Wednesday, May 20, 2009
An old family recipe, a chance encounter and luck.
It's all in the sauce for entrepreneur Steve Treser of Blacksburg.
Lindsey Nair
Front Burner blog
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Recipes
An old family recipe, a chance encounter and luck.
That is the equation that completely changed the lives of a Blacksburg family.
Within the past year, Steve Treser, 47, went from commuting to his job as an architect in Roanoke to working on his own schedule from his home office. It was all made possible by an all-purpose condiment called Camp Sauce that can now be purchased at any Kroger in the Roanoke and New River valleys.
"It has been great," Treser said. "I get to see off my kids in the morning when they leave for school and I am home when they get home."
But it wasn't an easy decision to make. Katherine Treser, 45, was already a stay-at-home mom, and the couple have four children: Tommy, 14; Zack, 12; Erik, 10; and Heidi, 7.
"I've had moments where I thought the whole thing is pretty crazy," Katherine said. "But I got over that because he is making it work."
In the beginning
In 1901, Steve Treser's great-grandfather, Ed Treser, established a small camp for outdoorsmen in Sinnemahoning, Pa. Ever since then, members of the Treser family have met at the camp on Father's Day weekend, bringing their children along for swimming, boating, fishing, running barefoot and cooking out.
When Steve Treser was in high school, his mother, Rosemarie Treser, whipped up a salad dressing made with vinegar, onions, garlic, sugar and other ingredients. It didn't take long for the Tresers to realize that the sauce was good on almost anything, from salads to steaks.
Steve Treser has been making the sauce all of his adult life, with a few of his own twists. For example, he added more garlic, changed the white vinegar to balsamic vinegar and changed the onions to sweet onions.
Early in his marriage, he got his new bride hooked on the sauce by mixing it into ground beef and making "Steve's Treser Burgers."
During the years when they and their friends were starting families, Steve and Katherine learned that balsamic vinegar is believed to be a labor-inducing ingredient.
Amused, they sent a bottle of the family sauce to a pregnant friend, and she had her baby the day after she ate it.
"For a while it was Steve's Special Labor-Inducing Sauce," Katherine said, "so that was a big joke for a while even though it only worked that one time."
Last summer, the Tresers headed to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for vacation. They had agreed to meet up for dinner with some Blacksburg neighbors, and Steve Treser wanted to do the cooking.
He made a half-gallon pitcher of his sauce for the 30 or so extended family members in attendance. It quickly disappeared, and he had to make another pitcher.
His neighbor's brother-in-law, who works in the food industry, told Steve Treser that he should market the sauce. The man put him in touch with Ashman Manufacturing in Virginia Beach, which agreed to make it in batches.
Now all they needed was a name. And since Great Grandpa Ed's camp was the Treser family's favorite place to eat their special sauce, it seemed like a no-brainer.
They would call it Camp Sauce.
Branching out
It isn't every day that a customer shows up at a Kroger store to pitch a homemade product.
Mike Christle, who manages the Kroger on University City Boulevard in Blacksburg, was on duty when Steve Treser showed up with a bottle of Camp Sauce.
"He gave me a sample and I took it home and tried it," Christle said. "I thought it was good, I thought it had a unique taste. I definitely enjoyed it. I used it as a steak sauce and a salad dressing that night."
Christle was also intrigued by the story behind the sauce, so he put Treser in touch with folks at Kroger's corporate offices in Roanoke.
After working out pricing and display issues (the sauce goes for $3.99 a bottle), Camp Sauce hit the shelves in 19 Kroger stores in Southwest Virginia in March.
Treser set a goal: to be selling 12 bottles (one case) per week at each Kroger store by June. But he said he is already selling nearly two cases per week at each store, and when he does in-store sampling, that number can be as high as four to six cases.
A hobby was turning into a part-time job. And before long, a full-time job.
Treser made the decision to leave Balzer and Associates Inc. around Christmas. He partnered with an old college buddy, Miles Atchison, who sells seafood for Pacific Seafood out of Portland.
"He has been very helpful with advice on how to take this to market," Steve Treser said.
Treser Family Foods, the new company that the duo came up with, has successfully pitched its sauce to Ukrop's, which will soon begin selling it in the Roanoke store.
"Once we have an opportunity to evaluate sales of the product, we will certainly look at the possibility of offering it at other Ukrop's locations," said Susan Rowe, a spokeswoman for Ukrop's.
Treser said he and Atchison are also in negotiations with Giant Eagle, a large grocery store chain that serves Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. In addition, they hope to someday expand Camp Sauce into all 127 stores in Kroger's mid-Atlantic region.
Stello Foods in Punxatawney, Pa., is now manufacturing the sauce because it can produce higher volumes than Ashman, Treser said.
One of the most gratifying experiences for him has been getting e-mails from strangers who love the sauce. Some have said it replaced A-1 sauce in their refrigerator.
Because the Camp Sauce slogan is "Adds sweet zing to everything," Treser would like to next market a spicy version of the sauce called Campfire Sauce.
Its slogan will be: "Adds sweet heat to all you eat," he said.
The Treser youngsters have helped their father come up with these clever lines because they are, of course, the sauce's original fans.
"We have to keep Heidi from drinking it," Treser said. "Literally, she asks to drink it."
He says he couldn't have made the move without the patience and support of his wife, especially because it seemed like a rather wild idea at first.
"It has all been good," Katherine said. "And I have told Steve that I really appreciate our friends who might think that we are insane for doing this, but don't say that out loud to us."
Lindsey Nair's column runs in Wednesday's Extra.
