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Four of the five vegan frozen food dishes offered by New Haven-based Fire Ox Foods.
A New Haven-based frozen foods company is expanding its distribution footprint after reaching an agreement with a natural foods supermarket chain with locations in the Mid-Atlantic states.
Fire Ox Foods will now be available in MOM’s Organic Market locations, according to Zoe Geller, founder of the vegan, nut and gluten-free frozen food company. Maryland-based MOM’s Organic Market has 22 stores in five states and the District of Columbia.
With the addition of the MOM’s Organic market chain to its distribution network, Fire Ox’s line of frozen foods is now available at over 70 locations around the country.
There are 10 Connecticut natural foods locations that carry the Fire Ox product line. The Connecticut stores are: Thyme & Season and the Whitneyville Food Center in Hamden; The Common Bond Market in Shelton; Elm City Market, Edge of the Woods and Atticus Market in New Haven; New Morning Market & Vitality Center in Woodbury; Greiser’s Coffee & Market in Easton; Village Market in Wilton and Walter Stewart’s Market in New Canaan.
Online ordering of Fire Ox’s dishes is also available. The distribution option is more costly for the business, Geller said, “but by offering our products by mail, we’re able to follow up with people who buy from us and ask them questions.”
“That is really, really valuable,” she said.
The expansion of the Fire Ox distribution network comes at a critical time for the brand. Geller said she and her business partner Jason Yang are looking to raise $500,000 that will go toward product development and marketing.
“We wanted to create something inspired,” Geller said of Fire Ox’s dishes. “We’re trying to reach health conscious folks who are looking for something convenient.”
Fire Ox offers five dishes: Braised Ethiopian Greens; Provencal Ratatouille; Massaman Coconut Curry; Chipotle Red Bean Pozole and Mushroom Oat Risotto.
The five frozen foods are available for between $7.99 and $8.99, according to Geller.
Both Geller and Yang have degrees from Yale University, although they attended at different times.
Geller got a dual graduate degree in environmental management and business from Yale in 2017. Yang got bachelor’s degree in economics and math from Yale in 2009 and has master’s degree in business from Columbia University.
Fire Ox is an spin off of Zoni Foods, a company that Geller co-founded in 2017. Geller and Yang met at a Yale entrepreneurial event a few years later and launched the Fire Ox brand in 2020.
“Jason was picking my brain and it turns out he was working on his own line of dishes,” she said. “I was originally concerned that he was a competitor, but we decided it made sense to work together and rather than competing with each other.”
Yang said he became interested in launching a food business because “I love food, I love eat it and I love to cook and feed it to others.”
“I started this business because, while I knew how compelling good vegetable dishes are to eat, I also experienced how difficult they were to prepare - or buy prepared - on busy weekdays,” Yang said.
Before launching Fire Ox, Yang was an analyst and the first employee at Development Capital Partners, an Africa-focused investment fund. Prior to that, he was a strategy and operations consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Luther Turmelle covers business for the New Haven Register and Hearst Connecticut Media as well as the towns of Cheshire and Wallingford. He specializes in covering the utility and energy beats. A graduate of Boston University, Turmelle has held multiple leadership roles in the Society of Professional Journalist, including two terms serving on the organization's national Board of Directors.