“That was huge,” Salts said, “because the infrastructure didn’t really exist before, to help them grow.”
“I can’t keep up with demand,” said Miller, who sells his products on Amazon and in Whole Foods Market, among other places. Miller is now facing a chicken-and-egg dilemma: He doesn’t have the money to expand into a new manufacturing space to create more product, and he can’t sell more product to raise the money to do so.
Gabriel Echeverri with Mike Miller, who owns Madge’s Food Co., show some of the company’s products in 2017. Today, Madge’s Food Co. is maxed out at its manufacturing space, Miller said.One of his own mentors, Kyle Koehler, who with his wife, Kelli, founded, had to turn to Austin when they wanted to grow their grain-free granolas back in 2012. Austin had a thriving natural food scene, he said, as well as investors willing to get behind fledgling food companies.
In 2018, Tio Pelon’s was a finalist in H-E-B’s 2018 “Quest for the Best” competition and won accolades in that year’s Texas Salsa Festival.Shari Biediger / San Antonio Report