Saucy internship leads to business

BY MICHAEL J. RUDOLF

Wyoming County Press Examiner

Two Misericordia University students, including an Elk Lake grad, have taken their internship project and are turning it into their own business.

Dustin Watts of Montrose is a marketing student, while Tom Boffa of Middletown, N.Y., is studying business administration. They've teamed up to market spaghetti sauce, and are now trying to sell it in Wyoming County.

Boffa's father and grandfather own an Italian restaurant in Middletown, N.Y., called Tony Boffa's. His grandfather started the business after emigrating from Italy in 1947, and developed his own special tomato sauces. The restaurant has a huge following, and many of its customers have asked to purchase the sauce.

Boffa said he wants a career in the food industry, but has no desire to work in the family restaurant. Marketing the sauce seemed like the logical route.

"I wanted to use my college degree in the food business, but not in the restaurant itself," he said.

Boffa approached his classmate, Watts, about using his marketing skills to sell the sauce on the retail level.

"It's finally starting to take off," Watts said. "We've been pushing it and it's starting to sell."

Until now, the two have been selling Tony Boffa's Sauce primarily in upstate New York, in areas not far from the restaurant. They've averaged a case a week, and with the success they've had in that region, they decided to spread out further.

"In March we had a boom in sales - 48 cases," Boffa said.

The two explained that Boffa's grandfather's sauce is made with all natural ingredients, with no added sugar or salt.

"All of the salt that's in it is from the ingredients," Watts explained.

"We actually have the lowest sodium on the market for a packaged sauce," Boffa added.

Currently the sauce comes in two varieties, original tomato and marinara. They are developing a meat sauce and pasta fagioli.

Using the sauce in the restaurant was one thing. Selling it in jars was quite another, Boffa said.

"It's such a long process before you can actually jar the product," he said.

Boffa's father and grandfather prepare the sauce at a food packaging plant in New York's Hudson Valley. They were required to make test batches under the eye of state and federal regulators. Then samples of the product were sent to a lab at Cornell University for testing, to verify the listing of ingredients and their nutritional value.

With that work completed, the two students took to the streets, quite literally.

Being a small business, they said they have to go to retailers one by one to see if they will carry the product.

"We're basically knocking on doors," Boffa said.

Because chain stores have contracts and stocking fees and other factors, Watts and Boffa said they've had their greatest success with independent retailers. So far in this area, Fitze's Department Store in Tunkhannock has agreed to carry the sauce, but the young entrepreneurs are looking for other markets as well.

The key to selling the sauce is the taste, Boffa said. They try to get merchants to sample the product before making a decision.

"We try to get it in their mouth. If they can taste it, nine times out of 10 they like it," Boffa said.

The two are also taking the product directly to the public, hoping demand will encourage retailers to stock it.

"We do a lot of demos. It pretty much sells itself," Watts said.

Watts and Boffa plan to have a stand at this year's Tunkhannock Founders' Day, giving out samples and selling jars.

They also have a larger vision for sales. The two are scheduled to sell the sauce on the QVC cable network in the summer of 2010, once they have enough product to meet the network's minimum requirements.

Watts and Boffa haven't developed a wholesale or delivery system yet, so they are doing all that themselves. They said if someone tries the sauce and really wants to order some, they'll find a way to get it there.

"I would do the footwork and bring it," Boffa said.

Although this is technically a college product, Boffa and Watts said they are making money off it. And once they graduate, they plan to continue to sell the product under a company they call Tony Boffa's Specialty Foods.

"If this takes off, why not continue," Watts said.

"We could do this the rest of our lives," added Boffa.