- 4 minutes ago
Troy Bonde and his cofounder, Winston Alfieri, are taking aim at America’s estimated $2.5 billion (sales) pasta sauce market. Their brand, Los Angeles–based Sauz, has attracted younger shoppers with creative combos like miso-garlic and hot honey marinara—flavors far from traditional red-sauce Italian-American cuisine. “We try to identify flavor trends across categories that are familiar enough that we don’t necessarily have to go educate consumers on,” says Bonde, Sauz’s CEO. The pair has raised nearly $22 million from VCs and is on track to make $15 million in revenue by the end of 2025. Bonde and Alfieri initially partnered during the pandemic making a hand sanitizer dispenser that doubled as a thermometer. To conserve cash, they lived on pasta. Soon, they grew tired of limited flavor options and, as Covid faded, pivoted from sanitizer to sauce. Today, their jars are sold in 8,000 retail locations such as Whole Foods, Sprouts and Target.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00An entrepreneur has to be somebody who will not accept failure or defeat, right?
00:05Will do anything they can, just never giving up.
00:17Troy Vondi, thank you so much for joining me.
00:19Thanks for having me.
00:20I am so excited to learn about how you raised millions of dollars for pasta sauce.
00:25Give me the story. What is the origin of Saws?
00:31Yeah, yeah. Well, my co-founder and I went to USC together.
00:35We were sophomores at USC when COVID broke out.
00:38And I was interning at a merchant bank, lower middle market tech media telecom.
00:43He was at a real estate fund.
00:46We were sent home, both from Pasadena.
00:50And, you know, we were kind of like, we wanted to start something.
00:55We had kind of this entrepreneurial drive.
00:56I don't know why.
00:57I think probably by virtue of not having much else to do.
01:00And ended up sourcing from Shenzhen, China, a hand sanitizer dispenser with a built-in infrared thermometer.
01:05So you could take your temperature, it would display it, and you could sanitize your hands at the same time.
01:10And, you know, we sent a cold email to a local school district.
01:14That night we had a signed PO for like $24,000.
01:18We demoed the product with them.
01:19They loved it.
01:20And from there, we kind of had a business.
01:21I mean, we would cold email as many school districts as we could.
01:26And we'd sleep in this office.
01:28I'd sleep on the couch, my co-founder on the floor.
01:31And there was a single stovetop burner in the office.
01:34We'd cook pasta like four or five nights a week because it was quick and cheap and easy.
01:38And we'd go to like local grocery, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Ralph's, Target.
01:44And after like two weeks of cooking tomato sauce, we were tired of it.
01:47It was old Italian, tan label, cursive writing, you know, visually nothing appealing.
01:52And by virtue of that, we defer to flavor.
01:54And on the flavor side, marinara, arbiata, tomato, basil, roasted garlic, like totally commoditized, right?
02:00So, you know, we figured we knew the COVID-based business wasn't going to last.
02:04We got really lucky.
02:05We scaled it almost to seven figures in like 90 days.
02:08It went straight up and it came straight back down.
02:11But, you know, we knew we had to do something else.
02:13Either I was going back to banking or we were taking another shot and hoping that it would work, right?
02:19And so somehow we felt like tomato sauce was the lowest hanging fruit.
02:23You know, there was clear opportunity on brand to appeal to a younger generation of consumers.
02:28And on product, it was wide open.
02:31Like we could do anything, right?
02:33Yeah.
02:33And what is that?
02:34Anything?
02:34What makes sauces unique?
02:37It's really flavor innovation.
02:39I think we are like more so than anything, an innovation business.
02:43Like we are looking to push the boundaries of what consumers know and love in our category.
02:48And for so long, they've only known marinara and tomato basil and roasted garlic, right?
02:55We feel like the core problem that we are solving is that consumers today expect experience in grocery.
03:04And when they enter our category, the aisle that sells tomato sauce, they don't expect anything, right?
03:12They've been totally trained to buy a commodity.
03:16And to us, like we have this incredible opportunity to decommoditize a commoditized category with flavor.
03:22Yeah.
03:22What are those flavors I might find in the aisle now?
03:25Yeah.
03:25Well, we launched with a hot honey marinara and a summer lemon marinara.
03:29We now have 11 flavors.
03:31We've got a miso garlic, a cracked pepper parmesan, a wild rosemary marinara.
03:37We've got two pestos, three alfredos now.
03:39So think like really flavor trends that we've identified cross category that are familiar enough
03:46that we don't necessarily have to go educate consumers on that we can bring to ours.
03:51Hot honey was everywhere, right?
03:53It was on pizzas.
03:53It was at every restaurant.
03:55Mike's hot honey was killing it in retail.
03:57And so we try to identify trends that we're not reinventing the category in some certain way.
04:05Like we don't want to have to go educate the consumer about the flavor we're adding to a product they know and love.
04:12But we're really pulling trends, bringing them to ours, and then ideally being able to communicate some level of familiarity.
04:18That sounds delicious.
04:20I myself love a spicy pasta.
04:23I have to ask, do you have Italian roots?
04:25I don't.
04:26I don't.
04:26My co-founder does.
04:27His last name is Alfieri.
04:28So he's like as Italian as it gets.
04:30I don't though.
04:31So I get that question always.
04:33I'm like, no, no, I'm done.
04:34I'm Danish and I don't know.
04:37Honestly, I don't know where I'm from.
04:38Yeah.
04:39How do the Italians feel about this pasta sauce innovation?
04:43Do you think they'd be on board?
04:45No.
04:46You know, it's funny.
04:46We actually contracted early.
04:48We tried to contract a famous chef in L.A.
04:52And, you know, you probably know his name if I told you.
04:56And we sat down to them and we told him what we wanted to do.
05:00And he said, I like tomato sauce.
05:02I like the category.
05:04I like the opportunity.
05:05But what do you want to do different?
05:06And we told him, we want to innovate on flavor.
05:08We want to put hot honey and lemon in a marinara.
05:13And he said, you put hot honey?
05:15And he was so mad.
05:17Like he was like viscerally angry at us.
05:19And he said, no way.
05:20It'll never work.
05:21Right.
05:22And so we ended up having to kind of innovate on flavor ourselves.
05:26And we couldn't really.
05:27We wanted somebody with a deep culinary background in Italian foods to do it.
05:31But it was like the antithesis of anything he'd ever been raised to cook or he'd ever cooked.
05:36So I think there's a little bit of tension in the beginning.
05:40But I guess the solution there is when you try it, he's tried it now.
05:44And we still keep in touch with him.
05:45He loves it.
05:46He's a big fan now.
05:47But there's definitely, it's unapologetically Californian.
05:55You know, its roots are not Italian.
05:57Yeah.
05:57I mean, the famous chef might have said no initially, but investors said yes.
06:03You have $22 million.
06:05That's a lot of money.
06:07How did that happen?
06:10Yeah.
06:10You know, I mean, I think we, it's been a long time coming, but we launched in Air One
06:16in Southern California in 10 stores, the place to see and be seen.
06:20It's, you know, it's like the influencer hotspot.
06:23And pretty quickly, I mean, we started with two single facings in the top right corner.
06:28Like you could barely see us.
06:30And after a couple of months, we were the top selling tomato sauce brand with like the
06:34whole shelf at Air One.
06:36Right.
06:36I think the, you know, we, like at that point, we'd proven that we could sell product in LA,
06:44New York, Miami, and Chicago.
06:46But the real test in the beginning in fundraising, there was a ton of investor pushback on whether
06:52the product could scale outside of the two coasts.
06:55Right.
06:56And I think what we've done and what really influenced us to think more so about everybody
07:03in between LA and New York is that when we think about innovation, we're actually curating
07:09innovation for the palette of the consumer shopping at Target in Toledo.
07:14Right.
07:14Like I'm looking at Wingstop.
07:16I'm looking at Buffalo Wild Wings.
07:17I'm looking at the Chick-fil-A sauce menu.
07:19And I'm trying to innovate in a way that actually will appeal more so to middle America, to conventional
07:26and mass grocery than it will, you know, Whole Foods and Sprouts.
07:30And so I think the beautiful thing there is that we are a better for you, great tasting, healthy product
07:37that can win and we've proven can win at Air One and in Natural.
07:42But, you know, we've been able to build this brand that in comparison to most in the category
07:48has huge TAM implications.
07:50So, like, innovation for me is actually an opportunity to expand TAM and whereas in most
07:56other categories, it kind of shrinks TAM.
07:59I think venture has bought into that for sure.
08:03And we've also built a product platform unlike anybody else in the category, right?
08:06Everybody in our set is playing in Italian foods.
08:10We're a sauce brand, you know, and we think about it often.
08:13We won't do it in, you know, the near term.
08:16But we could go launch a barbecue sauce tomorrow and it would kind of fit the brand ethos.
08:20We could do a miso garlic barbecue and consumers would love it.
08:24And so I think, you know, building an incredible data story, being able to curate data that is
08:28best in class, not only in L.A. in the bougiest grocery store in the world, but also in middle
08:36America at Target and kind of rewriting the playbook of fundamentally shifting consumer
08:42expectations in the category and being able to be incremental in the sense that we're
08:47not pulling dollars from the others.
08:50We're actually bringing new dollars into the set.
08:52And that's where, you know, real money can be made.
08:55Yeah.
08:55So you landed Shelf Space before you got funding?
08:58Yeah.
08:59You know, we self-funded with the previous business.
09:01We put everything on the line.
09:03And we really did kind of risk every dime we had to get Shelf Space at Erewhon.
09:11So it was funny, even like it's stereotypical of young founders, but we the first product
09:18run we had, we printed the labels.
09:20We were running like 20,000 jars of product, a big production run because we had to meet
09:24minimums.
09:26And product came out, came off the line.
09:29We saw it in store for the first time and every label was torn up on the front, right?
09:35And so we called our manufacturer.
09:37We said, what happened?
09:37He said, what do you mean?
09:38They came off the line perfectly.
09:39I put them in the cardboard boxes.
09:40We sent them out and there they were.
09:43The label manufacturer had forgotten to varnish the front of every label.
09:47So every time they hit the cardboard boxes, they would just be destroyed, right?
09:51And so it was funny.
09:52We lost probably half of the cash that my co-founder and I had contributed off the bat because we had
09:59to scrap the first production run, but we did.
10:02We self-funded until probably our first, you know, we took a little bit of venture before
10:09we landed at Air One from Palm Tree Crew, which is Kygo's venture arm.
10:14Interesting.
10:14And they were early.
10:15I mean, they took a big bet on us, right?
10:17We were, we had product and that was really it.
10:20But after that production run that had kind of scrapped a bit of our dollars, we knew we
10:25had to go out and raise some money.
10:26Yeah, but if you were able to, you know, bootstrap your way into Air One, why do you
10:30need $22 million?
10:32That's a lot of money.
10:33Yeah.
10:34Well, I think, one, I think the implications of what we're doing are far greater than tomato
10:39sauce alone.
10:40Okay.
10:40And that's, that's one point.
10:43Innovation is not cheap.
10:46And, and the other is that, you know, we want to do all that we can to drive trial.
10:50Like, we are so confident that we've built this flywheel of reacquisition by virtue of
10:55having incredible product, experiential product.
10:58We joke that like, whether a consumer tries hot honey marinara and loves it or hates it,
11:04they're never going to forget it.
11:05Yeah.
11:06Right.
11:06You go buy another, a basic marinara and you compare it to another on shelf, they're forgettable
11:12in many ways.
11:13Right.
11:13And there's a lot of great brands that we compete with, but it's difficult to differentiate
11:17in, in that way for us.
11:20Like we are as different as anyone could ever be.
11:24And so, you know, a lot of it will be costly innovation, some skew expansion, door count and
11:32distribution growth.
11:33And then I think you'll see more celebrity integrations and a lot of influencer, a lot
11:38of marketing spend that we otherwise, you know, now we have the firepower to really market
11:42the brand.
11:42What we've built today up until now is, is almost entirely organic.
11:47Right.
11:48So we'll see.
11:50It's exciting.
11:51You, you talked about your entrepreneurial drive earlier.
11:55Do you feel like Saws has itched it?
11:59You know, I think so.
12:01But, but in a, in a strange sense, like it, it's funny.
12:06I go to bed at night, like worrying about so much of what we're doing and I wake up in
12:10the morning so glad to be doing what I'm doing.
12:12Right.
12:12It almost keeps me up at night, but it wakes me up.
12:15I think it's there.
12:17There's these, I feel like we plateau in, in many ways.
12:21Like looking back, if you told me two years ago, we'd be where we are today.
12:24I'd have been shocked.
12:25I mean, it was everything we'd ever dreamed of.
12:27And I don't think we smell the roses as much anymore.
12:30Right.
12:31I mean, there's so much more to do and I feel like we're just getting started.
12:35So I think it's actually, I don't think it's itched it really at all.
12:39I think there's, there's, even though I love what I'm doing, I think there's so much more
12:43to do.
12:43Yeah.
12:44What, what do you think gave you the entrepreneurial drive in the first place?
12:47You know, what were you doing before starting businesses?
12:51I'm curious.
12:52Well, I mean, I was a sophomore at USC.
12:54I was interning at Merchant Bank.
12:56I wanted to go, my dream was to be a banker in, in tech, media, telecom, in either San
13:02Fran or New York.
13:04And then after starting the first, you know, the drop, effectively the drop shipping business
13:08during COVID, I, you know, I, we were just bit by the entrepreneurial bug.
13:12I mean, we, we'd seen, because I had just finished an internship at a merchant bank where
13:17I was up until, you know, 1, 2 AM building models.
13:20I'd have my managing director call me telling me to build a SIM by 9 AM.
13:23It was hours on hours on hours of work that like my, my favorite part of being in the
13:30banking world at the time was meeting the founders.
13:33We worked on one brand.
13:35We were selling a business that was a predictive weather systems business.
13:39So it was like radar technology to predict the weather that was then licensed out to
13:43news stations and, and foreign militaries and foreign governments and like meeting this
13:48founder.
13:49I mean, he was crazy.
13:50We all thought he was crazy on the banking team, but we ended up selling his business
13:53for, you know, just ungodly sums of money that, that he felt we could get.
13:57And we never thought we would get.
13:58And it happened.
13:59Right.
13:59Um, and so I think I, I really, I did not love the, the part of banking that had me feeling
14:08like I wasn't creating value, that I was just almost pushing paper.
14:11Um, but I loved seeing and meeting the founders who had created all of the value.
14:16Right.
14:17And so I think that's what led us into starting that first business.
14:20And then after we'd had a piece of it and we realized like we, we are capable, like we
14:25can build something that can fundamentally change a category or an industry.
14:31Right.
14:31I don't know.
14:32You could never go back, you know?
14:33Yeah.
14:34It's one thing though, to have a great idea, but it's another to run a business and be
14:39a CEO.
14:40How's that treated you?
14:41Yeah.
14:42Yeah.
14:43It's been, I think there's been a steep learning curve, right?
14:45Especially with all the funding that comes in the growth.
14:49I mean, you know, I look, uh, we had a board meeting a few months ago.
14:53We were 14 and a half X year over year, right?
14:56It's a ton of growth first two quarters of last year to the first two quarters of this year.
15:01Um, and then managing a team, you know, we, we've gone from a team of three a year ago
15:05to a team of 11 today.
15:08Um, there's a lot to learn.
15:09We know what we don't know.
15:11And there's so much that we still don't know.
15:12I think surrounding ourselves with investors and advisors and, and team members, you know,
15:17my, my VP of sales knows a lot more about sales and consumer goods than I do.
15:22Right.
15:23Yeah.
15:24And so I learned from so many on my own team.
15:25Um, but I think it's, it's up to us to be the nucleus that keeps everything moving
15:31you know, and everything functioning in a way that drives the business forward.
15:35So it's definitely been a learning curve.
15:37Is there one business lesson, a key lesson, whether that's from your investors or from
15:43your advisory board or just from the earlier business you started that you've kept with
15:49you, that you hold close?
15:52Yeah.
15:52I mean, it might sound cliche, but there have been so many times where our back has been
15:56against the wall and we thought it was all over and we were done.
16:00Right.
16:00And I think having this like insatiable will to win is what will get you there.
16:08Just never giving up.
16:09Like, uh, uh, an entrepreneur has to be somebody who will not accept failure or defeat.
16:17Right.
16:17We'll do anything they can.
16:18We'll, we'll create something to avoid them from seeing failure.
16:21I think ask, being willing to ask questions, knowing again, where your weaknesses are.
16:27It's so important as a founder.
16:29Um, but you know, being able to, you have to have a propensity to absorb risk and to be,
16:39you know, we get punched in the face every day.
16:40You have to punch back.
16:41You've got to be willing to punch back.
16:43Yeah.
16:43I love that advice.
16:45Long-term, what's the goal with sauce?
16:47You know, in the food and beverage space, we see a lot of acquisitions, a lot of sales.
16:53Kabu, which is one of your investors and is a huge investor in this space backing,
16:58you know, Vital Proteins, Poppy, Oatly.
17:02We see a lot.
17:03Poppy, for example, just sold for $1.9 billion for PepsiCo.
17:06It's amazing.
17:08Is that the goal at the end of the day to sell sauce or what do you imagine?
17:12I know it's still too early.
17:13We try not to think about it too much.
17:14I think for investors, of course, it's no secret.
17:17That's the goal, right?
17:19When Kabu is deploying capital, I think they feel they see a clear vision to an outcome,
17:24an amazing outcome, like what they'd seen with Poppy.
17:29I think from the founder perspective, it's a little bit different.
17:31Like, we have to look directly ahead and not 10 steps ahead at all times, right?
17:37It can be distracting to think about, you know, the parachute at the end.
17:41But that's not, you know, we're passionate about innovation, about, you know, I love nothing more
17:48than being in the store and talking to the grocery teams and talking to the consumers and being able
17:53to bring excitement to a category that has had none of it for so long.
17:57We try not to think about it.
18:00So I think the best answer is there's, I don't totally know.
18:04I think there's plenty involved that want an incredible outcome.
18:08And, you know, our team does too, but we're not focused on that being the goal quite yet.
18:12Yeah. And, you know, you mentioned that you talk to consumers a lot.
18:17One of the things that has come up a lot in this, you know, space and, you know, with our generation
18:24is we care a lot about sustainability.
18:26So how has that, you know, been a factor for SAWS?
18:31Yeah. Yeah.
18:32You know, I think it's funny, even on the supply chain, we care a lot about sustainability.
18:39Of course, I mean, we use glass and everything is recyclable in our packaging,
18:45both at the wholesale level and at the retail level.
18:47But I think where we almost make more of an impact is on the marketing end,
18:51we really push for consumers to use product, emptied product,
18:56in ways that maybe they never would think to.
18:58We see a lot of UGC content of like flowers being held in a jar of hot honey marinara
19:05and like jars themselves being reused in ways that you might not otherwise think to
19:10if it was some sort of traditional tomato sauce that isn't a beautiful thing to look at in your
19:16living room. Right.
19:18But across the board, I mean, we really do push on packaging primarily because we see a lot of
19:23I mean, I see it firsthand when I walk the floors of manufacturing facilities and distributors.
19:29I think there's been a big push across the entire value chain to be as sustainable as possible.
19:36Yeah. And I have to ask, just because it's such a hot industry.
19:39Yeah.
19:40Have you been using AI at all at SaaS, whether that's on the marketing end or in the back end
19:46for your business, any sort of integrations with that?
19:50You know, we're just onboarding a new ERP system, which is like resource planning
19:54across the entire business, really from filling POs to booking freight that is driven by proprietary AI.
20:02So I can't speak on it too much quite yet because I haven't had enough time to be able to say if
20:07it's fundamentally changed the way we do business. But I think also on the marketing end, it's funny when
20:12it feels like now, anytime we're in a meeting as a marketing team and we hit a wall or a roadblock and
20:20thinking about how to ideate, we go to GPT, right? And I think whether it gives us the answers or not,
20:29it allows us maybe to think in ways that we otherwise wouldn't be.
20:33And so we do. I mean, I think it's been interesting to see the evolution of the team
20:37and when we feel like we're stuck, we do go to GPT sometimes to figure out if there's a solution
20:45that maybe we haven't thought of quite yet. I love that. Yeah, that's a good practical use.
20:50I almost forgot the most important question. Who's cooking the sauce?
20:53Oh, I know it's not, it's not me and my co-founder anymore. I will say we had early on,
20:59we had committed to this. It was like a big event at a club in LA and they wanted 100 jars of sauce.
21:07And we couldn't, we didn't produce in time because all the jars that I told you were destroyed,
21:11we had to throw out. And so we actually did one time hot fill 100 jars of steam capped product
21:18in the kitchen. And it was the most difficult thing we've ever done in our lives. So we,
21:23we grew a respect for a certain level of respect for the manufacturers on the floor. But we, you know,
21:28we cook in most of our products cooked in the US. A lot of it is also cooked in Italy and Sicily.
21:34Nice. So yeah, it's, you know, it's definitely authentic in that way, but it's all over. I mean,
21:41up in the Northeast and then out in Sicily. Yeah. My last question for you, as a startup that's
21:48successfully broken into retails and has landed shelf space, what is your advice to other young
21:56founders who are trying to land that shelf space? Yeah. You know, I think the key really is
22:02innovating in a way that, um, it offers you an opportunity to communicate more value to the
22:10consumer, right? For us, we're in an innovation business, but innovation is what really gives us
22:17the opportunity to provide more perceived value to the shopper, right? The shopper looks at a regular
22:24marinara versus a hot honey marinara on shelf. And I think there is this level of value created by virtue of
22:30flavor innovation in our product. And that's really the key to unlocking for us distribution. I mean,
22:36it's the opportunity to communicate to the retailer that, you know, we can drive incrementality. We can
22:43be more incremental than anybody else in this category ever has been. We can bring new dollars
22:47to the set. We're not going to take dollars from, we're not just going to cannibalize dollars,
22:51existing dollars in the category. Um, we're going to bring new dollars in. And ideally it's, it's a
22:57consumer that otherwise wouldn't be shopping the category. Generally it's Gen Z millennial, uh,
23:02majority female that we're engaging digitally and we're activating to bring into store. So
23:07I think it's about really building, um, product that is just innovative enough to communicate outsized
23:13value and pairing it with brand that truly does resonate with a new consumer that you can bring
23:19incrementally to store. But how do you communicate that? Like, how do you get your foot in the door?
23:24Is it cold emailing? Is it going to the store, just talking to someone? What does that look like?
23:29That's what I want to help. Yeah. In the beginning, in the beginning, it was like knocking on doors
23:33effectively, right? It was going to Erewhon and figuring out who we had to talk to. Um, today we
23:39have a sales team, of course, and so it's much different today and there's traditional reset
23:43periods and submissions. Um, but in the beginning, just like the first business we ran, every dime
23:49of revenue we generated in drop shipping, this sanitizer product was, was via cold email, right?
23:56We would draft emails all day and we'd send them out in the morning. And next thing you knew we had a
24:01$700,000 business in, in three months. And so, um, in food, it's a little bit different. I think the
24:07barriers to entry in retail are much higher outside of the independence, the one, two,
24:13three store mom and pop shops that you can walk into and you can say, I'll give you a case of
24:17product. Let's see how it sells. And if it sells well, you'll buy some more. Um, but it's, you know,
24:23you, you, it's, you, you kind of, there's stepping stones to the point where, you know,
24:28you'll have retailers coming to you. Target approached us in the beginning, right? We, we didn't,
24:33we had not expect to gain target distribution when we did, but I think if you can communicate this
24:38vision of being able to grow a category in an outsized way, any retailer is going to resonate
24:45with that. Right. So, well, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you. I'm very excited to go
24:50try some hot honey marinara. You got a lifetime supply. I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Appreciate it.
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