Molly Baz's Ayoh! Sauces Enter Whole Foods Market For Its First National Retail Partner
Ayoh! Foods cofounder chef Molly Baz
Ayoh! Foods
Seven short months of globbing onto countless sandwiches, and now one of the most notable CPG launches of the past year is making its strongest squeeze yet. Ayoh! Foods, the flavor-focused condiment company from chef Molly Baz, enters Whole Foods Market stores nationwide.
'[Ayoh!] is a colossal project,' Baz tells me. 'I am so grateful that people are chasing the product, recognizing its quality, and helping us get there so quickly.'
Ayoh! Foods also reveals that it has raised a $4.5 million seed round, $3.3 million of which is new cash, led by Imaginary Ventures.
In addition to its Dill Pickle, Hot Giardinayo and Tango Dijonayo varieties, Ayoh! will launch its flavored products on Whole Foods shelves with an exclusive flavor to the natural grocer, a brand new umami-rich flavor.
'I saw a white space in the marketplace,' Baz adds. 'I am committed to solving problems in the food industry and delivering deliciousness at all costs.'
Molly Baz
Ayoh! Foods
Sandwich Shop To Countertop
Jeff Mauro better make some room on the throne, because Baz keeps a close eye on each and every sandwich accoutrement possible. The venture for her particularly started during the pandemic. 'I became very sandwich obsessed,' she says. On her social media accounts, she's practically made condiments her entire personality, even starting a sandwich podcast where she would dissect the necessary minutia of the likes of tuna melts, BLTs and PB&Js.
Ayoh! Hot Giardinayo sando sauce
Ayoh! Foods
From a Philly cheesesteak to a Chicago hoagie to a reuben at a New York deli, there's personal pride in each corner of the country that makes people feel at home with their sandwich of choice. Ayoh! capitalizes on that. 'I'm a huge fan of Chicago style giardiniera,' Baz says about her inspiration behind her punchy pepper Hot Giardinayo sauce. 'When I stir this giardiniera into the mayo, all of a sudden the mayo becomes so much more dynamic.' Ayoh! is a practical extension of those beloved staples.
'We're really trying to bring that sandwich shop to countertop moment at home,' says Ayoh! Foods cofounder and CEO David McCormick.
That intention that the brand was founded on is working in real time. Baz has found that Ayoh! customers are not only using it in their homemade sandwiches, but they're bringing their deli-bought sandwiches home so that they can specifically squeeze Ayoh! onto it. 'For me,' she says, 'that's the ultimate success story of Ayoh!'
Not Just Another Celebrity Brand
Her pulsecheck that there was a vacuum specifically in 'dialed up, super bold-flavored, textured sando sauces,' as Baz puts it, seems to have been accurate, because consumers from the coasts to middle America are making it a staple in their homes. 'We sold out four months worth of inventory in two weeks,' says McCormick. 'It was almost 100,000 pounds of Mayo.' More than 170,000 bottles of Ayoh! have been sold since launch.
Ayoh! Tangy Dijonayo sando sauce
Ayoh! Foods
And Ayoh! has proven that it's not some coastal craze. 'Early indicators when we launched showed there's plenty of momentum in the Midwest…that's really important to us,' McCormick says. 'We'll win the day if we can actually be just as popular in Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee. The great thing is there's a lot of affinity for mayo throughout the US.' That's something rarely seen in celebrity brands, but Baz and McCormick have managed to unlock genuine authenticity. 'Nobody sat down in a room and looked at categories and thought about the gaps…Molly was like, 'some people I know make boring sandwiches.' It's just that easy.'
Ayoh's timely resonance also allowed the brand to raise a relatively quick seed round, the capital of which will go towards expanding the Ayoh! team, broadening brand presence, and facilitating wider distribution. '[Imaginary Ventures has]
Flavor And Format
While Ayoh! sells an original mayo, it will not be present on Whole Foods shelves, which already has a substantial assortment of original mayos. The flavors are at the core of the brand, and as Whole Foods Market's category merchant for shelf-stable condiments Juliana Bandin tells me, the retailer does not see any direct competitors. 'It fills a need for our shelves,' she says. [Flavored mayo]
'We are seeing double-digit growth since our most recent reset in March,' she adds. 'Brand launches like Ayoh! are going to help us continue the momentum.'
That momentum includes a brand new flavor in the Ayoh! lineup, which Baz calls a sweet and salty 'umami bomb.' It will be exclusive to Whole Foods through September.
Ayoh! Dill Pickle Mayo sando sauce
Ayoh! Foods
Between the squeezable, convenient format and flavors like Dill Pickle, Baz and McCormick have created a product that glides with the pace of culture. '[The Dill Pickle flavor] has this paradoxical moment of something that's so funky and strange, but also so delicious..it certainly has clout and its own cult following,' McCormick says. 'We don't take ourselves too seriously.'
Whole Foods Market has a keen finger on that same pulse, and it resonated with the grocer too–format now becoming a priority for the products they start to carry. 'I don't think the jar would have done it justice,' Bandin says. '[Whole Foods is] seeing growth substantially in dipping sauces…Going forward, that's going to be really big, but again that is for squeeze bottles. It all kind of ties back together to that same trend'
Ayoh!'s presence thus far has been limited to d2c, Amazon, and several hundred independent grocers. 'D2C has been tremendous,' McCormick says. 'We sold out four months worth of inventory in two weeks. It was almost 100,000 pounds of mayo…people will buy mayo online, much to my surprise,' McCormick says. The strategy here was to first activate Baz's fanbase before those who may not know her would discover it during a grocery outing.
It's a homecoming of sorts for McCormick as well; he started his career at Whole Foods at the store level and worked his way up to become Grocery Director in the Rocky Mountain region. 'I couldn't think of a more meaningful, fun place to bring that completely full circle,' he says. He and Baz even met through a mutual friend from Whole Foods before starting Ayoh! together.
The line of sando sauces is just the first of many that Ayoh! plans to penetrate the breadth of grocery stores with. 'Right now, Ayoh! is synonymous with our mayonnaises, but I think that there's a really bright, big ecosystem of food products that we build,' Baz says. 'I'm hoping that Ayoh's future looks like Heinz or Kraft Foods.'
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