After returning from a consulting stint in South Sudan and quitting his job at a Boston executive search firm, Matt Gallira ’12 took inspiration from the dinners he would cook for friends and decided to start the Atlantic Ave. Company, a start-up that makes artisanal tomato sauce at a firehouse kitchen in Wayne, New Jersey.
Since its founding in 2013, the company has expanded to selling sauce in five stores in New Jersey and one in New York City, and takes online orders from as far away as Japan.
Gallira said that one of his first challenges was figuring out how to brand and differentiate his sauce, making it stand out in the already-crowded artisanal foods market.
He said he decided to focus on his specialty ingredients, including porcini mushrooms and pancetta, and his slow-cooking method that naturally caramelizes the tomatoes’ sugar.
“All these tomato sauces you buy in the store are cooked 500 gallons at a time, even the organic ones,” Gallira said. “They don’t really leverage the quality of those ingredients the right way.”
Gallira sold his first sauce on Black Friday, he said, standing outside the Garden State Mall’s Michael Kors outlet in an apron. While he felt out of place, the day was a success, he recalled.
Gallira said his friends’ support helped him get through the company’s earliest stages, adding that they gave him necessary “sanity checks.”
A few years ago, Gallira’s passion for cooking took a different form. Peter De Boursac ’12, a former roommate, recalled that his friend would cook dinner at Phi Delta Alpha fraternity for the whole house on Friday nights.
Trevor Chenoweth ’12, Gallira’s roommate in Phi Delt, said he thought the move made sense for Gallira given his earlier interest in entrepreneurship, recalling that Gallira had looked into starting a bar in college.
Citing the success of The Box food truck, Gallira said he feels that now is a good time for Dartmouth students to create their own start-ups.
De Boursac said he finds Gallira’s success with the Atlantic Ave. Company encouraging. While Gallira’s decision to quit his job to try something completely new might be unusual, he said, it has served him well.
Haley Sacks, a 2013 Wesleyan University graduate, first heard of the company last fall through a friend. Since then, she has shaped the company’s social media brand, though she works at the Late Show With David Letterman during the day and is paid only in sauce for her work at the Atlantic Ave. Company.
Sacks said her comedic experience has helped her create the company’s “whimsical” and “quirky” Twitter persona, adding that she is working to include more original content.
She said that while Gallira’s product is “old-timey,” unlike the technology-focused nature of many start-ups, he has created a strong social media presence.
“There are so many other tomato sauces you could buy, so the brand’s strategy matters a lot,” she said.
Gallira said he hopes to build the company into a regional brand, expanding his production to around 500 to 1,000 cases of a sauce each week.
“I sell expensive tomato sauce, so it needs to be in places where people are more conscious of the quality of the food they’re eating and less conscious of the price,” he said.
A one-quart jar sells for $8.99, while 24-ounce grocery-store brand jars can average between $2 and $4.
Gallira is optimistic about these plans, he said, especially as he will be featured at the Fancy Foods Show in New York this summer. The show brings together specialty food companies with distributors, and Gallira said his sauce scored highly during the selection committee for the show.
Gallira said that one of the challenges of expanding would be affording a kitchen of his own, which would cost around $50,000, and bringing on a paid partner.
Gallira is a former member of The Dartmouth business staff.
Sasha Dudding contributed reporting.
