Jenn Brown worked in marketing and advertising for several years, before taking a “sabbatical” in 2015 to travel. She ended up as a private chef cooking aboard tourism yachts in Alaska, where she fell in love with the Last Frontier. Deciding to spend more time in the area (off of yachts), she found herself regularly foraging for wild foods, and turning them into snacks to share with friends. They were such a huge hit, she attempted to sell them commercially for the first time at Ketchikan’s blueberry festival—which proved an encouraging launching pad for introducing her foraged products to the wider world!
Jenn specializes in pantry staples like pickles, that are rich in wild-foraged Alaskan superfoods such as kelp and sea asparagus. The aquatic plants grow prolifically in the ocean and on the isolated shorelines of the Southeast Alaskan archipelago, yet they’re a vitamin and mineral-packed food source that’s not traditionally found in American diets. In fact, they’re more frequently taken as supplements, in order to provide a daily recommended allowance of nutrients like iodine and vitamin K.
With Foraged and Found, Jenn’s goal was to turn these valuable but little known culinary assets into familiar and approachable snacks that could be easily integrated into a healthy lifestyle without skimping on flavor and fun. Yet as much as she’s intent on introducing a taste of Alaska to the other 49 states, Jenn is equally dedicated to improving access at home.
She’s president of the Ketchikan Agricultural Producers Association, a nonprofit designed to improve the local food system in Southeast Alaska, encourage local people to grow crops for the community, and connect farmers to sellers. Because while she loves living in a global economy, Jenn knows the value of sourcing ingredients close to home, and is proud to be part of an organization — not to mention a wild foraged ingredient-infused CPG business — designed to promote that!