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Growing up, my dad was always the one who cooked. Having worked in the restaurant industry and later in food sales, he always enjoyed serving up his favorite dishes and experimenting with new recipes. So I grew up with flavors that many children might not experience. My favorite was always the white wine lemon garlic sauce that I would dip my chicken in instead of the typical kid-friendly ketchup or ranch.
It’s because of my dad’s cooking that I’m open to new flavors — and how I came to appreciate good food.
Until 2018, my dad’s recipes were mainly tried by family and friends. But after much prodding from said friends and family, my dad decided to start his own company and bottle the sauces he had been making for so long. He and my mom decided to call it Le Sauce & Co. and first launched it on Amazon to see if there was any interest out there.
They later entered the 2018 H-E-B Quest for Texas Best competition and placed in the top 20. While they didn’t win, H-E-B did offer Le Sauce & Co. a space on their shelf. We really owe a lot to H-E-B because they were the first retailer to put us on their shelves. And it feels great to tell our friends and family over dinner that they can make the same thing after a stop at H-E-B.
Our gourmet finishing sauces include our bestseller (and my personal favorite) White Wine Lemon Garlic, Roasted Poblano and Garlic, Classic Green Peppercorn, Tomato Beurre Blanc and Mole de Puebla. We’re getting ready to launch a new sauce in February and expand into more retailers like Target and Kroger in March.
We now have four full-time employees: my dad, my mom, my brother-in-law and myself. We are truly a family business. It makes for more intimate team meetings, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. My mom, Lori, is the CEO and one of the founders. She oversees the business’s day-to-day activities to make sure we are on schedule for growing the business as well as our overall strategy. Kyle, my father, is one of the founders as well as the COO, making sure we are communicating with grocery stores and other customers correctly and on time. My brother-in-law, Matt, is our finance and operations manager, ensuring we always have sauce to send to our customers.
My job in marketing at Le Sauce & Co. involves working with both businesses and consumers. I make sure that every grocery store we are going to work with has a winning plan so we can tell as many people about spreading the deliciousness. I also work a lot on social media so that I can try and tell more direct shoppers on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok about our yummy gourmet sauces. We also know how important social media and online shopping are to shoppers, so we have been focusing on making ourselves available for that this year.
I hope that my job can teach me so many more things beyond marketing. Seeing my parents grow their business and being part of the process, I have already learned so much more about what hard work and dedication truly means. There are still more people learning about who we are and what we do, and I want to facilitate that.
My dad is super excited to see his passion for good food and great conversation at the table combine into one space, and our team wants to see more people in the community share in that. We will always be looking for more finishing sauces to create and help others enjoy. If there are more friends and family taking more time at the dinner table to eat delicious food and have great conversations, then we have done our jobs right.
