Today marks the launch of a project that has been humming in the background of my life for more than two years. You can now shake up Salad for President dressings at home using my instant dressing mixes. Shop our website TODAY.
The form factor harkens back to the Hidden Valley and Good Seasons packets your mom kept in her back pocket, but they’re formulated for our generation: preservative-free, vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO — you get the idea. Just add lemon and oil, shake, and you have a magical, mystical, perfectly emulsified dressing, fresh every time. They are shelf-stable and easy to stuff into your purse — bring them everywhere!
While today is a major milestone for Salad for President, it’s also an occasion to reflect on everything it took to get here.
When I decided to transform Salad for President from an editorial and events platform into a product line, my husband Adam was ending a sabbatical following the closure of his creative agency of ten years. We decided to build the new business together. Between the two of us, we had marketing, content, product development, copywriting, and finance on lock, and I had just hired a promising assistant, Julie Heine.
I hear a lot of complaints about Gen Z — their soft hands and distaste for hard work — but Julie’s existence puts these stereotypes to rest. With aspirations to one day own her own CPG biz, she threw herself into every part of the work, from the content creation and social strategy, to supplier research and cost analysis. As a trifecta, we bungled our way through the launch of a line of salad toppers — beloved, but so expensive to produce that they are now on hiatus — and began assembling a team to focus on powdered dressing mixes instead.
Adam and I are bosses of different flavors, but bosses all the same. He doesn’t ‘write’ emails; he ‘crafts’ them (I am often too impatient to read them). He leads with precision, method, and intention. I lead with intuition, joie de vivre, and the persistence of a pit bull. What has worked beautifully in our personal life became a clash of the titans professionally. If you work and co-parent with your spouse, hats off to you. (I am happy to share the name of an excellent couples’ therapist.)
When I regrettably hissed, “I am going to kill you” in front of our team, it became clear that we faced a choice: save the marriage or save the business. By the time we called it quits as business partners, we were a year in and I was adrift. I loathed the power dynamic between us, but I worried that I couldn’t do it without him. Then I received a visitation.
My friend and start-up whisperer, Erin Patinkin, came over for dinner, and I made a salad dressed with an early iteration of the Salad for President Lemon Poppy Dressing Mix. I admitted that I had no idea how to build a CPG company, and she offered these words: “You shouldn’t have to do the boring stuff. You should focus on the creative.” And that, my friends, is how you land a mother-fucking job.
Erin showed up with big Mary Poppins’ energy. She began by firing our co-packer. (Sensing a theme here? Two steps forward, one step back.) For those who have never descended to this particular rung of hell, the co-packer is your manufacturer, and unfortunately, the bar in this industry is shamefully low. Until your business is placing shipping-container-sized orders, it is standard practice to haze the new guy. You pay thousands of dollars upfront, and then they ignore your emails and mangle your recipes. I had convinced myself that I needed them too much to leave, until Erin stepped in with an emphatic, “Hellllll no.” She rescued us from the chokehold of their dysfunction, and delivered us back to square one.
As reluctant as I was to start dating co-packers again, I can unequivocally advise: never work with a stinky co-packer. They hold your future, your reputation, and the materialization of your vision in their hands. With a new manufacturer in our corner, Erin and I flew to Denver to tweak the formulas gram by gram in an effort to get our cost of goods down. I learned from the salad toppers that if you don’t launch with strong margins, you don’t stand a chance. That’s the holy grail: integrity of ingredients at an approachable price point. Salad to the people! We left with three formulas we loved, and I with a newly developed cabbage sensitivity from overconsumption. We ate a lot of salad while testing. Dedication.
Packaging came next, but let’s save that story for the next post (I’m exhausted!).
For today, I’m simply so proud to say that we have a product out in the world that I truly believe in (and I’m very picky, so that says a lot). I’ve watched both timid home cooks and seasoned professionals taste the dressings, make them at home, and tell me how much they love them—and I think they’re telling the truth.
My hope is that these dressing mixes bring more salad, more creativity, and more joy to your home kitchen.
Visit www.saladforpresident.com to shop our Miso Ginger, Lemon Poppy, and Umami Caesar Dressing Mixes today!
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