🔒Windham company spices up fresh salsa

The salsa smell in her kitchen matches Kelly Towle's spicy attitude toward her business, Plucked Fresh Foods LLC. A former MEMIC employee who describes herself as “always in sales,” Towle launched her business in January, and expects first-year revenues to hit $100,000, and double that in 2015. She sells her salsa in more than 200 grocery stores and restaurants, including Whole Foods in Portland and Pat's Pizza in Yarmouth.

Still caught in the Windham-based company's whirlwind growth, she keenly remembers when she worked at MEMIC and delivered salsa to customers during her lunch break, picking up $5 payments left under door mats.

The company started when she made salsa as a healthy food to help lose baby weight, and took it to work for lunch. Two co-workers asked her to make them some. She says she jokingly noted those first two sales — for $10 a batch — on her Facebook page. Afterward, demand for her salsa went viral.

She and her husband Jason soon quit their jobs to focus on the new business. Leveraging their credit cards and with some parental contributions, they set up an industrial kitchen in their basement and bought a refrigerated truck to deliver salsa directly to a growing number of clients. Now, the company is big enough to have several distributors. The couple is looking for money to get a larger space.

Their market keeps expanding. Salsa is considered a vegetable, so that opened up local school lunch sales, as well as sales to Paleo dieters. And salsa's popularity has risen in the $6 billion U.S. condiment market, where it surpassed ketchup in 2010.

Kelly, Jason and Mainebiz talked recently while snacking on some fresh salsa. The edited transcript follows.

Mainebiz: What's the difference from the salsa you buy in the grocery store?

Kelly Towle: Jarred salsa is cooked. Ours is fresh tomatoes, onions, garlic and fresh-squeezed lime juice mixed up with some spices. There are no preservatives and it is gluten free. There's no vinegar, so Paleo dieters can eat it. It's a different taste. It has a 30-day shelf life and has to be refrigerated.

MB: How is it distributed?

KT: We make it downstairs and deliver it to our distributors in our refrigerated truck. We distribute through Native Maine Produce & Specialty Goods in Westbrook and Katsiroubas Bros. in Boston, which take it in their refrigerated trucks to the stores.

MB: What volume do you handle?

KT: We figured out that in the past week-and-one-half we made 3,500 pounds of salsa. It's just us, so we're a little tired. The b.good burger chain ordered 2,000 pounds in gallons. And then we have retail.

MB: What is your sales breakdown?

KT: Before the b.good contract we were probably 80% retail. But at this point it's definitely 50-50 retail and restaurants. We're set to sell about $100,000 this year. We're making money, but it's all going to go back into the business.

MB: How are you funded?

Jason Towle: It's about $30,000 for the van, the kitchen, labels, becoming an LLC, becoming certified by the health department. That money was our credit cards, but our parents have helped with the van and incidentals … Our debt is personal, so we'd like to get that paid off and put it on the business. We need a loan now for overhead, about $250,000 to $300,000.

KT: We're growing out of our space, so it's time to look for a facility or go to a co-packer [contract packer].

MB: Any new clients down the road?

KT: We've just had a call from Hannaford. It's just a matter of working out the details.

MB: Is there a way to leverage the business further by making a related product?

KT: The next thing people have asked us about is a fruit salsa. We've had extra tomatoes so I've been making fresh tomato sauce. I've thought about making hummus, low-calorie dressings and baby food that would be fresh. So there are a lot of possibilities.