events. A Portland marketplace is slated for May 31 at Tillamook’s Portland office, 1400 N.W. 22nd Ave. The Salem event is slated for Sept. 27.
Both events will feature about 20 vendors and will be open to the public. Roughly 10 companies will be invited to present their products on stage.
