Missouri-made soda skips the sugar and delivers the golden taste of honey
by Sara Schafer | sschafer@ruralmissouri.coop
Heather Mincer had no plans to start a beverage company. The stay-at-home mom turned chicken farmer was just trying to solve a problem. She and her son had both been diagnosed with alpha-gal syndrome, a severe allergy to mammalian products including red meat and some dairy products that is usually caused by lone star tick bites.
“I remember standing in the grocery store ready to cry because I couldn’t buy anything,” Heather says. “I was so frustrated. I was already on a health track and understood some of the ingredients we couldn’t have, but I still didn’t know all the things that were mammal derived.”
Alpha-gal syndrome is commonly known as the red meat allergy. Beyond the obvious need to avoid pork and beef, those affected often have to eliminate anything containing dairy, gelatin and refined sugars, which are often processed with bone char. After living solely on chicken, rice and vegetables for several months, Heather knew something had to change. She started using honey as an alternative to sugar wherever possible.
“My husband really likes the big jar of iced tea in powdered form — which is basically sugar and some tea,” says Heather, a member of Se-Ma-No Electric Cooperative. “I decided to brew tea and put honey in it. He really liked it, and that is kind of what propelled us into the beverage industry.”
If honey worked to sweeten tea, why not use it to sweeten soda? Even if you don’t have alpha-gal syndrome, it could be a healthier alternative to regular soda. Heather started dreaming up flavors and was connected to a beverage co-packer and formulator in Bolivar, 90 miles from her Norwood home. They developed a line of honey-sweetened soda flavors, sourcing ingredients and materials as close to Missouri as possible.
In August 2023, Heather debuted her soda at the Mountain Grove Heritage Festival. Her sodas, which are dye- and gluten-free, are some of the first products to be labeled “alpha-gal friendly.” She offers six flavors, including strawberry, sweet apple, peach, berry, watermelon and ginger ale.
Heather and her family are originally from upstate New York. They moved to Norwood in 2022 searching for a slower pace of life and one more connected to nature. The first thing they did: build a flock of chickens. “I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I always wanted a chicken farm,” Heather says.
She bought around 100 chicks and would sell the meat birds at the Ava and Mountain Grove farmers markets. She knew she needed a clever and memorable name for her budding business. Heather’s husband, Marty, came up with “Naked Chicks Pasture” to reflect their organic, pasture-raised and non-GMO production practices.
When her farmers market booth offerings diversified to also include the honey-sweetened sodas, Heather stuck with the same name. Her soda cans proudly featured a cartoon chicken behind a gate labeled “Naked Chicks Pasture.”
“I had customers telling me they were looking for my products online, but they couldn’t find my drinks,” Heather says. “At first, I was not understanding and asked, ‘What did you look up?’ They said, ‘Naked Chicks.’ I said, ‘No, it’s NakedChicks-Pasture.com.’ It just never crossed my mind. By February 2024, I knew we needed to rebrand.”
The sodas were relaunched under the name, Yes, Honey in August 2024. Later that year, Heather was invited to participate in an event hosted by Hy-Vee, which brought Midwestern entrepreneurs to Kansas City. The event was capped by a competition for minority- and women-owned businesses pitching their ventures to a panel of industry judges. Heather came home with first place in the food and beverage category — and a check for $5,000.
For her growing small business, that was just the boost she needed to expand production and find more stores to carry her product. You can find Yes, Honey sodas on the shelves at Hy-Vee stores in Springfield, Jefferson City, Columbia and Kansas City. They are also in several other grocery store chains, coffee shops, beekeeping stores and boutiques. Heather says around 200 stores carry her products.
Today’s beverage industry, Heather says, is competitive and growing. What used to be a battle of two or three key brands now includes thousands of companies. Luckily, through programs such as Buy Missouri and Missouri Grown, Heather has been able to attend trainings, trade shows and receive grants.
Beyond the honey-sweetened sodas, Heather has developed a line of honey drizzlers. They combine creamed honey with simple ingredients to create an alternative for sauces, syrups and dressings. For example, the ingredient list for the chocolate honey drizzler is honey and cocoa. “You don’t need a dictionary or a degree to know what the ingredients are in our products,” Heather says.
Flavors range from apple cinnamon to raspberry jalapeno to peach habanero to garlic. “People absolutely love the hot honeys because they are such a trend right now,” Heather says. “I call the garlic my happy accident. I was in the kitchen and thinking about how I love garlic, and I love honey. I wondered what would happen. The garlic honey drizzler has become one of my best sellers.”
Heather’s company has seen incredible growth in the past few years. She credits her success to a combo of creativity and grit. “Something that gives me an advantage is I don’t know what the rules are with launching a company — because I didn’t mean to do it,” she says.
Plus, she’s stayed true to the mission of creating healthy foods that her family can safely enjoy. “Healthy foods should still taste good; just because you have allergies doesn’t mean that you have to have things that taste like junk,” Heather says.
You can learn more about Yes, Honey at yeshoneybrand.com and at @yeshoneybrand on Facebook and Instagram.