Food Development

The magic of Sauce

We believe that understanding creates opportunity. The magic of Sauce is that we’ve seen food businesses from many angles - from large CPG to pre-revenue start-ups. We’ve worked on businesses that were profitable, well-funded, bootstrapping it, and frankly, surviving day-to-day.

We’ve sat at the table when tough decisions have to be made and we’ve also taken big bets and hit home runs. We want to help start-ups by applying the depth and rigor of classical CPG experience while also pulling from out numerous early stage positions.

Our friendship began in 2008 when General Mills acquired Larabar.

Alec led the R&D team from the GMI side, integrating the product portfolio, and developing new products. Sarah led national marketing for the Larabar brand, having grown with the business from the very early stages.

We came back together as founding partners in a start-up called Opopop.

Sarah was President and Alec was Head of Product. Together, we ran a lot of the day-to-day operations fulfilling Opopop’s mission to challenge what people expect from microwave popcorn.

More about Alec:

This is where I talk about being a grizzled veteran of the food industry, right? My whole career has been in the food industry, now approaching 30 years. While I grew up in R&D, I’ve since worked across critical functions to run a business. I firmly believe that understanding creates opportunity, that you can best drive growth when you deeply understand the underlying consumer, technology, and business dynamics.

Before Opopop, I spent 22 years at General Mills, across multiple brands and product platforms. I led R&D teams and managed portfolios for Pillsbury refrigerated dough North America, and Yoplait yogurt in both the US and Europe where I had the opportunity to live and work in France. I also led development in cereals, snack bars and natural/organic, and spent 3 years in a manufacturing role. It was an amazing opportunity to learn and grow.

More about Sarah:

I love the start-up food industry. I love the dreams and energy that fuels innovation and excitement. My decades long experience in the space has also revealed the common start-up blind spots like technical, marketing or/or business skills.

I have had the good fortune to work on building many household brands including Larabar, Cascadian Farm, Food Should Taste Good and Opopop. I have been exposed to almost all facets of managing a food company, likely multiple times.

I’m most drawn to strategy, marketing and sales activities, but also love the challenge of the math side of data and financial modeling.

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The magic of Sauce

Our friendship began in 2008 when General Mills acquired Larabar.

We came back together as founding partners in a start-up called Opopop.

More about Alec:

More about Sarah:

'Cause everything's better with SAUCE