Recipe for Greatness
Recipe for Greatness
Following Your Passion: Tess Reed | The All Dressed Up Story
Discover how Tess Reed transformed her homemade tahini dressing into All Dressed Up, a standout brand now stocked in Whole Foods and Ocado within just one year of launching. Tess shares her winding career path from university graduate to food entrepreneur and the pivotal moments that led to her business success.
• Growing up on a farm with a food-loving family shaped Tess's passion for quality ingredients
• Early career at The Coconut Collaborative provided valuable food industry experience
• Brief detour into tech revealed that food was where her true passion lay
• COVID redundancy led to formal culinary training at Leiths School of Food and Wine
• All Dressed Up began with a simple tahini dressing and her boyfriend's business suggestion
• Initial production involved making just 12 bottles at a time in her kitchen
• Finding a manufacturer willing to produce small batches was a crucial turning point
• Focusing on quality ingredients and authentic flavors created a point of difference
• The food industry's collaborative nature provided support and mentorship
• Balancing a full-time job while building the business required significant sacrifices
• Future plans include growing the team and expanding into more major retailers
You can find All Dressed Up dressings in farm shops, delis, independents and on Ocado. If you want to know more about starting a food business, visit www.jgreenwood.com
Three, two one zero and liftoff, liftoff, no.
Jay Greenwood:Hello, welcome to another episode of the Recipe for Greatness podcast. I'm your host, jake Greenwood, and in this podcast we're going to be the founders behind some of the best food and drink brands in the UK to tease out the knowledge and skills that they've used to grow their business. Today, we are joined by Tess Reid, the founder behind All Dressed Up. Born from a passion to revamp everyday meals with flair and flavor, tess's journey began in her own kitchen and swiftly found its way onto the shelves of prestigious retailers like Whole Foods and Ocado. Tess, welcome to the podcast. I wanted to jump in and talk about when you left university and entered the food and drink world. So I'm curious about what sort of made you join the Coconut Collaborative. What was that? It was a driver behind it or did you sort of just find that role and you thought I'd go for it?
Tess Reid:I always thought I'd end up working for a food brand. I kind of grew up on a farm. My dad's a farmer, my mom's an amazing cook and I studied sociology at Bristol. So it was like super broad, didn't really know what I was going to do, but always loved food and always loved brands and I think there was a real movement at the time kind of challenger brands really taking off.
Tess Reid:Brands like Propocorn and Pippinart and Pops pops chips like all brands like that were kind of like kind of coming into the fmcg space and so I knew that they were kind of like intern opportunities. And I really loved the coconut collaborative as a brand. I think it like really stood out on shelf, it was doing something different. I knew the guy who'd founded it and was james arvidique, who had founded goo, and so I thought, oh well, I'll just apply for the internship. So I applied at the Coconut Collaborative, oppo Ice Cream um, don't know if you're familiar with those guys and Propocorn, and was actually offered all three internships there and the Coconut Collaborative just kind of, I guess, felt like the best fit at the time and so that was kind of, yeah, my first role post Bristol. I had no idea what I was going into and yeah, in hindsight it's shaped massively kind of how I brought All Dressed Up to life.
Jay Greenwood:Amazing and I want to I'll go back to sort of your time at that but I want to dig into the fact that you kind of then had a moment where you kind of then left because the Coconut Club was a startup environment, but then you left there for more of a tech sort of startup. What was your experience going from like a food to like a tech startup and what was your experience like that that made you then sort of think, oh actually I wanted to maybe go back into the food and drink world yeah, no, it's a.
Tess Reid:It's a great question. I actually did have a job in between. We can talk about that later. That I don't really um discuss, but, um, I think I was quite young, I was sort of 23, 24, uh and I kind of thought, oh, tech seems like really sexy, really well paid, and the food industry typically isn't. Uh, and I think you know as a young, you know as a young 20 something year old, you think, oh, the grass is always greener.
Tess Reid:And definitely, looking back, I think I had a really great gig at the Coconut Club to have an amazing team, an amazing manager, uh, but I think I was quite sort of naive, um, being probably completely transparent, that I thought, oh, you know, I've, I've learned what I need to learn and now I can kind of go on and earn more money and work in tech for like a big startup and look after bigger accounts. And then I quickly moved and realized that it wasn't. You know, the passion wasn't there. Um, you know, working in food is kind of unlike any other industry. I think you work in, like the people you work with work in food because they're passionate about food, they're foodies, um, whereas I realized quite quickly in tech, that it's not quite the same and everyone's there for a paycheck and a commission and their bonus. And although I learned a lot in that role, I just thought this isn't for me.
Tess Reid:And then COVID actually hit and I'd just taken a job working in restaurant PR after I'd worked at a company called Pertbox and I'd been there for about four weeks and absolutely loved it. I was kind of representing chefs in restaurants like Otolenghi, heston, blumenthal, anderle, hartlett and uh, covid then hit, so obviously all the restaurants closed down and I was made redundant and that was like a real reality check, like what is it that I now want to go and do? And that's what kind of led me into going to Leiths and doing the food and wine diploma there for a year. So I think, yeah, I think my heart was always in food, even though kind of my head and the salary kind of pulled me in a different direction. So, yeah, I think if you have that desire to be around people who love food, then you always kind of get brought back into it one way or another.
Jay Greenwood:And what was the job in between you mentioned is very, like you know, mysterious there, but uh yeah, I just don't really talk about it because it was so random.
Tess Reid:um, so I worked for a travel company for a little bit and I was approached by a friend of mine's dad who was setting it up and they were looking for someone to kind of head up their sales and marketing team. And, uh, I ended up doing that and I was going to places like Iceland and Morocco and putting on these kind of four by four expeditions, which again sounded super cool on paper, and then the reality was it was just really me and the team and I actually was made redundant for that role because the business just wasn't kind of going in the way they wanted to. So, yeah, that was something that I thought was going to be fun and exciting at 23, 24 and then thought, actually, what am I doing here? So, um, yeah, I've definitely learned some lessons the hard way, for sure.
Jay Greenwood:I want to dig into the later cooking school you mentioned. So what?
Tess Reid:was that experience like? And I imagine that's not a.
Jay Greenwood:You know it's not a simple decision. It's quite a big decision to go to like that school, take on that course, because it's a, it's an intense course. What was that experience like and what did you sort of get out of it? And I guess what in that course shaped you deciding sort of the route you wanted to go down next?
Tess Reid:uh, yeah. So Leeds is, yeah, you're absolutely right, it's a super intensive course. It's a year, um, it's also a huge investment. And, uh, I'd always like really found it fascinating watching other people who'd been on the journey. Um, so, people like Lara Lee um, she'd been at Leeds and I'd always kind of followed her journey and quite a few others, and I always thought, god, what an amazing thing to go to cookery school for a year.
Tess Reid:But I always knew I didn't want to work up in restaurant. I didn't want to work in restaurants. I have always hated being shouted at and from, like literally as long as young as I can remember, and I think there was still that stereotype of um people in kitchens are being shouted at. And I remember having my interview at Leith's, because they interview everyone before um, you get accepted and they said you know, what is it you think you want to do? And I said I know I want to work in food, but I don't think I want to work in restaurants. And I'd worked quite a lot as a private chef in my university holidays for families abroad in the UK and I I loved that side of things, but I couldn't also imagine my life as a full-time private chef kind of forever. But I knew that I wanted it to involve food and they said we've had, you know, so many people who come through Leeds and they end up going into food journalism or and that really interested me working kind of the PR before, and so I kind of took the.
Tess Reid:It was a bit of a risk in the sense that I knew that there was a career I didn't want to go into but I had a year to kind of fully immerse myself in being the best chef. I could be surrounded by people who wanted to kind of share the same experience, and it was during COVID. So it was quite a strange time to do it. I mean, we were training in face masks and obviously the nature of cooking and being in demos and trying food should be such a like relaxed, fun environment and it actually felt incredibly clinical because we were all kind of, you know, in our chef's way, in our face masks and I would end up with like food covered all over my face mask because it was so difficult to not try whatever it was, if it's like a sauce or a cake batter or whatever it was.
Tess Reid:Um, but it was amazing to have structure at a time that everyone else was locked in, essentially. So, um, leith's ran in the same way that the school terms ran, so it was quite stop-starty in the nature that schools were um, but it was. Yeah, it was amazing opportunity to to become a chef, which I never really thought I would ever have the opportunity to do, and I still don't really think of myself as a chef as such, um, but I have now had that kind of formal training which is like a completely amazing experience and something I'll never forget or regret and for people who are listening, who are probably trying to imagine what kind of experiences are, an intensive, like one year course like what does it look like?
Jay Greenwood:is it just practicing cooking those different things, or is it like how, what is like the structure like? And how does it then go from say you probably understanding food to a reasonable level just coming out to actually being, as you mentioned, like actually a chef, even though you may not see yourself as one?
Tess Reid:Yeah, it's. It's way more intense than I ever realized it would be. I was thinking we'd go in and, you know, listen to music and chat, and it's definitely not like that. You go in and your day is split into two parts, so you're either cooking in the morning or you're cooking in the afternoon, and then you'll have a demonstration, vice versa. And the year is split into three terms. So you've got beginner, intermediate and advanced.
Tess Reid:So your beginning term is all the basics, from filleting fish to learning how to make a roux, to learning how to make different dishes in very like time conditions. So, uh, you're very much judged on your time. So once you finish making your dish you have to sort of shout your name and write your name and time on the fridge and so it becomes incredibly competitive really quickly. Um, because they're also as well as training you kind of the main skills, they're training you how to become a chef in a kitchen and how that works. Um, and then the demonstrations are more either the teachers going through a skill and then you'll practice that skill in the kitchen the next day. So that might be anything from making, um, a opera cake, and they'll do a demonstration of that and then you'll try it and then you'll cook it in the kitchen. So the idea is you've kind of watched them do it, um, visually and then you'll practice it.
Tess Reid:Or it might be a guest chef coming in. So we had amazing people coming in when I was at Leeds so we had people like Olly Hercules, um, we had uh, jamie, uh, andy, oliver, um, and they would cook these amazing dishes and then you'd get to try them all and they talk about their story, so, um, and a real kind of range of people from chefs to, um authors, people who'd written their own cookbooks. So it was really varied in terms of what the day looked like.
Jay Greenwood:But, yeah, typically you'd either be in class or, um, physically actually cooking in the kitchen and so after you've sort of ventured, uh, graduated from the school, sort of went into sort of private chef work, then also to recipe development. I'm curious what sort of point that entrepreneurial spark started to hit. We suddenly started thinking I want to maybe become a food entrepreneur, and I guess, was it always dressings or was that just let's explore ideas and dressings was the one that really resonated and sort of stayed with you yeah, it's a.
Tess Reid:It's a great question and it's something I I guess is interesting to reflect on now. I I never, ever saw myself as a entrepreneur, never saw myself as someone who'd set up their own business. I think there was always something in me when I worked for other people that was like I'm always capable of more and I almost wanted to kind of reach my full potential and I get bored incredibly quickly, um, and I noticed that, looking back on all the jobs I've done previously you know I'm not very good at sticking in jobs and I say, like many people would see that as a massive failure and my parents definitely were like, oh my god, here she goes again, she's having another job. I was really restless, um, but I definitely didn't identify that as entrepreneurial spirit. I think I just saw it as, yeah, someone who just constantly wanted to get on to the next thing. I'm incredibly impatient as a person, um, and in terms of, yeah, that sort of aha moment, I suppose, when I thought is this salad dressing? It wasn't my idea at all. Um, I had, yeah, trained at least, and then I'd gone to work as a private chef, um, and kind of honed in on those skills, which I really enjoyed because I love being around people, uh. But the nature of being a private chef is it can be quite lonely because you're on other people's holidays or other people's or whatever it is, and you might get on really well with them, but at the end of the day you're the private chef and it's their holiday. And then I'd always found the development side really interesting and I've always kind of loved trends and innovation. So worked with a guy at a place called Food Innovation Solutions who I'd worked with at Charlie Bingham's when I'd done work experience there and was offered a job there and then the job at Simply Cooks. I always thought recipe boxes, that sort of world blown up post-covid. I thought that was really interesting.
Tess Reid:Um, and then salad dressing was literally created from our kitchen table. So I used to make dressings to have pretty much with everything. My mum always made dressing at home and I made a tahini dressing to have with roast chicken and then the next day we had it with like a sweet potato salad and my boyfriend said, like just text me during the day and he said I've got a really great idea for a business. Um, I think there's a really um, high demand for delicious salad dressings that taste really good for you, and and a good for you too. And my instant reaction was like no, it's a rubbish idea, like there's so many sauce brands out there, it's. So my instant reaction was like no, it's a rubbish idea, like there's so many sauce brands out there, it's so saturated. And he was like no, if you really think about it, the only sort of really like salad dressings you can think of a kind of mary berry pizza express, and we would never buy them as consumers. Um, and he said I've come up with a name, all dressed up. And I was like that is such a great name. Um, and uh.
Tess Reid:So at the very beginning we were like, oh, we'll do it together because he's much more kind of like finance, operational side, and I guess my background was more development, chefing, I guess like sales marketing, and so that was kind of how the whole idea sparked.
Tess Reid:And then, quite quickly, we realized that I like working at like 150 miles an hour and he's much more kind of pragmatic and chilled. And, um, we were just like, actually, this probably isn't going to work if we try and do this together, because our styles of working quite different. And uh, so he said look, this is so your baby, this is your bread and butter. Like you've worked for FMCG brands, you've trained as a staff, you've developed like these dressings. Really I think it should be your business. And so that's where it all started. And then, literally as soon as we had the name, I just became completely obsessed with business, growing the business, and I think that's really where, like the entrepreneurial spirit like kicked in and I was like, oh, maybe, maybe I do really want to run a business. Like I can't stop thinking about this, I like couldn't like sleep because I had ideas in the night, and I guess it's just really grown from there.
Jay Greenwood:Really, and what point did you? Because you mentioned that you move 150 miles per hour. So when you start thinking, so I was going to ask you about sort of where the name came from. But then what's that? What point do you start thinking about sort of the other aspects of the brand, the other pillars, the foundations you want that brand to stand by, because obviously, sort of right now, all Dressed Up, has got its core foundations of things it believes in? Was that something you were thinking about from the very beginning or sort of.
Tess Reid:As you sort of develop the product, you're like, oh actually, no, I don't agree with this. I think we should do this. I think I had a quite strong ideas in terms of the values that I wanted to set out from the beginning, so I always wanted it to taste great and it to be a flavor first product. I was like I can't really train as a private chef and then sort of make something that doesn't taste great. So that was always first and foremost really important, and there were so many iterations of friends coming around and me being like, hey, try this version, try this version, um, but it was also really important to me that it, um, it was good for you. I think. When looking into the category, I was really actually quite shocked by how many dressings were full of refined sugars and loads of ultra high processed foods, ingredients that I didn't recognize as a consumer and, ultimately, products that I just wouldn't buy. So I think that as a kind of value of creating a product that tasted great but was really high quality and was using the best possible ingredients and ingredients that you could find in your kitchen cupboard you know, salad dressing isn't a difficult thing to make, but I wanted to create a product that people could actually get excited about and then they would use it as an equivalent to something they would make, but it just helped them be kind of more convenient and quicker in the kitchen. So I guess I had a really clear idea about that.
Tess Reid:In terms of the brand, I've always as I said before, I've always loved brands, so I had quite a clear vision of how I wanted it to look, even though I would have no idea about how kind of bringing a brand to life in terms of I was doing it all on the design side and worked with a friend who, I guess, took everything in my head and put it on paper, and that was a really collaborative process.
Tess Reid:But I loved brands like the Collective Yogurt, tony's, chocolony, oatly Bold, bean, pippinut so I collated everything on kind of like a Pinterest board. So I guess early on, I had a really clear vision of what I wanted it to look like and asked for feedback on kind of our Instagram pages and got people to vote on logos and colors, and so it was constantly evolving. But yes, in answer to your question, there were I guess there were a few things from the beginning that I was really clear about in terms of identifying a brand that was authentic to me as a founder and how do you go about creating that first product that you sold?
Jay Greenwood:so what was that process like? Was it you in the kitchen? Like what? How did you decide right, let's just make a few products and sell them how? What was that process like?
Tess Reid:so I I guess the tahini one was kind of the first one, because that was the one that sparked the idea in the first place. And then I thought miso was an ingredient that people were getting really excited about. It's an ingredient that's obviously been around for a long time but in terms of kind of trends, I think, like miso is really having its moment and is such a fantastic kind of core ingredient. And then the story of my mum being part of it, in the sense that we would always have like a french vinaigrette at home and everyone was always like, oh, mum's salad dressing is the best, so the everyday house was based on her recipe. And then the harissa, again similar to miso, was just one of those ingredients I think is so delicious as a raw ingredient and also there weren't really that many harissa dressings out there.
Tess Reid:So that was kind of the core four um, I guess, to start with, and I had no idea what I was doing in terms of actually creating a product that was shelf, stable, ambient, um, and I went to a farmer's market and there was a lady there called Kelly and she was selling um a few different brands, but mostly sauces. And I started chatting to her and I said, oh, I'm actually thinking about setting up a salad dressing business. And she said, what's your ph? And I was like what, um? And she was like, well, what's your ph level? I was like I have no idea what that even means and obviously knew what pH was, but I didn't know how that related to salad dressing. And she said, well, it's got to be below a certain number if you want it to be ambient and shelf stable.
Tess Reid:So she then became a huge advisor in sort of the next phase, in terms of how to develop the product, and I went to her house and used her pH machine, developed the product and I went to her house and used her ph machine and and that was how I kind of I knew the technical side a bit more and then started researching into that and reading a lot of documentation. So, yeah, at the beginning it was so, uh, leaning on other people's advice and experience, and I'm forever grateful for those people at the beginning who kind of helped me get to a point where the dressings were in a position that was stable enough to sell and then I could go and find a manufacturer and actually talk to a manufacturer, like I knew I was talking about, whereas, you know, a few months before I would have had absolutely no idea.
Jay Greenwood:And so were you. Were the first products sold, the ones that were made sort of in your kitchen or somewhere that you saw producing yourself and they were sort of going to farm shops? Was that the sort of first route you took?
Tess Reid:so we did, um, all the batching was made in our kitchen, um, which is pretty tiny, and we were making sort of 12 bottles at a time and then labeling them by hand and staying up till like god knows when, and we had friends who came around and like did the labels and we were selling them on instagram. So we launched, uh, the christmas. So we launched the Christmas before last and I thought we might sell 30, 50 bottles like that. First month we sold 350, I think it was in the first two weeks. It was a really great time to launch in hindsight because people were buying them to support, as kind of stocking fillers.
Tess Reid:And then we did a big feedback round, like I sent a survey out saying you know, what did you think of flavors? What do you think of the branding? Is this something you would buy as a consumer? And the feedback was really positive and I think at that point I really saw the opportunity and the gap in the market and I really started believing in the brand. And so then I approached kind of a few farm shops and delis and said you know, is this something that would be of interest? And they all came back and said, yeah, I would love to try them. And then the unanimous feedback from people who tried them were like, yeah, we'd love to list them.
Tess Reid:And so that's when I was like I can't do this in my kitchen, um, working a full-time job I was. I was nervous about the kind of health and safety side of things as well, you know, kind of allergens being such a scary topic and I, you know, I think I need to find a manufacturer. And so I spent a few months trying to find the right person to make them. And obviously we were tiny and I'd funded the whole thing myself. So, you know, some manufacturers are coming back and saying, yeah, yeah, we can make your dressings, but you know our minimum order quantity at the beginning is about 25,000 units per skew. I was like like, well, we're selling, like you know, 500 at the moment.
Tess Reid:So no that's that's not going to work. And then, yeah, found the manufacturer and then had sent a few messages, um, emails to places like Bailey and Sage and Whole Foods, and again I think it was right time, right place, huge amount of luck and timing and they came back and said we love them and we want to list them kind of tomorrow, which just doesn't happen. And I've realized that kind of as the brand has grown, you know, you think you can just send waitress a message and they'll say, yeah, we'll list it tomorrow, and that doesn't happen. Um, but yeah, it was incredibly lucky and that's kind of how we grew in the farm shop, deli space, partner with a wholesaler called Mahalo and they were amazing at kind of getting behind the brand. So that's just um sustainably how the brand grew at the beginning and how was it?
Jay Greenwood:how was it navigating the manufacturer? Because it's quite a transition, like you say, because you have all these hurdles of minimum order quantities. So how did you sort of get the manufacturer on board when, so, you're growing and scaling and there's a bit of uncertainty? Was that, was that a challenge? How did you overcome it?
Tess Reid:Yeah, it's definitely a challenge. I've listened to lots of podcasts of people who've had sort of absolute horror stories with their manufacturer. I'd spoken to quite a lot and I think you get quite a good sense of what they're like to work with quite quickly. And reputation is a huge thing and some people had particularly bad reputations. And then the manufacturer that I worked with everyone spoke very highly of and I had a really great conversation with him on the phone and ironically he's really hard to get hold of. But the first time I called he answered the phone and we had a really great chat and he said what are you trying to do? And he was like it's such a saturated category and I think he really liked the fact that I was trying to do something differently. I think All Dressed Up does have a point of difference in terms of flavor profile, our packaging format, our branding, trying to kind of add kind of personality to the category. And he said look, I really like the sound of the business. Send me some samples. I won't make bad products. If I don't genuinely think they're not great, I won't make them. And so I sent him some samples that day.
Tess Reid:I didn't hear back from him for about six weeks and I was like god, he obviously thinks they're awful. How embarrassing, um, and anyway, I followed up, followed up, followed up and he said I'm so sorry we've had this big audit, all the rest of it. And he said we love it and we really want to make it and we can start making 500 units at a time. And that, you know, was a lot less than, obviously, the 25,000 units I've been quoted at the beginning and we've had an amazing journey with them. I mean, we started yeah, literally, I think you might have made 250 units the first batch for us, and now we're making thousands per month and that's been over the space of 12 months.
Jay Greenwood:So it's been, it's been a really nice journey to grow with with them, um, and we have a great relationship with them amazing and you know we've gone from sort of smaller retails like farm shops and stuff now to ricardo, like a much bigger online retailer. What's the sort of uh journey been like, transitioning from sort of those sort of conversations and, I guess, going back to um your days uh, the coconut collaborative. How important was your time there and what were the main lessons you learned about having those conversations with those buyers and how sort of have the most productive conversations with them?
Tess Reid:yeah, that's a. It's a great question. I think at the coconut collaborative I was very much in the sales team, um, so I learned how to sort of speak to buyers in terms of sending, you know, short and snappy emails, but I had no idea about operations, finance and all the things that come with then like setting up your own business. So I had got a little bit of experience in in sales, um, and I kind and I kind of knew like the few tricks of the trade, of how to get people's attention. But, yeah, in terms of like scaling up and actually creating a business and all of the hats, rather than just one specific role as kind of an intern, essentially was what I was when I started and left as a national account exec. That was a massive, steep learning curve. I have a really lovely Ocado buyer who has really helped.
Tess Reid:But in terms of, yeah, that initial order, I mean they forecast a very low amount at the beginning and that went up unbelievably quickly and we didn't have the stock and you know I was not being able to fulfill the orders and and, yeah, it was incredibly, it was incredibly stressful actually. I mean it was exciting because you were seeing the growth really quickly but you don't want to let anyone down. And you know, ultimately it's your head on the chopping block. There isn't. You know, with the Ocado forms it says who's the head of finance? And you put your name, and then it says who's the head of marketing? And you put your name, and then who's the head of sales? And putting it, and there is no one else in the business. So you know you're the one who gets the emails and saying like where is the stock? So yes, I did learn so much when I was at the coconut, captive in one specific area, but all dressed up, it's forced me to to wear multiple hats.
Jay Greenwood:That are not my strong points and I will be very open about my strengths and weaknesses so, looking back, sort of where you are now, what's been one of the biggest challenges you faced growing, um, all dressed up, and one that maybe stands out to you, sort of a big challenge that made you look back and you would do that differently, or something you learned the most from.
Tess Reid:Um, again, I think that's a really, it's a really good question. In terms of biggest challenges, I think I found the juggling of working a full-time job and then I went down to part-time and I'm now about to go full-time. When all dressed up, I found the juggling quite hard. You do sort of say goodbye to your social life and I think that was challenging trying to do everything and actually, as a result of trying to do everything, you make mistakes, um, because you haven't got the capacity and the bandwidth to probably be as diligent as you would be if you weren't trying to do things at 10 o'clock at night. You know, I found that really challenging, um, but I think it's really proven to me that I really want to do it.
Tess Reid:Um, because I've never paid myself a salary and, um, I've done it all through, uh, just the love of building the business and so it. It was a massive challenge and it has been a massive challenge trying to juggle everything and you feel that you're letting, you're letting people down. You feel like you're not being like a great friend, like you're not being a great girlfriend, because you're having to be quite selfish with your time, because you just don't have that much of it. So that in itself has been a challenge, but I think I've learned that I've really wanted it, because if I didn't, I wouldn't have made those sacrifices of my time.
Jay Greenwood:Um, so yeah, I'd say probably that as well, because you mentioned earlier the conversation about sort of maybe you trying lots of different things and doing something else, not staying at jobs very long and you mentioned that your parents been like oh god again. But this thing you say. You say the rewards are even less, but yet you're putting more and more time. Well, the immediate rewards are less and less and you're putting even more time into it.
Tess Reid:So that sort of shows you that, like, maybe that's a good signal that it's keeping you definitely, and you kind of know in your head and your heart, like if you're really getting out of bed in the morning, you're excited by something and yeah, as you say, I just haven't really had that before, like, or I might have started a job and been really excited, but then I was kind of like, oh, I kind of feel like I can do more and I've got more to give and and with all dressed up, that's only just grown, because I've kind of there is no end of what you can learn with doing your own thing.
Tess Reid:So I think that's what's really got me going is that I learn something new every single day and I make so many mistakes. Um, but I have really interesting conversations with people and I'm really pushing myself out my comfort zone and actually I've realized I like doing that more than I thought I did it brings me on to my next point, because I heard you speak about sort of being a lonely founder and you've just found it easier than you thought, or maybe.
Jay Greenwood:Maybe the industry has said like being a lonely founder is really hard. So how important has it been to you I think you were touching on it there reaching out to the wider sort of food and drink community and talking to them to sort of make that journey easier yeah, I think it's hugely important.
Tess Reid:Um, the food industry as an industry is unbelievably friendly, um, I would say, and there are so many lovely people who work in food. A bit like we spoke about earlier, people work in food because they are passionate foodies, not because necessarily, uh, they want to make loads of money at the beginning, and so people are so generous with their time and, yeah, I think you, there are so many events now. There's things like Bread and Jam, there's the Buy Women Built community, and there is almost never been easier to set up a brand. It's also never been harder, I think, to succeed, because there are so many brands out there. But there are amazing founders and people who work for these brands that are, yeah, unbelievably kind and generous and willing to help, and so I just sort of yeah, sort of just started speaking to people and then it's it's sort of um, a domino effect, because then they say, oh, you should speak to that person or you might get a listing at the same time as someone else and you might be doing a sampling session and you might meet them in store, and then they become friends and everyone wants to help.
Tess Reid:Um, on the whole, and everyone is kind of and I see all like complete direct competitors. Everyone is is kind of really um cheerleading everyone else to do well, and everyone knows the struggles that everyone faces. So if anyone reaches out to me and wants advice, then I'm always really, really want to help in any way I can. I mean, obviously I'm sort of still right at the beginning too um, because I've found that generally anyone I've reached out to has been super, super helpful with their advice it's the one thing I can agree wholeheartedly on uh by by a mile is because it's the most uh, generous, um, sort of industry to reach out to people.
Tess Reid:It just blew my mind at the start just how generous people are, because you end up talking to people who you'd imagined would never even consider like responding to you, and you end up having a meeting with them and you're just blown away by it completely and then they might become, you know, um, advocates for the brand and people say you know, never meet your heroes, um, but I reached out to Pip Murray at the beginning and I was like she'll never reply, um, and I ended up going for a coffee with her and I I was really like pinching myself, being like my god, she's, like such an idol to me, like growing up you know she was creating this amazing brand and still does, and and I think you just realize that people, people want to help and people are people and, um, yeah, no, it's been. It's been amazing kind of having that network for sure.
Jay Greenwood:And I want to sort of look at the sort of journey, because you mentioned that you've done so much of this well, pretty much all of this yourself which I guess is quite unique for still a brand to sort of get to where you are, to still be doing everything yourself. So what's the sort of best investment if you sort of go back from sort of the very beginning to where? Is there a thing that you invested in that gave you like the best return at the start to kind of help that journey grow? Is there anything that stands out for you?
Tess Reid:Yeah, a couple of things. I'd say the branding I actually didn't spend very much on our branding at all because, as I said before, a friend of mine did it and we kind of just worked on it together and we kind of just worked on it together, um, but I think the branding for all dressed up has been quite a big talking point, um, because it is trying to do something a bit different to the like what's in the category already, um, so I would say, if you can, don't necessarily invest a huge amount of money, but invest a lot of time in what your brand, what you want your brand to look like and what you want it to stand for. So I would say that I would say photography, um, is really important, like getting really nice professional images. Um, we did a photo shoot in the flat and, uh, the girl who did them kind of brought the lighting, but I was sort of standing on our sofas kind of trying to get the right image. But it meant that when we launched with Mahalo, who was the wholesaler, um, we had some really nice images to put on the website and I think you know that that image and bringing the brand to life through amazing kind of content.
Tess Reid:Um, I would definitely invest in that. Um, and I'd say they were the two, two main things and then obviously the manufacturing. But if you're able to start on small volumes, there is obviously initial cost at the beginning in terms of sourcing the bottles, sourcing the caps, sourcing the labels and actually doing the production run. But you should hopefully be able to do that um small at the beginning and then you'll kind of grow from there and what.
Jay Greenwood:So what's on the cards next? I think we sort of mentioned that sort of um, you know you want to grow and you're looking maybe for someone, maybe to join the team. Is that on the horizon soon? You want to get someone on board to help out.
Tess Reid:Start taking some of the yeah, I would I would love to be able to um to grow the team when the time is right. Um, yeah, up until now it's been me and I've leaned on a couple of freelancers, but I think there hopefully will be an opportunity in the next few months to to grow the team and hopefully that will be in either like a content creator capacity or a kind of brand and marketing or a sales person who wants to kind of come in and kind of grow the speciality space. I think kind of an all an all-rounder um would be amazing in terms of growing the team. So that's definitely something that I hope we'll do.
Tess Reid:We're kind of really focusing in speciality space at the moment. So our relationships with farm shops, delis, independents and then really making Ocado work we launched in January, earlier this year and there's a lot to do to kind of get the brand exposure on Ocado. And then long term is trying to kind of approach bigger retailers, food service and all of the above. So I think it's just one step at a time. But yeah, that's that's the plan for this year.
Jay Greenwood:I want to now go for a more question for my benefit of so you arrange dressings. What is the dressing you're choosing and what meal are you creating? What's the, what's the sort of the combination that you're going for?
Tess Reid:that's going to blow my mind and other people's mind and so I actually quite often mix them up, which, um, works quite well. So I think the everyday house is a really nice base to then add other flavors to so often. If I was to do like a grains salad with kind of like lots of like nuts and feta and goat's cheese and bacon or whatever it was, I would always use the Everyday House as kind of the main builder to start with, and then I would often add the tahini to it, which gives that really like nutty, creamy flavor profile against the kind of musty sharpness of the everyday. So I quite like those two together.
Tess Reid:Um, the miso and sesame we probably do use the most, because I think it's kind of the most versatile in terms you can use it in a stir fry, you can use it in a meat marinade, um, and then you can use it as kind of a finishing sauce.
Tess Reid:Um, and then spicy harissa is is something that I think is so much more than a salad dressing, and we've had a few pain points with the spicy harissa because it can get stuck in the nozzle, because it uses red bell pepper flakes which are quite chunky, and that has been a bit of a pain point for that um flavor in particular, but I think that flavor and that um particular dressing is so much more than salad dressing and I think that's a big message for us that they're not just for leaves, and you can use the harissa in a shakshuka as a base, or you could use it um to marinate prawns with like yogurt and you could create like a really delicious marinade, um. So yeah, hopefully that kind of answered your question in terms of, like, how versatile they are and they have such different personalities to match with different um ingredients and cuisines uh, no, I have to agree and I just want to say to run out this thing.
Jay Greenwood:That is, without doubt, one of the best products I've had in a long, long time. I'd encourage everyone to go out and try and buy it, because I just add it to all kinds of things, just elevate them, and they just do an amazing job of bringing what could could be considered something quite dull and just brings instant flavor to anything. So it's a fantastic, amazing product. So such credit to you for doing it. It's honestly so amazing and I love listening to the journey as well, and it's such a like, such a great story that you know you've done all this on your own. So it's just such an honor to sort of share this journey, uh, with with the listeners and hear all what you've done um, thank you.
Tess Reid:That honestly means so much. And then you've had some like absolutely amazing people on, so very, very touched that you'd um have me on as well as always.
Jay Greenwood:Guys, thank you so much for listening, really appreciate the support and if you guys like it and you're enjoying what you're listening to, please like and subscribe and write a review. We really appreciate it again. We'll be back doing this weekly and, yeah, if you want to know more about starting a food business, head to wwwjgreenwoodcom. But, guys, as always, thank you and be great.