How this couple turned a distaste for food waste into a salsa business
When Lysanne Bourret and Pierre-Olivier Gendron graduated from university in 2020 and started their first jobs—Bourret in social media marketing and Gendron in sales— it didn’t take long for the Montreal-based couple to feel dismayed by their nine-to-fives. “We realized quite quickly that it wasn’t going to fit us,” Gendron explains. “We needed to do something we truly cared about, something that motivated us a little bit more than selling a product that didn’t represent our core values.”
The couple met back in 2014 while working as servers at an Italian restaurant in Montreal, so it made sense they would turn their thoughts to starting a food business. After discovering tomatoes are the most-wasted food item, Gendron and Bourret became focused on creating a product using the popular fruit. In 2021, the couple began tinkering with recipes and landed on a salsa recipe that earned rave reviews from family and friends. Soon afterwards, they decided to start a salsa business named Pretty Ugly, with mild, medium and spicy varieties.
Gendron quit his sales job and picked up part-time serving again, which allowed more flexibility to dedicate to their burgeoning business, while Bourret continued her social media marketing job. Finding farmers and distributors to partner with was easy for the pair. “There are so many tomatoes to save,” Bourret says. “We always pay for our tomatoes, so we can put value in tomatoes that people say are ugly.”
In early 2022, Gendron spoke with a restaurant industry friend about their plans to start a salsa business. The restaurateur loved their vision, and to help, he gave the couple the use of his restaurant for free on Sundays when it was closed. “We asked family and friends to help us make salsa on a Sunday afternoon,” Gendron recalls. “We were working 12-hour days making 200 jars.” They began selling them at Montreal’s Jean-Talon Market, along with about 10 independent stores around the city. Then, a few months later, IGA came calling. “They said: Are you ready to sell in 300 IGAs across Quebec?” says Gendron. “We went from producing 200 jars of salsa to having 18,000 jars ready for that first order.”
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After partnering with a co-packer to help them produce their salsas en-masse, Pretty Ugly made its Quebec IGA launch with the three salsas in August 2022. A few months later, the couple added a handful of IGA locations in Atlantic Canada to their roster.
Pretty Ugly had an exclusivity agreement with IGA for its first year in business, so instead of pursuing new grocers, Bourret and Gendron focused on developing a complementary product to their salsas: corn chips. “We make them with upcycled spent grains—what the breweries leave behind when they make beer,” explains Gendron. The corn chips launched in June 2023.
After their non-compete contract with IGA was over, Bourret and Gendron partnered with more retailers, notably Metro and health and wellness retailer Healthy Planet. Another big win for the couple was landing an agreement with Whole Foods Market—their products will be in 14 stores across Canada as of September 2024. That same month, Pretty Ugly will launch in about 30 Farm Boy stores, too. “It keeps getting more and more popular by the week,” Bourret says.
Going into business with your significant other is no easy feat. But, for Bourret and Gendron, they never doubted their ability to succeed as a team. “We worked together in the restaurant industry before,” says Gendron. “We know we can handle a lot of stress.” In the beginning, the couple found it difficult to split up tasks, but gradually found a rhythm. “Pierre-Olivier and I have the same type of personality, so we wanted to do everything together,” Bourret explains. “But, I’m better at marketing and communications and Pierre-Olivier is better at the money stuff and logistics.”
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In May, Bourret finally quit her full-time social media marketing job. A month later, Gendron quit his serving gig. Now, the couple is focusing all their energy on building the Pretty Ugly business. They’ll need to; Bourret and Gendron plan to launch two products this year: a jalapeno cheddar chip and another tomato-based sauce—moves they hope will help with their goal of expanding into more stores across Canada and, eventually, the United States. It’s risky, but the couple couldn’t imagine doing it any other way.
“It’s been an incredible ride,” Gendron explains. “To have a good impact on the environment and helping farmers, we wouldn’t trade it for any other thing in the world right now. It’s super fulfilling.”
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s August issue.
