Anna Dausman had long wanted to launch a food business and the Covid-19 pandemic gave her the time and space to do so. Now she’s looking to scale the business and as much as quadruple annual sales by the end of 2023.
Dausman launched Goodlands Food Co. in 2021 with a line of small-batch hot sauces. While the business started with hot sauces, Dausman is considering expanding to more food products as she looks to expand the company.
Always adding it to her food, a focus on hot sauces was a natural choice. “Just in my experience, I feel like it makes every dish just a little bit more interesting, a little bit more exciting,” she said.
The roots of Goodlands Food Co. started in the early days of 2020. The year prior, Dausman had joined a waitlist for a garden plot at the Woodlands, a 54-acre cemetery, arboretum and green space in West Philadelphia. When she found out in early 2020 that she had gotten space, Dausman planted an array of crops, including ghost peppers.
Dausman had previously grown some of her own food in her West Philadelphia backyard, but thanks to a work schedule that saw her travel frequently, she wasn’t home often enough to take full advantage of the season.
That changed when the pandemic brought many industries to a standstill, including her higher education retreat work with the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Impact Strategy. Dausman, who grew up in a suburb of Washington, D.C., is also a Penn alum, having earned her master’s of public administration at the Ivy League school.
“Being in one place and getting to be there for a full growing season really opened my eyes to all the possibilities when you're not constantly on the move,” Dausman said.
Her choice to plant ghost peppers, one of the spiciest peppers on the planet, gave Dausman room to experiment with different recipes, something she’d been doing for years – just not with hot sauces.
She concocted initial recipes from her bounty and early on struck an ideal ratio. When she gave the hot sauce to family and friends, she was met with resounding support, so much so that they encouraged her to turn her hobby into a business.
A food company was something Dausman had been considering for years and for a time she’d had an informal cake decorating business.
“I was like, 'Oh, I've been waiting for this light to go off,'” she said of her foray into hot sauces.
Prior to 2020, Dausman hadn’t made hot sauce but quickly landed on a recipe from which she could build. Her first recipe paired ghost peppers with Jimmy Nardello sweet peppers. “It brought this fruitiness and flavor to this hot sauce that I hadn't experienced before and that ended up providing the recipe the ratio that I built our other recipes off of,” she said.
By the end of the season, she had produced green and red hot sauces. She officially formed Goodlands Food Co. in late 2021 and today offers six flavors, including carrot habanero, jalapeno dill pickle and maple chili garlic, which is her best seller.
“I think our flavor profiles for hot sauces are just a little bit more adventurous than most typical hot sauces that you get,” said Dausman, noting she highlights seasonal ingredients in the recipes. “It's not all chili peppers – they're less heavy on the heat than a lot of hot sauces are….”
They come in 5-ounce bottles and retail for $10 to $12. Dausman also sells spice flights consisting of four 2-ounce bottles for $25. This spring, she launched a collaboration with Philadelphia sustainable apparel and accessories purveyor Wearwell for Mother’s Day that includes a selection of hot sauces and a bracelet from the brand.
Dausman is launching another collaboration this month with West Philadelphia’s Fruitcake Flowers consisting of a flight of spring and summer hot sauces called Garden Party paired with the florist’s petal confetti.
That’s not the only launch Dausman is undertaking. Her latest hot sauce, Lemon Love, is set to drop this weekend.
“It's our hottest sauce yet,” Dausman said of the “distinctly lemony” blend.
She is also exploring options beyond hot sauces and has already released a preserve lemon finishing sauce, a pepper relish, and a limited release of Fire Cider Vinegar.
Dausman, who took on Goodlands full-time in September, hand makes the hot sauces at Third Wheel Cheese Co. in West Philadelphia, where she rents kitchen space. She quickly outpaced her produce needs and today sources from local farmers and distributors. She brings on part-time help as needed and is hoping to increase from one part-time employee to four this year.
Goodlands Food Co. is available at the Germantown and Clark Park farmers markets. She is exploring additional spots in South Jersey, as well as Philadelphia’s western suburbs.
The sauces are also stocked in about half a dozen Philadelphia specialty stores including Herman’s Coffee, Reap Mini Mart, Salt & Vinegar, Third Wheel Cheese Co., Spruce Hill Provisions and online at Philly Foodworks.
Sales are roughly 50% from markets and 50% from retail. In time, Dausman hopes to expand e-commerce, a space she hasn’t really activated yet.
Even without e-commerce, Dausman expects sales to quadruple this year and is on pace to triple market sales by July.
To further accelerate growth, Dausman, who has self-funded the business, is considering raising a seed round in early 2024 but hasn’t yet landed on how much.
“My professional background, before coming to Penn, we made things happen in a very scrappy way. And so that's my approach to this business – let's just make it happen the way that we can right now,” she said.
So far, like her hot sauces, that’s proved to be a recipe for success.
