As the mother of three athletic boys, Tesse had to figure out a way to get them to eat their veggies while staying healthy. Pouring on a dressing full of artificial ingredients was not an option, so over the years she made and perfected her own. When oldest brother, Greg, realized how great the dressing was, he said “Mom, let’s go into business together and make it for the world!” As Tessemae’s All Natural grows its product line around the globe, the commitment to healthy eating and healthy living remains the core of the company’s mission.
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[ Music ] >> Tessemae's is the salad dressing and fresh condiment company that I started four and a half years ago. We started it because we wanted something convenient and delicious and easy and I'm saying easy for me to use as a consumer that was good for you and there wasn't anything out there. >> I love Tessemae's because it's an opportunity to make an impact on the country in a positive way; 70% of people, overweight in the country and it's because the food that they're eating. It's really giving back to our country and really making a difference in a positive way. >> You know, my brothers and I grew up eating this salad dressing every single night. One day I come home and the salad dressing is missing from my fridge and so I lived next to some friends and I called a bunch of them and one of them picked up and was like yeah man, I took your salad dressing. I just needed and I knew the code to your house and I took it and I'm sitting there, I'm like what kind of man steals another man's salad dressing. And so I'm going to bottle this. >> It's a delicious product with a story, okay, anybody can have a product and if they don't back it with a story, it's just some configuration of some oil, some acid, whatever you have, right? It's a formulation that someone else can make but when you have a story, right, and then you have passion and then you consistently chip away at the competition, you're pulling heartstrings. >> So I call my mom, I'm like hey, if I get us into Whole Foods, will you go into business with me. And she kind of laughed at first and was like no. I said I'm not kidding and so I got us into Whole Foods and we ended up setting a national sales record that first week we got in. >> I mean it's amazing that these guys [inaudible] brothers started this company just three, four years ago. The quality of the product is second to none; it is the best refrigerated dressing on the market. >> We read the book, The Degree, and in that book, they said can you the be best in the world and my brothers and I looked at each other and said hey, we can be best the in the world salad dressing and we don't care about what the product is. Can you be the best in the world at it? And we said yes, so that's when we just opened the floodgates mentally, emotionally and just went after it. >> The first week, we got in for this demo for the grand opening in Annapolis Whole Foods and we sold out all the product in 30 minutes and so I went to the director of the East Coast for Whole Foods, I'm like hey man, we're out of dressing. He's like well, get more from the back. I'm like no, it's all gone. >> So the customer dictates our business because without the customer, you can think your product is the best in the world but unless someone's buying it and they love it, you know, you don't have anything. So their feedback has been the fuel to our fire 'cause when they're purchasing it, right, so like we have sales but more so than anything, we have people writing us emails thanking us for making salad dressing. And we average about 100 thank you emails a week. >> We're the number one selling dressing line in Whole Foods nationally. We are the premium line of dressings in Safeways nationally and we are their number one selling dressing right now. You know, we're taking salad dressing world by dressing, right, catching people off guard. [ Music ]
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