Greg Vetter Of Tessemae’s: 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand

Do not compromise on the quality, process, or ingredients. Put a focus on flavor and if you listen to consumer feedback you’re going to have an amazing product.

As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Greg Vetter.

Gregory Vetter is the CEO of Tessemae’s, a flavor-forward, organic fresh food company, considered to be a lead innovator and disruptor in the clean food movement. Gregory, the oldest of the Vetter brothers, had the idea to launch Tessemae’s based on the belief in his mother’s wildly popular homemade dressing recipe and how it had the potential to create an entirely new clean food category.

After winning over a local Whole Foods buyer and selling just under 700 bottles in one week, Gregory, his two brothers, Matt and Brian, and his family grew the business to become the #1 organic salad dressing brand in the refrigerated space. Gregory and his family paved the way for clean manufacturing on a mass scale by inventing the only gum-free dressing bottling process. That manufacturing process led to the invention of the “fresh condiment” category, the first Whole30 approved bottled dressings and condiments, and then continued pioneering of innovation across the grocery store with the creation of the first shelf-stable creamy dressings free of gums and additives with the “Tessemae’s Pantry” line.

Gregory, who values the importance of family and the concept of a wholesome family dinner, spoke at a TED Talk entitled “The Dinner Habit — The Recipe For Change” and is a finalist for the Entrepreneur Of The Year 2019 Mid-Atlantic Award.

Prior to launching Tessemae’s with his family 10 years ago, Gregory worked at FosterThomas, and holds a degree from Washington College in Business Management. He was also a professional lacrosse player, and is a father of four living in Annapolis, Maryland.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I am the oldest of three athletic boys from a middle-class family.

Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food or beverage brand you are leading?

My neighbor broke into my house and stole my mom’s salad dressing. After I tracked him down, I thought to myself “What kind of man steals another man’s dressing?” I decided if it was good enough to steal it was time to bottle it and take it to market. I then did the research and found that a clean label dressing did not exist. That is when I approached Whole Foods Market with our original Lemon Garlic Dressing.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I didn’t know I needed a sealing machine to seal the bottle. When the health department asked how I was going to seal the bottle I told them I didn’t know. The woman gave me examples of things that could be used to seal a bottle, one of which was wax. “Like Makers Mark” she said. So, I decided that was what I was going to use. We ended up using wax for 8 years.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food or beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?

Companies often design products based around their likes and dislikes instead of what consumers actually want. They also chase trends, focusing all efforts on something that is temporary instead of something that will last and is timeless. To avoid these errors you need to remove your ego from the creative process, and learn to embrace a wide-variety of voices and opinions. Whether or not you agree with those prevailing opinions or not is irrelevant as that flow of ideas will, ultimately, enable you to arrive at a deeper understanding of whether your product will be successful amongst the masses.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Conduct the necessary research to enure the product doesn’t exist. Make sure your product would be superior and worth buying. Make the product and figure out whether or not it meets your standard. Figure out if you can make that product in bulk a million times. Then walk up to strangers and ask them if they would buy it.

Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?

I wouldn’t. If they don’t have the ability to actually develop the product and bring the idea to life, they aren’t going to have the ability or energy to scale it. The development part is the fun part. The rest of the process is much harder and involves constant focus and the ability to overcome obstacles and adversity every step of the way.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Try and figure out as much as you can on your own. Not only will you learn something in the process but you will save money.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Every idea and every industry is completely different and requires a different set of financing options. You are going to own more of the business if you bootstrap it, and you are going to have more control. You need to decide if that is something that you value. If you bootstrap for as long as you can to see how large you can build the business on your own you will be in a better negotiation position when it comes to finally raising institutional money.

Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?

To file a patent, you go to an intellectual property attorney who specializes in the legal component. Sourcing good raw ingredients is determined by the volume in which you need them and the quality. As your volume increases your options decrease. Food shows are a good first step to broaden your horizons on what is available. Sourcing a good manufacturer is difficult for many reasons. We started our own manufacturing plant because we couldn’t find one that matched our quality standard. In doing so, we invented clean manufacturing in our industry. In terms of finding a good retailer, walk into a grocery store you like and ask them questions, attend food shows, call a like-mined brand and ask them who they use. Every answer is available if you search for it.

Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. You need an amazing tasting product that people are willing to spend money on and leave their existing product for you.
2. You need a reason why they are switching and why they should buy your product.
3. You need a story they remember.
4. You need packaging that catches their eye and speaks to them.
5. You need an ingredient panel that your target market can get excited about.

Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?

Do not compromise on the quality, process, or ingredients. Put a focus on flavor and if you listen to consumer feedback you’re going to have an amazing product.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

The Tessemae’s Foundation. Our children. Youth athletics.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Have everyone make and understand how to make food for themselves. Sounds simple enough but many fail do it. So many of our problems and diseases come from a lack of health and understanding of health. All health begins with food. Sit down with your loved ones and eat a meal together. Check in on them, ask them questions about their day without electronic devices. All great change in America begins at the dinner table but no one eats there anymore.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.