The Soldotna Chamber of Commerce hosted the Spark Soldotna Small Business Scholarship Program on Friday, November 18th at the Lone Moose Lodge in Soldotna.
The third annual Shark Tank event is where the Soldotna Chamber awards scholarships to local businesses that are either introducing a new product or a start up business. At Friday nights event four business owners presented and the four local business leaders “sharks” were tasked with selecting a winner. After hearing pitches from the four business owners the “sharks” choose “The Pony Keg” and awarded them a $4,000 scholarship.
The Pony Keg and it’s three owners offer a self contained mobile unit capable of serving beer, wine, coffee, tea, and other beverages of choice.
Executive Director of the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce Shanon Davis on the winners;
“This is a business were if you are having a wedding or outdoor event, and anybody who’s done events like that knows how time consuming and actually pretty never racking as well. It can be to try and get a bar together for this. So, now you can hire the Pony Keg and they will bring bar to you at any corporate event, wedding they’ll make sure that they have all things that you need to have a successful experience with that bar including tap servers and they just did a fabulous job on their presentation and would like to congratulate the Pony Keg.”
During event the “sharks” choose to also awarded $1,000 to a second place winner, Saltzy Soda & Sweets and business owner JaNae Saltzgiver, Shanon Davis explained;
“Is a business that they are hoping to be bringing to Soldotna within the next year. And this would be a gourmet soda shop with sweets as well, to give everybody just another option for a fun place to go maybe after the kids little league games or just a nice treat from the family.”
The two runners up were Tundra Electronics with the pitch of “Saving Electronics in Mission Critical Situations” and The Goods and Where It’s At with “The Mindful Food Dispatch”. Both were awarded a $500 scholarship from the Soldotna Chamber.
Shark Tank Finalists 2022
Tundra Electronics, Inc. | Richard Rogers
Pitch Title: Saving Electronics in Mission Critical Situations Patented Technology for a heating system to keep electronic devices from freezing in cold weather.
The Goods and Where It’s At | Anastasia Scollon & Willow King
Pitch Title: The Mindful Food Dispatch
Mindful Living Collective (The Goods + Sustainable Grocery AND Where It’s At! mindful food & drink) recognizes our community’s need for increased accessibility to high quality food. Minimal options exist for people to have healthy foods delivered to their doors. Our mindful meal kits and grocery delivery service will improve this situation. Meal kits include labeled whole food ingredients prepared within the last few steps of a gourmet vegetable based meal including sauces, sides & condiments. It also includes an Instruction/Recipe card and links to Where
It’s At! cooking lesson videos.
Saltzy Soda & Sweets | JaNae Saltzgiver
Pitch Title: Saltzy Soda & Sweets
Saltzy Soda & Sweets is a drive-thru soda & sweets shop with an Alaska themed menu that has plans to eventually be cozy, cabin-like store front location in Soldotna, Alaska. We plan to sell pebble-iced sodas with unique mix-in flavors and freshly baked cookies with a small warm beverage & snack menu.
The Pony Keg | Anna Mercier – Samantha Pyfer – Maria Louvier
Pitch Title: We’ll Bring the Bar
The Pony Keg is a self contained mobile unit capable of serving beer, wine, coffee, tea, and other beverages of choice. Many of Alaska’s outdoor event spaces do not provide a designated space for a bar. Catering services bring the food in, but there is not an easy way to offer beverages. We have seen many events in which the planner sets up a bar area from scratch, which is very labor intensive, time consuming, and costly. Our service would roll in with all the cups, straws, ice, mixers, and garnishes desired, without all the legwork by the organizer.
