Local piemaker Joyebells to appear on ‘Shark Tank’ ahead of relaunch

Richmond-based Joye B. Moore will pitch her pies on “Shark Tank” tonight. (Disney/Christopher Willard)

Looking for a boost as she relaunches her company, Joye B. Moore decided to pay a visit to the sharks.

The owner of South Richmond-based pie company Joyebells recently made her pitch to investors the ABC television show “Shark Tank” in an episode that will air tonight. 

Moore started Joyebells in 2019, selling sweet potato pies made from the recipes of her third-great grandmother, Susan Mae Howell. Moore began with making the pies for friends and family, but decided to start a business after her position at a former job was eliminated. 

In just a few years, the business expanded to peach and pumpkin pies and her desserts made it onto the shelves of thousands of grocery stores in chains including Kroger, Food Lion and Sam’s Club. 

But Moore’s appearance on “Shark Tank” comes at a time of rebirth for Joyebells. The company faced problems in 2023 when more than 315,000 of its peach pies were pulled from shelves after a manufacturing issue led to the pies being made with unripened peaches. 

Joyebells lost its partnership with Sam’s Club and pulled all of its shelf-stable products from stores. It sold only through QVC for all of 2024.

Moore founded Joyebells in 2019. (Disney/Christopher Willard)

“We were out of alignment, no matter how you try to slice it,” Moore told BizSense this week ahead of the airing of the “Shark Tank” episode. “It was time to stand still, take a look around, see where we are and where we want to go.” 

Now, the pie company is gearing up for a relaunch using its original pie recipes. Joyebells will bring its new pies to Midwestern Schnucks grocery stores in April, mid-Atlantic Kroger stores in June and Northeast Costco locations sometime this year, though Moore is not yet sure when that will be.

Joyebells has enlisted an unidentified family-owned, homestyle pie manufacturer for the relaunch.

“I could have cried when I got the samples because it was just like they came out of my kitchen,” she said. “No preservatives, clean … the whole nine yards, like it’s supposed to be.” 

The brand also will be launching new packaging for its pies, replacing plastic domes with corrugated cardboard boxes. 

Joyebells is also close to launching online sales through its website, which Moore said has been a request from customers since the company’s inception.

Four flavors are set for e-commerce launch: sweet potato, peach, pumpkin and a new apple lattice pie. The first wave of preorders for the launch starts today and runs through Feb. 10. 

Moore learned of “Shark Tank” auditions happening in Newport News last April for the show’s 16th season. The show hosts both budding and established entrepreneurs to pitch in front of a group of multimillionaire and billionaire angel investors, including Mark Cuban, Kevin O’Leary and others. 

Moore pitches to the “sharks.” (Disney/Christopher Willard)

Moore went through several rounds of pitching her product and onboarding last summer and autumn before she finally got the green light to appear on the show and was flown out to Los Angeles to film the episode.

She said that while she felt excited about and confident in the Joyebells product, the experience was nerve-racking. 

“I was actually trembling sitting there in the green room,” she said. “But it was everything I thought it was gonna be: amazing, brutal and an awesome learning experience.” 

Moore could not say much about her experience ahead of the episode’s airing, including how much money she was vying for and how she would use the funds. 

But she was able to share one of her biggest takeaways from the show: “To always be learning,” she said. 

Moore is set to make her “Shark Tank” appearance tonight at 8 on ABC.

With three employees, Joyebells’ production facility is headquartered in Hatch Kitchen RVA in the Manchester area.