Happy New Year, Friend
I hope all of you had a relaxing holiday season. I know the holidays can be filled with stress, but it is also filled with spending time with friends and family, great food, naps, dressing up, and most of all, giving.
We spent a lot of time doing holiday events this year – every weekend to be exact – from Thanksgiving to Christmas we had a total of one day off. <Insert sappy violin playing, haha.> The good news is that our daughters did these shows with us, so we still got time to spend with the family doing what we love.
It is really important to me to let all of you know that you are part of this. You all are a very important part of the continued success of Double Take Salsa. Whether you are buying our salsa and hot sauce (online, through Amazon, or at your favorite retailers), staying involved on our social media (liking posts, commenting, tagging friends, sharing, etc.), or just sharing and introducing these awesome products to your friends.
2022: There were challenges, specifically with food costs. Costs kept going up and staying high, even as inflation has mellowed out. We raised our costs on hot sauce $0.30 with one local grocer, and they raised the SRP $1. Logistics are still not perfect. I really don’t understand how a trucking company can give us a price of (let’s say) $373 to take one pallet to NY with a promised 3-5 day delivery timeframe, and then it takes 20 days. This actually happened to us! Because we are small and don’t have the leverage (or team of lawyers) to fight it, there was nothing we could do. The worst part is that this happened at the beginning of December, so it cost us about $10,000 in lost sales. UGH!
We have had some really fortunate things, too. My oldest daughter who graduated last year and went off to London for college was able (and wanted) to work a lot in the kitchen and the warehouse, so I was able to spend a lot of time with her before she left for overseas.
Reflecting on last year’s goals.
2022: We are looking for some big wins this year. In January, we are pitching our products to Meijer (250 stores in the Michigan/MW area). We are also currently waiting to hear if we can grow our footprint in Target (pitched in December). Our next pitch will be to get warehoused into Hy-Vee (250 stores). Any one of these wins will be great for us, and I look forward to sharing the good news with you when it happens.
WIN, WIN (kind of), WIN.
· We got three salsas into all Meijer locations: Cherry Tale, Aces & Eights and El Jefe. This year we are looking to add three SKU’s of hot sauce to the Meijer chain.
· We expanded our store count at Target for the salsas from 113 to 121. I know… not much but something. We did not increase the store count for hot sauces and were not able to add any additional SKUs this year for either hot sauce or salsa. That said, our broker was still REALLY happy with this news, as I guess Target cut 20% of products from last year, and we were not one of them.
· After much negotiation, we are finally now warehousing with Hy-Vee. To me, this should have been a no-brainer, but it took SO LONG. I looked back and realized I had been in discussions with them since the summer of 2017. Sheesh. I’m glad it happened because they have turned out to be a good partner.
I am pretty happy with our goals from last year, but we need and want more again this year, as always, 😃 So, if you have any contacts with large national grocers, please feel free to pass along the referral. Maybe your uncle or friend from high school is some big shot, so let me know!
GOALS FOR 2023
GROWTH:
1. I really want to get 3-4 hot sauces in Meijer and think we have a good shot at it, but of course, nothing is done until it’s done.
2. I want to increase my sales in Hy-Vee locations to really try and cement Double Take Salsa in many more of their stores. We are doing demos/samplings every week.
3. I want to increase my followers on social media.
4. I want to get back to doing some bigger shows, maybe even branch out to some in Chicago or Kansas City.
OUR TEAM:
Fortunately, this hasn’t changed at all. Mike is still our kitchen/production manager. Adina still runs the business operations. I spend my time doing everything else that needs to get done. We are a tight knit group, and each of us spends our time doing what we do best.
We are a very small company with a LOT of pride in doing the right thing and making food the right way. It is a lot of fun, but it doesn’t go without a healthy amount of stress. I encourage you all, when working with small companies like Double Take Salsa, or any at local farmers markets or restaurants, please try to have a little extra patience with us. Many of us work 80 hours a week, we wear many hats, and sometimes things can slip through the cracks.
Lastly, please remember that sometimes the easiest way to support a company you love is to share a post on social media, like a post, comment on one. Do it as often as you’re online. It matters.
Thanks for being a big part of this journey with us. Happy 2023. Be safe. Eat more salsa.
