Littleton company aims for a big bite of the outdoor business

Adventure Ready Brands makes health and safety products at North Country industrial park

With a giant, resin bear behind them, Garrett Cox and Robyn Scott pose for a photo recently at Adventure Ready Brands in Littleton. Scott is the senior vice president of human resources at ARB, while Cox is its chief marketing officer. The company makes numerous outdoor products, including Counter Assault, a leading brand of bear repellent. (Photo by John Koziol)

In a modest building located within the Littleton Industrial Park is the corporate headquarters of a worldwide company that makes After Bite, the iconic insect bite treatment; Counter Assault, a top-selling bear repellent; and, more recently, the LuminAID line of solar-powered lanterns, which were enthusiastically received on the “Shark Tank” television program.

Adventure Ready Brands, a subsidiary of Victor Capital Partners, develops, manufactures and markets outdoor consumer health and safety products. The company traces its roots to the Tender Corp., which more than 50 years ago, was started in Littleton to make and distribute After Bite and other outdoor-related products. The company was acquired by Victor Capital in 2019, and adopted its current name in 2020.

Last December, Adventure Ready hosted the inaugural session of the three-part Guided Growth business series. In partnership with The Nature Conservancy and NH Business Review, the Granite Outdoor Alliance-led Grounded Growth series “brings together New Hampshire’s outdoor, manufacturing and sustainability leaders to explore how the state can build a resilient outdoor economy that adapts to shifting markets, climate change and workforce demands.”

Chris Heye, who is CEO of Adventure Ready Brands, was among the several representatives of his company at that Grounded Growth discussion, and later he agreed to be interviewed for an article in NH Business Review about his company.

Among Adventure Ready’s other brands are the Ben’s and Natrapel insect repellents; Adventure Medical Kits and Easy Care First Aid; survival products from Survive Outdoors Longer; and RapidPure outdoor water purifiers.

The meeting room at Adventure Ready Brands in Littleton. (Photo by John Koziol)

Given the proliferation of outdoor activities in and around Littleton and its history as the home of Tender Corp., it makes sense, said Heye, that Adventure Ready Brands is and will be based in this community located at the northern limits of Grafton County.

Heye said Victor Capital liked what it saw of the Tender Corp., but also realized it had some limitations, which it viewed positively.

Tender Corp., he said, “was a good company, but it was run as a small company run by a family which means it was a centralized-decision-making company, and as you approach $50 million in sales and approach $100 million in sales, it just becomes more complex and harder to grow. That’s what we saw … the opportunity to make this company a great company and built to sustain the high-growth rate.”

He said Adventure Ready has grown both organically and by acquiring other companies.

Heye declined to reveal annual sales but attributed the company’s success to its being staffed by people like himself who have extensive experience with consumer products.

“The consumer is at the heart of everything we do. We talk about consumer-led marketing,” said Heye, and take cues from what consumers say about Adventure Ready products on Amazon and Walmart.

Those two venues “are critically important to us,” he added. “We really invest in our brands and in how our brands solve consumer problems.”

In addition to online sellers, the company also sells through retailers in 60 countries and via its own e-commerce.

As to why Adventure Ready calls Littleton “home,” Heye replied that “I would say our roots are here. We’re an outdoor company, and we are invested in Littleton. We’re in the White Mountains, and that just feels really right.”

Adventure Ready is also blessed with “a lot of great people” who work there, Heye said.

The company has “no plans to move to another part of New Hampshire,” and even as it grows by acquisition, Heye said the companies that are acquired by Adventure Ready remain largely where they began.

To wit, Counter Assault was founded in Montana, “and we kept that operation in Montana but brought some back-end jobs to Littleton. Again, that’s where the company has its roots, and we have some really great people out there,” Heye said.

The global insect repellent market is valued at $11.4 billion by 2026, growing from $10.69 billion in 2025, according to a report by ResearchAndMarkets.com. Growth in the sector “is primarily fueled by increasing global concerns over vector-borne diseases, a shift towards outdoor lifestyles, and innovations in repellent delivery systems,” the company said in a Jan. 20 press release.

Asked about competitors, Heye acknowledged that Adventure Ready has “a lot of them,” including OFF! and Cutter in the insect repellent category.

Robyn Scott, the senior vice president of human resources at Adventure Ready Brands in Littleton, holds a package of After Bite, the company’s original and, more than 50 years later, still top-selling product. (Photo by John Koziol)

He is encouraged by how well the company’s products do in the marketplace and by the addition of new products to its portfolio, such as LuminAID.

Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshtaits, who are LuminAID’s inventors and co-founders, appeared on “Shark Tank” in February 2015 to pitch the lantern, including as a source of emergency lighting, according to the company’s website.

“They received offers from all five Sharks, and walked out of the tank with an investment deal from billionaire Mark Cuban, who became LuminAID’s first investor,” the company says.

Later, Adventure Ready also invested in LuminAID and made a number of improvements to it, said Heye, with a focus on making it a more consumer-driven product that offers campsite lighting, multiple cellphone charging and faster and easier lantern inflation.

Heye said Adventure Ready looks to innovate and improve upon products and is also proud of its commitment to get more girls into the outdoors through its Adventure Ready Girls program.

A study once found that parents are 16% less likely to tell their daughters, compared to their sons, to play outdoors, but Adventure Ready is working to change that with partners such as Girls Inc., Heye said.