• by Joe Mandese , 8 hours ago

The first time I experienced a super-premium packaged food brand was as a teenager growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s, when a friend asked me if I wanted to get some “Häagen-Dazs.” As exotic as the name sounded, it was actually a local, Bronx-family-run brand that distributed its products via special freezers installed in bakeries in the Bronx.

Back then, the ice cream brand only had three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and rum raisin and honey. After my first bite, I fell in love. I had never tasted a packaged ice cream -- or arguably any other food product -- like it before, because it contained the one ingredient that was usually missing from commercial products: love.

As readers probably well know, it's now a global brand owned by Froneri and General Mills, and has since spawned a cottage industry of super-premium packaged ice cream brands, including Vermont-based Ben & Jerry’s.

Some years ago, I discovered another local, family-owned Vermont-based packaged foods brand quite by accident while shopping at my local Costco. This time, it was a jarred tomato sauce brand called Dell’Amore, whose tagline initially made me wince: “Born In Italy. Made In Vermont.” Vermont? I tried it anyway and fell in love, because just like my first bite of Häagen-Dazs, I could taste the love that went into the product.

I immediately started buying it by the case, and am embarrassed to admit that I sometimes passed it off to friends and family as my own. Truth is, I make a pretty decent “gravy,” because like Dell’Amore Enterprises President Frank Dell’Amore, I learned how to make it at the hand of my grandmother.

A photo of his grandmother Filomena graces the label of every jar the company makes, and if you open one, I guarantee you will think she made that batch just for you. Mangia!

I’m writing this as a column on MediaPost’s CPG Insider, because it’s also a great marketing story about a family-owned CPG brand that had to pivot when Costco stopped distributing it, built its own ecommerce site, and learned to market direct.

As testament to the love I feel for the brand, when my local Costco stopped carrying it, I searched online and found I could buy it direct. I've been doing that for several years since, even though it wasn’t always frictionless. On a few occasions when Dell’Amore ran a promotion, I tried using the discount code and it failed, so I ended up processing it via email. More recently, I received a phone call from Frank Dell’Amore to take my credit card number over the phone. We ended up talking about our grandmothers, sauce, Italian food, and why I loved his brand so much.

“Could you write a testimonial on our website,” he asked.

“Well, I’m a journalist,” I replied, “How about I write a column instead?”

To be honest, the Dell’Amore brand still is going through some growing pains. It needs to update its commerce platform and expand its marketing. The video I uploaded and embedded below was the first created by Frank, in his own voice, but you can hear the pride and the love he feels for his product.

“The love that Frank and his family put into it is pretty amazing, and it shows,” says Dan Feeley, a now retired serial entrepreneur and former CFO of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, a brand that went through a similar trajectory.

Feeley has been advising Dell’Amore ever since he bumped into Vermont neighbor Frank and also fell in love with the brand.

In fact, he’s currently helping it develop a more structured subscription service and exploring new ideas for marketing it direct-to-consumer. All out of love for a product he had already become a super fan of even before he knew it.

“When I told my wife about meeting with Dell’Amore,” Feeney said, “She told me, 'that’s the only sauce I use. It’s the sauce you love, Dan.'”