Barnacle Foods

Matt Kern and Lia Heifetz didn't set out to build a food company. They set out to eat. Both dedicated foragers living in Juneau — Alaska's famously road-inaccessible capital, a city you can only reach by boat or plane — they spent their free time harvesting what the coast offered. Kelp was everywhere. Bull kelp, ribbon kelp, acres of it swaying in the cold, clear waters of the Inside Passage. It was bountiful, nutritious, and almost entirely ignored by the American food supply chain.

So they did something about it.

Barnacle Foods launched out of Juneau, making kelp-forward condiments that treat seaweed not as a novelty but as an actual ingredient. The company makes its foods on Lingít Aaní — Tlingit Land, stewarded by the Tlingit Peoples since time immemorial — and that rootedness shows. This isn't a trend play. It's a company built by two people who genuinely know the coastline and believe in it.

The flagship product is Kelp Salsa, which sounds like a gimmick until you try it. The kelp adds umami depth and a subtle brininess that makes for a more complex salsa than most grocery store options. Barnacle has since expanded into hot sauces, chili crisps, chocolate bars with kelp, and more — all small-batch, all made with wild-harvested Alaskan kelp.

Kelp aquaculture and wild harvest is one of the more sustainable food production models going. No freshwater, no fertilizer, no land. Barnacle's success has helped build a small but real market for Alaskan kelp products, which supports the broader coastal economy in Southeast Alaska.

The company remains independent, founder-run, and based in Juneau. Matt and Lia are still making it.

Products

• Kelp Salsa (Original, Sea Verde, Campfire, Bonfire) — small-batch salsa with wild-harvested kelp
• Kelp Chili Crisp — umami-forward oil condiment
• Bullwhip Kelp Pickles — tangy pickled kelp stalks
• Kelp Hot Sauce — Alaska-made fermented hot sauce
• Sea Salt Kelp Dark Chocolate — kelp + chocolate bar
• Salmon Caviar — wild Alaskan roe

Why We List Them

Barnacle Foods is founder-owned, operates from one of the most underrepresented food states in the country, and makes genuinely unique products from a genuinely sustainable source. They're not trying to be a national brand. They're trying to make Juneau's coast into something you can taste at your kitchen table — and they're pulling it off.