Word: spicing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Neither of these spice gals had any prior industry experience. Before meeting Engram, Luber had been an art historian and a curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Engram was a longtime editor at the Baltimore Sun. The pair met through a friend and got to talking about spices. "We started thinking about why they go stale," says Luber, "and about other categories that had exploded over the past 10 years, like tea, olive oil, vinegar and cereal." Sensing an opportunity, Luber and Engram began gathering advice on how to build a spice company...
They chose to go strictly organic, with none of the additives or fillers low-end discounters rely on. They're hoping that style will help: the company's other line, TSP Spices, comes in sleek decorative 12-packet tins topped with colorful labels. And consumers like their story. "People sometimes joke that we're the Spice Girls," says Engram, "but that's a stretch, so I came up with the CardaMoms. Cardamom is the queen of spices, and we're always carting around our kids to things...
...spice market is worth about $1 billion at retail and is dominated by McCormick, which is also based in Baltimore. TSP has four full-time employees to McCormick's 8,000, so no one is mistaking Luber and Engram as a threat to the titan, whose annual global sales are $3 billion. TSP is hoping for sales on the order of $2 million to $2.5 million in 2008. "It's as if they're the elephant and we're the fly," says Engram...
...operate at a volume high enough to distribute nationally, Luber and Engram contract out most of their operations, from spice importing, labeling and packing to sales and distribution. They have yet to pay themselves a salary. Of the more than $1 million invested in TSP so far, about $500,000 has come from outside investors, the rest from the founders' pockets...
Gaining a significant share of the high-end spice market would be a notable accomplishment for the two career changers. TSP adviser Bob Burke, principal of Natural Products Consulting, who helped strategize for popular brands like Stonyfield Farm, Annie's Homegrown and Oregon Chai, says the two have a reasonable shot at success. "They're quick learners with an innovative concept that they execute with style and flair." Just as Annie's managed to take a bite out of Kraft's lock on the mac-and-cheese market, he says, TSP could eventually nibble out a nice niche...