W
est Coast entrepreneurs Troy Bonde and Winston Alfieri started Sauz to spice up the tomato sauce aisle in 2023. In just over two years, Bonde, 26, and Alfieri, 25, are doing just that: At the California-based grocery chain Erewhon, every week a jar of its creamy Calabrian vodka sauce sells twice as much as any sauce by another brand.
Featuring fun flavors such as hot honey marinara, miso-garlic and summer lemon that are outside the typical mold of an Italian American heritage brand, Sauz is fast-growing and on track to grow more than 300% to top $15 million in annual revenue by the end of 2025, driven by Millennial and Gen Z shoppers. Bonde says he takes flavor inspiration from fast food chains like Wingstop, Buffalo Wild Wings and Chick-fil-A to make Sauz flavors that appeal to all Americans.
“We’re curating our innovation for the palette of the consumer shopping at Target in Toledo, Ohio,” says Bonde, Sauz’s CEO. “We try to identify flavor trends across categories that are familiar enough that we don’t necessarily have to go educate consumers on.”
And of the top-seller in the $2.5 billion (sales) pasta sauce industry, Rao’s, Bonde adds: “The minute we try to be Rao’s, we’ll be nothing,” says Bonde. “The opportunity is enormous.”
