Posted on 02/21/2024 7:47:14 PM PST by nickcarraway
Tyla-Simone Crayton of Shark Tank fame, who started her Sienna Sauce at just 15 years old, recently suffered a setback when Target informed her that this spring its stores will no longer carry the condiment. The young entrepreneur and restaurant owner from Houston has been in the business for over five years, and she is now asking for help from the public.
In a post shared on social media, Simone and her mother, Monique thanked supporters of the brand and urged them to empty Target’s inventory before the stores pull the product out of the shelves. Monique said that it has been challenging for them to get off the shelves at Target and the stores in Texas are finally pulling them out.
As people rushed to support the now 20-year-old entrepreneur, Target stores went down from having 2,500 bottles of Sienna Sauce in inventory to 2,000, Fox26 reported.
"I'm so happy my community is coming together to help me in this vulnerable time," Tyla-Simone explains. "I just want to say thank you," smiles Tyla Simone.
"There are 2,000 bottles of Sienna Sauce left in Texas Target stores. I think with the community's support we can get that number down to zero. Target's probably going to be like how did this happen? Why didn't they do this before?" Simone’s mom said in the video.
This Black History Month, the mother and daughter duo are hoping that the people of Houston will buy every bottle of their product before the store stops selling it in April.
However, there is some good news for Simone, they now know that they will not have to buy back the remaining inventory as it will be donated.
Story of Seinna Sauce
Simone as a kid had “wings and wine Wednesdays” with her mom and her aunts in their apartment and on one such Wednesday, the duo set out to recreate their favorite wing sauce. They used “a bunch of random things” together and the resulting sauce was hit.
For years, the sauce was used only for family gatherings, but Simone begged her mom to let her sell it. It finally happened in 2017, when Crayton and her mom sold wings prepared with their signature sauce. Simone used social media and handed out fliers to get the word out.
Simone started the bottling business with $1,500 and the first product was called “Tangy”, which retailed for $9.95 (the same price it sells for now). The product turned out to be successful, and the business soon brought in about $48,000, Simone told CNBC.
Business began to pick up after Sienna Sauce caught the eye of a local television station which led to Simone’s TV debut. Sienna Sauce soon launched new flavors and the products were a huge hit. Monique then invested her life savings of $10,000 in the business. By the end of 2018, Sienna Sauce was being produced by a manufacturer which ramped up production. By 2019, Sienna Sauce started winning competitions including the Good Morning America side hustle contest in which Simone won $25,000.
Soon celebrity investors, including Grammy-award-winning rapper Hakeem “Chamillionaire” Seriki put their money into the business, through a crowd-funding platform. In total, Sienna Sauce raised about $200,000 from outside investors. However, in 2021, the business got a bit bigger boost when Simone and Monique appeared on an episode of ABC’s “Shark Tank,” landing a $100,000 investment from guest Shark Kendra Scott, for 20% of the company.
The products now sell for nearly $10 a bottle across 70 stores across the U.S. and in 2019, the business brought in $192,000 in revenue, according to Simone. Simone even opened her first brick-and-mortar restaurant in Missouri City, TX, just about 20 miles from Houston.
It can’t be all that great if it’s on the shelves and it’s not moving.
“It can’t be all that great if it’s on the shelves and it’s not moving.”
Details...
Shark Tank is crap, as apparently is her sauce. Figures they would bring “black history month” into it, as that is the only reason she got invited on that show to begin with
When a product or service focus on the race or sex of the owners, I am not interested.
You know how impossibly hard it is to get a new product on the shelves at stores like Target? It made the shelves and failed to catch on, that clearly says there’s a problem with the product. In other words, people don’t really dig the sauce. If they have 2500 bottles that aren’t selling then that’s a big problem for everyone involved on both sides.
Sorry black history month... This one ain’t much of a success after all.
True that... They're SO into virtue signaling on that show.
Well, 70 stores and sales of $192k is about 2700 bottles per store. 50 bottles a week on average. On the surface That’s not bad imo but perhaps the trajectory is sloping the wrong way. or maybe not good enough for Target. In just 70 stores, it sounds like they did a market test and for some reason Target decided not to expand the distribution to more stores. Perhaps because they are too small to support national sales or perhaps they sold a lot in the first few months but not a lot of repeat buys. But I’m just guessing at motives. These retailers treat small companies very capriciously. I know, over the years I’ve worked with many of them on several different brands and corporations have their own mentality. Sometimes they change buyers or change expectations or add more demands after the fact. It’s not easy for a small startup to get national recognition in a competitive field. Sauce is probably very competitive and dominated by a handful of mega-brands and maybe some brokers that represent an assortment of middling brands that negotiate for space - and pay promotional dollars and slotting fees and price off promotions etc. One small company has to fight hard a d jump a lot of different hurdles.
I love that it is gluten-free.
Target market tests products first. This was a tiny market test for them.
If the product doesn’t perform, they pull it.
If it does, they squeeze the daylights out of the manufacturer to maximize their profits and scale up as they keep the price pressure on.
Multiply by 100 new product tests per day. It’s their business model.
After all, they are potentially delivering a huge audience to the manufacturer.
Except Terrance Williams’s Pancake Mix!
Oh... You’re bad.
She should try for Lindell’s my store
Would such a sauce usually have gluten in it?
Website seems to only show nutritional info for one flavor even if I try to click another flavor still shows just sweet and tangy info. High in sugars. 12g for two table spoons of sauce.
Ingredients:
Water, Honey, Tomato paste, Tomato puree (Preservatives), Vinegar, Soy, Sugar, Hot Sauce, (water, peppers (arbol and piquin), salt, vinegar, spices, and xanthan gum) Mustard Flour, Worcestershire sauce (distilled white vinegar, molasses, sugar, water, salt, onions, garlic, cloves, tamarind extract, natural flavorings, chili pepper extract) Garlic powder, Onion powder, Pepper and Salt.
Legal Disclaimer:
Statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.
“bunch of random things such as sugar and salt. I would try it”
12 carbs in 2 tbsp. Yeah, I’d say it has sugar.
I agree. The initial entry into the market (very competitive) appears to have been hype and the extra ingredient of race-pandering/promotion.
You get free advertising, local interest stories, race pimping/promotion and cutsy stories coupled with crowd funding and the product languishes on the shelf after it all dies down. Why should Target be forced to continue to sell something that doesn’t sell? It would be different if Target has them as a captured vendor and they can’t distribute to other vendors but I don’t see that as the case here.
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