There is a secret to their sauce
Hamilton-based La Dee Da has been taking off, and is poised for more success thanks to a newly inked deal with accelerator program District Ventures, led by entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson
THREE HAMILTON WOMEN searching for a new path in life threw themselves into a vegan and sugarfree sauce company that is gaining the attention of national retailers and one of Canada’s best-known business success stories.
La Dee Da Gourmet Sauces is the brainchild of friends Jo Anne Elsbury, who was a child services worker at Halton Region, and Mary Marino, a family counsellor at a cemetery. They were both taking a break from their stressful jobs in late 2014 when they met for coffee.
Elsbury asked what Marino dreamed of doing. Her answer was making sauces.
A more profane version of “let’s do it” was Elsbury’s answer, and their business was launched in January 2015. Together, they hashed out recipes in their kitchens, focusing on healthy ingredients from local growers. They came up with gluten- and dairy-free blends of vegetables that have no additives or preservatives.
Then they started pounding the pavement for suppliers, then a manufacturer and then retail customers. It’s been an exhausting — and exhilarating — process of pitches, taste tests and demonstrations, not to mention a roller-coaster of emotions.
“We always believed that something like this could happen. The good you put out there comes back to you. We feel so blessed.” MARY MARINO Co-founder, La Dee Da Gourmet Sauces
“If you are passionate and willing to work hard, it pays off. You rise strong if you learn from your mistakes,” said Elsbury.
Hamilton-based specialty grocer Denninger’s was among the very first customers.
“They provide great support for local producers. They are still so rooted in family. They gave us the confidence to push on and call on other stores,” said Marino.
“That was our first real pitch and we were screaming in the car after,” recalled Elsbury.
About a year into the venture, Marino’s friend Marlow Italiano offered to help. She has sales experience and was looking to get back to work after losing her husband Frank to cancer. The deal was Italiano would help out a couple of days a week, but in that first week she logged 90 hours, delivering product and hosting in-store sampling. She soon became a full partner, driving as many as 700 kilometres in a day, loaded down with boxes of bottles.
More than 250 stores now carry their sauces, including Longo’s, Sobeys, Metro and boutiques and independents. They will soon be in local Fortinos, Lococo’s and Farm Boy stores, too.
“Metro and Sobeys knocked on our door. We are getting noticed, which is really exciting,” said Italiano. The grocers carry the line under a local program, but the hope is to eventually land a national deal. That’s not easy in one of the most crammed segments in a grocery store.
La Dee Da took a big step in that direction with a newly inked deal with accelerator program District Ventures, led by entrepreneur Arlene Dickinson.
District takes minority equity positions in early-stage food and health companies in exchange for offering mentorship and guidance from experts, retailers and investors. District invests $130,000 in each of 10 chosen companies a year.
“We always believed that something like this could happen,” said Marino. “The good you put out there comes back to you. We feel so blessed.”
The six-month accelerator program will see Marino, Elsbury and Italiano travel to Calgary for a week each month to meet with sales, marketing, distribution, financial and legal experts. They will get a chance to pitch to investors at the end of the program.
“She will help take this small dream that these three girls had,” Marino said of Dickinson, who made her mark in sales and marketing and is well known as a judge on CBC’s “Dragon Den.” “She is brilliant at what she does. She loves helping young businesses and helping women in business.”
The consumer interest in local food has also been important to La Dee Da, giving the young company great exposure through the local programs of national chains.
“For us, a small little business, these programs have meant everything,” said Elsbury. “People are paying attention to a small, tenacious company providing local, clean, vegan sauces.”
La Dee Da produces Twelve Veggie Tomato Sauce, Savoury Mushroom Basil Sauce — featuring Piccioni Bros. mushrooms from Dundas — and Spicy Sweet Wine Relish, with apple cider from Bennett’s in Ancaster. The most recent addition is a Butternut Squash Beet Sauce for customers who are unable to consume nightshade veggies, which include tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. They say there is no other such vegan, sugar-free option on the market.
All their sauce is made by copacker Pure Edibles in east Hamilton.
La Dee Da uses carrots for sweetness and take pride in the versatility of their sauces. They can be used over pasta, cooked over meats, used in a stir fry or risotto, or as a base for soup or chili, says Marino. “I even like it cold out of the jar.”
“Convenient used to mean it was bad for you,” said Italiano, who turned to clean eating during her husband’s illness. “Convenient foods used to be filled with ingredients you couldn’t pronounce. But it’s not that way now. Our sauces are convenient and healthy right out of the jar.”
Elsbury is in charge of forecasting, developing procedures and executing the business plan. Marino looks after marketing and social media, and Italiano is focused on sales.
This trio is ambitious and driven, but they have plenty of fun along the way. And they aren’t quiet about it, teasing each other amid frequent bursts of laughter during an interview in Elsbury’s Waterdown home.
No matter how many pitches they’ve made, they refuse to script them or to leave their personalities at the door when negotiating.
“We have to be authentic and be ourselves. It doesn’t work for us any other way,” said Marino. With some retailers, they are pitching to individual store franchisees to secure shelf space. In other cases, they are meeting in hotel boardrooms with corporate executives. Either way, they put a lot of time and effort into building personal relationships.
“We really are a company with a heart and people can see that in us.”
The friends say they are out to be an example for their adult kids — they have an even dozen between them — and to prove wrong the naysayers who told them they were crazy to give up their jobs.
“I think we go to show that anybody can do anything they put a mind to doing,” said Elsbury. “It doesn’t matter how old you are or that you haven’t done it before.”
There have been plenty of challenges and setbacks and times they’ve had to rally around one another.
“We don’t get paycheques and we work all the time but we are starting to see the fruits,” said Marino. “It’s not an easy road and it’s not always fun. We have made mistakes, but I feel I belong here. It was always in the cards to happen.”