Today we’d like to introduce you to Christopher Jane and Eduardo Garcia.
Montana Mex was founded on the idea of ‘eat well and stay smiling’ – everyone behind the brand believes in healthy active living and that all begins with eating well! Christopher is their co-founder and CEO, Eduardo is their co-founder and Chef.
When they looked at the condiments space they realized that ‘condiments just weren’t cutting it’ because they had so many added chemicals, known bad for you ingredients like High Fructose Corn Syrup and they felt that they could step in and make something that was tastier and better for you to add to your food! More and more people are spending money organic and clean label foods and then dousing them in ‘bad for you’ condiments – and they felt that needed to change.
Now they have a line of seven condiments – three seasonings, three sauces, and an avocado oil.
An interesting side note is that shortly after they founded Montana Mex, their co-founder and Chef Eduardo was injured in a bizarre event in the backcountry in Montana Mountains. This had a huge impact on their company and during this recovery they continued to build their brand and now they are delighted that Eduardo is in good health, Montana Mex has grown into a national brand and Eduardo’s story has been turned into a feature-length documentary called ‘Charged’ which has won multiple awards and is available on iTunes, Amazon and many other platforms – check it out!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has certainly not been a smooth road! Our co-founder being injured was a huge issue for the business but, of course, there were insane amounts of ups and downs as we built the company.
The US grocery market is extremely complex and that fact is that no one in the company as we started out had ever worked in this industry. We were effectively learning as well as growing the brand and that had pitfalls. We made some choices based on our ‘best understanding’ at the time which inevitably came back to bite us. It was a long time before we were funded enough to bring on key personnel who had a background in the industry, once we got to this stage things got a bit easier as we had someone key people on the team who really knew what they were doing and were able to guide us more. Our operations and sales really took off when we had incredible and educated people on the team to really streamline what we were trying to do and that’s when we really started to gain traction.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Montana Mex – what should we know?
We are known for ‘UNLEASHING THE DELICIOUSNESS’ with clean label good for your condiments. We have made all of our products free of chemicals, lower in sugar and salt than competitors but still amazing tasting! This brand is all about staying healthy to live an active and happy life and about knowing what you put in your body.
Read the label, Montana Mex condiments do not contain anything mom would disapprove of!
We also have an official partnership with the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) – following our co-founders injury when he became an amputee CAF was an outstanding support to us. As a team we realized that we should support CAF, having seen first hand the outstanding work they do! We started donating profits to them and supporting their cause – you can find out more about CAF at challengedatheles.org. Currently, we donate 5% of profits, attend CAF events and hand out deliciousness as well as feature CAF on our product packaging to help spread the word about this exceptional organization!
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
Montana Mex is run by three of the active co-founders Chef Eduardo Garcia, CEO Christopher Jane, CMO Jennifer Jane. Our COO Rebecca and our VP of Sales Sean are essential to the backbone of our brand, the rest of our teamwork across Texas, California and Montana to keep the day to day business running, from the planning, creating, designing, taste testing, distribution, accounting and everything in between, we have an outstanding team that works to keep Montana Mex ticking and we are so proud to have such an incredible team!
Pricing:
- All The Goodies – seven condiments – for $39.99 on our online store
Contact Info:
- Website: www.montanamex.com
- Instagram: @montanamex
- Facebook: facebook.com/montanamex
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