Imagine a pasta sauce that uses no tomatoes.
Sounds impossible you say?
Well you need look no further than Nomato.
Nomato may be used as substitute in any recipe calling for tomato sauce, barbeque sauce, ketchup or salsa.
Nomato is made from a combination of root vegetables and seasonings. It contains no soy, dairy, wheat, gluten, nuts and of course no tomatoes.
We talked with Judy Savage of Nomato about her product.
Q – Judy what is your position in the company?
A – I am the owner of the company and I am the sole employee of the co.
Q – The sole employee?!
A – Yes. (Laughs). At this point.
Q – Does that mean you make every jar of sauce yourself?
A – I don’t actually personally make manufacture the sauce. We have what’s called a co-packer and they are a professional manufacturing facility that is registered with the FDA and inspected and they are also third party audited with what’s called Global Food Safety Innovated Audited to make sure they’re doing things correctly. They also have non-gmo and kosher and organic certification capabilities all of which allow me to scale my product for whatever size sales we have.
Q – Are you in the facility when the sauce is being made to maintain some kind of quality control or do you just trust the people making it to do their job?
A – Well, some of each. When I first started I used to go with that particular company and go in at the beginning of every production run and test the batches with them. They set up quality control parameters. They have a quality control department. What we do now is for every batch they run they set aside a jar for me to check. But, I shouldn’t have to be there if they’re doing their job properly.
Q – But, from time to time you should probably be there to make sure they’re doing their job every day.
A – Well, we don’t manufacture every day. We manufacture several times a year in large enough batches that when people place orders we can fulfill the orders.
Q – Is it a time-consuming process to make the sauce?
A – Its more time-consuming than a traditional tomato sauce would be because we have to cook the vegetables until they are soft before we combine them to make the smooth texture. So, it takes longer and that makes it a little more costly and because it isn’t tomatoes it doesn’t make it cost a little more. It uses more energy and time to get the product right.
Q – I saw the price of no Nomato Sauce online. Walmart sells it for $28.99 and Amazon sells it for $22.99. I’ve never seen it on the shelves of Walmart by the way.
A – That’s just their mail order only. It’s not actually in Walmart stores. I don’t know how much you is actually sold that way because I sell it to a wholesaler who then sells it using the Amazon in Walmart platform.
Q – What is the marketplace for your sauce? Who’s buying your sauce?
A – Who’s buying our sauce is people who can have or don’t want tomatoes for various reasons. These are people that may have a gluten intolerance, silly ask disease. They may have an autoimmune condition. They may have rheumatoid arthritis, an inflammatory condition, certain types of chemotherapy. When we do food shows which we haven’t done as many in person shows since Covid, but at every event that I attended personally I always meet someone, sometimes more than one person who tells me about a condition they have, why they can’t have tomatoes. It could have to do with the acid, but, there are allergies. There’s just a host of different things that eliminating tomatoes might make their situation better or help their condition.
Q – And there must be enough of those people around support your business then.
A – Yes. It’s growing all the time. It’s not a huge growth but, it steady and I can manage steady. So, that’s good. The price point is high because of the mail order cost. The cost to ship it is fairly significant because its 24 ounces of product in a glass jar and we want to pack it properly so it arrives intact in good condition for our customers.
Q – Does the cost of Nomato include shipping?
A – The Amazon price includes shipping. That’s an Amazon prime price. I believe that’s the same with the Walmart price. Now, if you go into individual stores and were in over 50 independent markets, mostly on the East Coast, but in other places around the country, the price will be lower because you’re not paying for the shipping in the same way.
Q – Would you be in a supermarket like Wegmans or Price Chopper?
A- Not yet, but I would hope to be in there someday, but were not in there yet. Right now were mostly in independent health food stores and independent markets.
Q – How do you compete with lower-priced sauces?
A – Well, we are in a little bit different category because our customers are looking to avoid the tomatoes. They’re trying to avoid the chemicals in the tomatoes. They’re trying to avoid nightshade vegetables perhaps which tomatoes are part of, the group of vegetables that are called “nightshade” that can be irritating for some people. So, it’s an advantage to them because instead of taking hours to try and make the sauce they can have a jar on their shelf. Just open it and prepare meals that they used to make with tomatoes that they might not be able to have any more. So, tomato soup, you can make Nomato soup. Chili, pasta sauce or pizza. You can use it on any dish pretty much that calls for tomatoes. You can substitute Nomato.
Q – Who thought of starting this company?
A – It was my mother. My mother started it because of my daughter. My daughter was having a had a sensitivity or an allergy reaction to tomatoes and quite a number of other foods. As a small child she couldn’t have, and she still can’t have soy, beef, dairy, actually any red meat and a number of other things. I rough fruits. She can’t have rough fruits. She’s grown now, but at the time it a very limited diet we could give her. She would be eating her pasta without sauce and her french fries without ketchup and watching her brothers dipping their french fries and catch up. My mother wished there was something she could do to help my daughter. So she started on making sauce and also help me because I’d be cooking two different dinner sometimes to make a meal she could eat and then a meal for the rest of the family.
Q – How is your daughter today?
A – Well, she still uses Nomato sauce and she does not use a lot of tomatoes. I think she can tolerate a small amount of tomatoes now, but for the most part if she wants to make a pasta sauce or soup or anything that calls for quantity shall use Nomato sauce. But a lot of the other allergies are still there. She still can’t have animal milk or protein, or beef.
Q – Are you aware of any famous people who are using Nomato sauce?
A – I don’t know of any famous people but I do know of famous people who can’t have tomatoes. I know that Ariana Grande can’t have tomatoes and I also know there’s a football player who recommends people don’t eat tomatoes to improve their performance as an athlete. Tom Brady does not use tomatoes or any nightshade vegetables I believe. I have quite a few customers that are college or after college athletes that use our product because they’re trying to avoid tomatoes and they feel it improves their recovery after strenuous exercise and it improves their performance.
Q – Do you have any competition?
A – There are some similar products but we believe ours is best.
Q – That’s the way you have to think!
A – Actually we’ve done comparisons. Our product has zero added sugar in our marinara sauce. It also has a lot of body. It’s six so you can water it down versus some of the other products that are thinner and you end up having to cook them down if you needed something thick. It makes a great additive and it’s great on pizza because it’s already heavy and has some body to it.
Q – I can see Nomato sauce being the subject of the history channels ”The Food That Built America”.
A – Well, thank you. That’s nice of you to say.
Official website: nomato.com
