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Welcome to The Quality Makers, an interview series highlighting pioneers in the direct-to-consumer space. Join us as we get an inside look at the world of digital shopping through the eyes of the individuals shaping it…
Do you ever wonder what it takes to have the secret sauce?
Well, SAUZ Founders Winston Alfieri and Troy Bonde need not wonder because not only do they have the secret sauce, but they’ve made it cool again (and that’s no secret).
Founded in 2023, SAUZ spilled onto the scene as the new pasta sauce brand to watch, launching crazy zeitgeisty flavors like Hot Honey Marinara and Brown Butter Alfredo. Their mission as next-gen founders and pasta sauce savantes was simple: just make something the consumer wants (which was easy given they were, in fact, the target consumer).
Since then, they’ve made it into 7,000+ retailers nationwide, including Target, Wholefoods, Sprouts, and Kroger, and there’s no cooling down from here on out. As a note: all of their sauces are small-batch, seed oil-free, and made without added sugars or artificial anything, which makes them even more delicious.
We’re so into everything they’re doing (including this Finger Fork Ring), that we had to chat with Winston and Troy to hear what else they’ve got simmering for the future.
Pasta sauce has been around for basically ever. What made you want to start a new kind of sauce brand?
WA: The category is so boring! Same old marinaras on shelf, selling the same boring and bland flavors!
TB: The sauce aisle hadn't had a new idea in like 40 years. Same red jars, same cursive font, same nonna on the label while every other aisle in the store was getting completely reinvented. We weren't sauce guys. We were just two people who loved food and couldn't believe nobody had made the version we'd actually want to buy.
What makes Sauz saucier than the rest? How do the flavors differ from conventional store-bought brands?
WA: Our flavor profiles are by far our biggest innovators. We are leading the category in flavor innovation while maintaining traditional and common flavors from other categories, and bringing them to the pasta sauce aisle.
TB: Everyone else iterates on marinara. We started from the flavors people already obsess over — hot honey, vodka sauce, calabrian chili — and asked why none of that energy was in the sauce aisle. We didn't invent new tastes, we just looked at what people actually order at restaurants and put it in a jar.
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What was your R&D like? Like, how many bowls of pasta did you have to have? How did you come up with all of these different flavors?
WA: Many and many bowls of pasta. But not only pasta. We tried our products as a dipping sauce with grilled cheese, with chicken parmesan etc. Our flavor profiles are fun and exciting. They’re meant to be unique and used in multiple capacities! For R&D, we went with our gut. Looking at trends happening in the world like hot honey on pizza and taking flavor profiles that are familiar in other categories that have never been in a pasta sauce before.
TB: An embarrassing number of iterations. It started as late-night kitchen experiments — cook, taste, argue, cook again until a food scientist had to translate our chaos into something that could actually scale. We once cooked sauce 62 days straight to hit a national launch. I think I lost a year off my life, but the flavors survived.
Not in an ageist way, but obviously you both sit on the younger side of the Founder spectrum. What have been the biggest challenges as young founders? And honestly, what have been the biggest strengths?
WA: Knowing the answers to problems that come up as a rapid growing CPG retail brand. We lean on founders, investors, network, and industry veterans to come to key decisions.
TB: The challenge is credibility. You're 23, walking into rooms with people who've been in grocery for 30 years, and you can feel them doing the math on your age. The strength is that we never had to guess what our consumer wanted — we were the consumer. No focus groups, no trend reports. We really just made what we wanted to exist.
In building the brand, what are things that have come up that you could have absolutely not anticipated or prepared for?
WA: Growth! Something that we anticipated, but not as fast as we imagined. Building a brand that consumers really resonate with.
TB: Everyone warns you about competition. Nobody warns you about hidden costs. The unsexy backend of grocery — freight claims, chargebacks, retail math — that's the actual business, and nobody tells you that when you're dreaming up flavors in a kitchen.
Has being around and talking about pasta sauce day in, day out made you re in love with sauce-based foods? Or are you living on the drier side these days?
WA: Yes, but being biased, I never found a great jarred sauce. I came from a family that always made pasta sauce from scratch. Being able to create my own in real life was a dream. Making our homemade dinners replicated into a jar!
TB: Entirely more in love. I can’t get enough.
Favorite flavor: Go.
WA: Creamy Calabrian Vodka
TB: Hot Honey Marinara!
How do you hope to continue to grow the brand? What can our plates be on the lookout for over the coming months….year?
WA: We want Sauz to be a household name. A brand and product that is available and appealing to everyone. We hope our unique line of flavors brings an ability for every consumer to find the right flavors for them!
TB: Growth is now about winning where we already are — deeper distribution, stronger velocity, earning more room in the cart. We do have permission to innovate in ways nobody else can, and you’ll see more of that soon!
What’s your best piece of advice to someone looking to start their own CPG brand?
WA: Always go with your gut. Not everyone has the same experience!
TB: Build the thing the entire category has to answer to - define the future of the category!
