Freeze-Dried Luxury
Eugene chef and
restaurateur
makes fancy
freeze-dried
meals for hiking,
van life,
emergencies or
forays into
space
BY SADIE GUSTAVSON
SARA WILLIS, CEO AND CHEF OF
LUXEFLY BASECAMP. Photo by Eve Weston
A
s a single mom of four,
entrepreneur and estab-
lished restaurateur who has
opened eight restaurants
in Mexico and Eugene —
most recently Santo de la Torta on East
19th Avenue — Chef Sara Willis didn’t have
much time to do something for herself until
her kids were old enough to self-sustain.
Willis, now 54, started backpacking at
48 when the idea for Luxefly Basecamp
was born: freeze-dried meals that make
you feel energized, not keeled over in your
tent wondering what the hell you just put
in your body.
Luxefly Basecamp offers “fancy astro-
naut food” curated by Willis with organic,
locally sourced ingredients. Meals range
from filet mignon beef stroganoff made
with grass-fed beef from Long’s Meat
Market, cheese chile relleno with Myco-
Logical chiles, and vegan butternut squash
soup. “I can eat one of these and hike for
19 miles and I feel good,” Willis says.
Willis grew up on an organic farm in
Pleasant Hill eating farm-grown produce
and meat. It’s what she grew up eating
and what she feeds her kids. At 20, Willis
had a baby and turned to food delivery
and restaurant work to support herself.
From then, her career took her to San
José del Cabo, Mexico, where she was a
private chef and opened her first restau-
rant, Fandango.
In 2001, she returned to Eugene and
opened Red Agave with a friend from
high school; it ran successfully for more
than 10 years.
All components of Luxefly meals are
cooked and dried separately before getting
sealed into a 6-ounce bag that can be
stored for up to five years. Add a cup of
boiling water, stir, seal it up and three to
five minutes later your meal is ready to
eat straight out of the bag.
Willis recalls attending the Pacific Crest
Trail Days annual summer festival to pitch
her product to hikers coming off the trail.
“Every single person had swollen ankles,”
Willis says. “I just felt like it was because
they weren’t eating right.”
As someone who wants to hike the
PCT myself one day — a 2,653-mile trail
from the Mexican to Canadian border that
takes five months to complete — I’ve binge
watched way too many PCT hikers’ video
diaries on YouTube. The nutrition always
stuck out; thru-hikers are often traversing
20 miles or more a day and fueling them-
selves with Skittles, tortillas, processed
meat sticks and candy bars. It seems it’s
become part of the culture of thru-hiking
to deprive your body of nutrition for the
sake of packing as many calories as possi-
ble into a small space.
Willis wants to change that. “I’m hoping
it’s gonna be something people think about
in a new way.”
Even though backpacker meals is where
the idea started, Willis envisions Luxefly
meals being utilized anywhere from fire
camps to outer space. Whether you’re
prepping an emergency go-bag, driving 12
hours through a food desert or you’re a
college student struggling to feed yourself,
you deserve to treat yourself to luxury,
handmade ingredients.
With Luxefly, Willis is using all the
expertise that she’s gained over the years
in business and professional cooking to
create and sell products she feels proud
of. “I dropped out of high school and I’ve
run a bunch of businesses and I feel like
I have what it takes to take this company
where it needs to go,” Willis says. “The
majority of people who are business owners
started with business school. I don’t have
any of that. But I’ve learned so much along
the way.”
“I’m really coming to these points where
I have to put my big girl panties on and
run with the big dogs,” Willis says.
Luxefly Basecamp meals average $20 each and
can be ordered at LuxeflyBasecamp.com or picked
up in-person at Santo de la Torta, 1607 East 19th
Avenue. You can also find them on the shelves at
Sundance Natural Foods, 748 East 24th Avenue;
SeQuential Biofuels, 86714 McVay Highway; and
Provisions Market Hall, 296 East 5th Avenue.
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November 21, 2024
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