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V O L . X X I X N O. V § 2 M A R C H 6 , 2 0 2 3 24 S TA R T U P S F O C U S J ennifer Scism, co-founder and CEO of a Kittery maker of natural dehydrated meals for active people, recalls a time early on when she was thinking about scal- ing from preparing 20 servings per day to 20,000. "We were grappling with being able to keep up with customer demand," says Scism, who co-founded Good To-Go Inc. with her husband David Koorits. It was a learning curve but they accomplished the job, sometimes going back to the drawing board to be able to achieve scale. "We completely deconstructed one recipe," she says. "We had a marinara and were literally opening hundreds of No. 10 cans of Pastene tomatoes." e process was time-consuming and the product inconsistent. e new version uses a natural tomato pow- der that took a while to find for the quality and taste she wanted. "I'm always looking for the secret sauce," she says. Scism is a former New York City restaurateur and "Iron Chef " winner. In Maine, she had a catering company. Koorits's careers include ER nurse, wilderness therapy counselor and ski patroller. e idea sparked around 2010 on long camping trips. "Prepacked foods at the time were pretty horrible — lots of preservatives, tons of sodium," she says. She started cooking and dehydrat- ing dishes in their tabletop dehydra- tor to carry on the trips. Friends loved the meals, too. "at's when the lightbulb went off," says Scism. The idea was to create a back- packing food brand to offer healthy options to the broader outdoor market. Scism had a tiny catering kitchen, had it recertified for food production and tested recipes with an eye toward scaling up. ey contacted business mentorship program SCORE Maine, connecting with Nancy Strojny. "She was instrumental in helping us as far as marketing and sales and trying to get us on the right track," says Scism. Funding Market research and business planning ensued. To buy equipment, they raised an initial round of funding from friends Kittery's Good To-Go leverages Maine's mentorship and capital resources B y L a u r i e S c h r e i b e r The SECRET SAUCE P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Jennifer Scism, who co-founded Good To-Go with her husband, David Koorits, leveraged Maine's resources to scale the business for nationwide sales. I'm always looking for the secret sauce. — Jennifer Scism Good To-Go