OUR GORGE I LOCAVORE
Queen of Hearts Superfoods Tonia Farman is on a mission to bring the power of nutritional hemp to the people story by RUTH BERKOWITZ | photos by PALOMA AYALA
L
aunching a new product is challenging in the best of times. Launching one during a global pandemic takes “challenging” to a whole new level. In February 2021, with Covid raging and making business difficult on many fronts, Tonia Farman climbed into her van and drove to Portland for an important meeting. The founder of Queen of Hearts Superfoods, Farman had been experimenting with hemp seed oil, hemp protein and hemp hearts to create a line of salad dressings. She’d made a robust Green Goddess dressing and sold it at the Hood River Farmers Market and to small local grocery stores, but the dressing required refrigeration. She needed expert help to create a shelf-stable product in order to have a scalable future. On that rainy winter day, Farman had a meeting with Sarah Masoni from the Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center, an organization that helps pioneer new products. Revered for her “million-dollar palate,” Masoni has helped several Northwest food start-ups grow, including Salt & Straw, Bob’s Red Mill, and Choi’s Kimchi Company. The two had met several years earlier when Farman provided her with samples of her hemp seed oil, hemp hearts and hemp protein. Masoni was intrigued by the stand-alone products, but at the time Farman had yet to make something with them. So, she returned to her commercial kitchen in The Dalles and got to work. Farman looked to her own life for product inspiration. She’s always the one bringing salads to potlucks, so she landed on the idea of creating a salad dressing. She discovered that hemp hearts cream up when you mix them with acid, like vinegar and lemon, resulting in a unique flavor and texture. “Hemp is a superfood,” Farman says. “It’s a complete plant protein and easily digestible.” She boasts that her cold-pressed hemp seed oil is one of the most nutritional oils on the planet, packed with a range of Omega fatty acids, 21 essential amino acids, magnesium, iron and zinc.
18
Tonia Farman makes dressing in four different flavors, which can top everything from salad to rice bowls.
When Farman arrived for her meeting with Masoni, she was not permitted to enter the Food Innovation Center’s facility because of Covid rules. Instead, an employee rolled out samples for Farman to taste. “Needs more of a mouthfeel,” Farman said. “Too watery.” The innovation team returned to the incubator kitchen, tweaked the recipe, then rolled
SUMMER 2022 II THE GORGE MAGAZINE
OG_Dept_SM22.indd 18
6/3/22 7:28 AM
