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After Heidi Lovig, co-founder and CEO of Portland-based Heidi Ho Organics, pitched her plant-based vegan cheese alternative on the ABC television show 鈥�Shark Tank鈥� late last year, the company’s products flew off store shelves.

Exposure from the reality show, where startups’ owners seek investors’ funding to grow their ventures, combined with an offer from Whole Foods Market to distribute her vegan 鈥渃heeze鈥� nationally, meant Lovig needed to ramp up production 鈥� fast.

鈥淭his past year has been the wildest ride of my life,鈥� she said.

Last month, Heidi Ho Organics moved from a 900-square-foot manufacturing space off of Northeast Broadway Street to a new 6,000-square-foot production facility in PacTrust’s Pacific Business Park South on Northeast Marx Street near the Portland International Airport. A $200,000 tenant improvement project, designed by Portland-based Livermore Architecture & Engineering, allowed the company to increase production capacity 10 to 15 times what was possible in the previous space and begin shipping out its first national orders, Lovig said. She is hoping to sell her products in 1,600 stores by the end of this year.

, founded in 2011, is among smaller Portland-metro specialty food producers that are expanding into larger production spaces to meet increased demand and start distributing nationally. Lovig and other craft food producers say their businesses have flourished in Portland’s foodie culture and intend to stay in the region as they continue to grow. They have also been buoyed by Whole Foods low-interest loans that have helped pay for expansion projects as well as support through Portland Community College Small Business Development Center’s program.

鈥淧ortland is a great place to incubate a new food brand,鈥� said Keith Kullberg, co-founder and president of Wilsonville-based . 鈥淧eople are just very educated and informed about food. People care about healthy eating, so there’s a receptive market.鈥�

The Better Bean Company produces ready-to-eat, vegan beans and chili distributed in refrigerated tubs instead of cans. The company got its start in 2010 through the PCC Recipe to Market program and recently received a $75,000 loan through Whole Foods’ , which supports businesses that create products sold in its grocery stores. The funding helped The Better Bean Company build an 8,000-square-foot manufacturing facility with a production kitchen and administrative offices in a Wilsonville warehouse.

Crews from Portland-based general contractor Benchmark Industrial Services started construction on the $450,000 tenant improvement project several months ago and are scheduled to wrap up work next month, Kullberg said. The expanded space will allow The Better Bean Company to quadruple its current production capacity, meet rapidly increasing demand for its products and pursue plans to distribute to up to 3,000 stores across the country, he said.

鈥淲e’re at (the) point where we can’t really grow without our new facility,鈥� Kullberg said.

Whole Foods has offered the loans since 2006 to help small food producers expand their reach into more of its stores, said Denise Breyley, who coordinates the program for the Pacific Northwest region.

鈥淥ne of the challenges as a small company (is) you have a tough time getting access to capital,鈥� she said. 鈥淭he beauty of it is we’re able to lend money to people and then they have a built-in market.鈥�

Oregon is particularly ripe in small-scale food producers, and Whole Foods has given loans to nine companies in the state with ambitions to expand nationally, Breyley said. Two of those companies have received more than one loan.

鈥淢y goal is not to just have products that only live in Oregon,鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are a lot of passionate entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest, period. This is a wonderful area for people who want to create something new and bring new products to market.鈥�

Breyley said she met Lovig a few years ago at a farmers market and has been impressed to see her company grow. A $100,000 loan from Whole Foods helped Lovig purchase equipment for Heidi Ho Organics’ new manufacturing facility. The space includes a test kitchen, administrative offices and production, refrigeration, packaging and shipping areas.

Another Portland-based food producer that’s benefited from Whole Foods’ support is . The artisan ice cream company is expanding its production facilities to distribute its products to more stores. An approximately $450,000 to $500,000 tenant improvement project is planned for a 10,000-square-foot space in the same PacTrust industrial building housing Heidi Ho Organics, and bids will soon be sought from general contractors for construction of a production facility, a commercial kitchen and offices, Ruby Jewel CEO Jim Noonan said. Construction is scheduled to start at the end of this month and wrap up by late June, he said.

The new production facility will be significantly larger than Ruby Jewel’s current 2,100-square-foot space, which the company has long outgrown, Noonan said. An increase in production capacity will support plans to sell Ruby Jewel ice cream sandwiches in more grocery stores (the company also has two ice cream parlors in Portland, with plans to open a third this summer), he said. Currently, Ruby Jewel products are sold in 250 stores in the West and company leaders would like to extend their distribution, Noonan said.

鈥淭he goal is to grow our West Coast presence and then start to move nationwide,鈥� he said.