🚀 Your Weekly Slice of UK Consumer Startups #27

All Dressed Up is shaking up the dressing category. We make delicious, all natural salad dressings, designed to level up the everyday. 

It all started around my kitchen table. I’d made a simple tahini dressing to pair with roast chicken one evening, and the next day we used the leftover dressing to make a warm chicken & grains salad. My boyfriend (now husband!) messaged me the next day, saying he had a ‘business idea’ and that he thought I should start bottling and selling the dressings. He suggested the name All Dressed Up, and the rest was history!

It shaped the philosophy, as clients demanded a certain standard and quality of food. They wanted everything to be made from scratch without the nasties, so I’d often make simple dressings to elevate their meals whilst on set (they were actors, directors etc). They always seemed to enjoy dishes where I used ingredients such as miso, tahini and harissa, so these became staples when developing the dressings. They are flavours I love, and each has their own flavour personality.

When looking into the category, I was underwhelmed by how many supermarket dressings contained refined sugars, emulsifiers, water and preservatives. There was nothing as a consumer that I was excited about and wanted to try, so I felt that it was a ripe category for innovation. I’d seen other brands successfully disrupt other categories with high quality ingredients and innovation, such as cereal, beans and cooking sauces, so I thought, why not try and do the same with salad dressings!

There have certainly been a few challenges! I think one of the biggest challenges for me has been forecasting correctly as we’ve been growing so quickly. You don’t want to overproduce as it can be hugely damaging for cash flow, but if you underproduce, then you’re at risk of letting customers down. Re-ordering patterns can be unpredictable per customer and time of year, so it’s a constant challenge! I’ve learnt that you have to be agile, stay focussed and back yourself to grow at pace.

We’ve got lots of exciting things in the pipeline for next year. Coop and Waitrose have been our biggest launches to date, so we’ll be doing everything we can to support those launches and drive ROS, as well as nurturing our existing relationships in the farm shop and deli space. We’ll be popping up at some exciting events, working on some new products, new listings, and we have a very exciting collaboration on the cards (so stay tuned) for what’s to come!