Startup CPG: Founder Friday Feature

Meet Lottie’s Meats: the sister-owned and chef-crafted pork-sausage brand

For Lottie's Meats founders and sisters Chelsey and Cassie, their pork sausage brand is a family business through and through. Cassie says, “We grew up on a 6th generation-family pork farm and our whole goal is to reintroduce pork and bring it back to the dinner table in a new and more meaningful way. We make a diverse range of premium flavorful, unique pork sausages and expertly seasoned ground pork blends made from all-natural premium ingredients and sourced from the family farm we grew up on.”

That said, though the sisters grew up on a pork farm, founding a pork sausage brand wasn’t always on their vision board. Their parents always encouraged them to explore their unique skills and interests, leading Chelsey to pursue a career in culinary while Cassie went into the tech world. After 2020, however, they both began to reconsider their demanding jobs. Chelsey says, “I wanted to start a family with my husband, so I needed to take back. I knew I didn't want to leave culinary because I love the creative outlet, but I also couldn't be in a kitchen for twelve-hour days.” Chelsey had already begun sourcing pork from her family’s farms for the restaurant she was working at at the time, where, she says, “Some of the idea [for Lottie’s] originated. I was using a lot of pork loin and shoulder cuts, and I decided to start making my own sausages.” Still, Chelsey knew she couldn’t start a business alone, so she reached out to Cassie with the idea — What if we start a pork sausage brand?

Cassie was immediately interested. She says, “We grew up eating a lot of pork, but when we talked to our friends and family, pork had a bad rap, and not a lot of people weren’t eating it.” The more the sisters talked about the state of the pork industry, the more they realized, “We're the ones to do this,” Cassie says. So, in 2023, they started working on a business plan, asking, what would it take to make this happen? And in 2024, they officially launched Lottie’s Meats in Denver, Colorado.

Dispelling consumer misconceptions about pork

As consumers have become more conscious about what they’re eating, many have grown suspicious of processed meats such as pork sausage. But with Lottie’s, Cassie and Chelsey are working to undo some of pork’s bad rap. Cassie explains, “We're open to showing people how the sausage is made...Pork is an excellent source of vitamins and nutrients. It's just often overly processed on a mass scale. With [Lottie’s] we're only using the best cuts. We use pork loin and pork shoulder to get a higher protein, and we pair it with high-quality spices and unique recipes.”

 

Beyond the sausage itself, Cassie and Chelsey also aim to differentiate Lottie’s with their push for sustainability. Cassie says,  “We are trying to be responsible and offset our impact as much as possible. There's ample opportunity to use the entire animal, and you can leave less behind with pigs. There are also lower emissions than beef or lamb. We do a lot of upcycling and we're 1% for the planet members.”

 

That said, Chelsey explains, “No change in the big meat industry is going to happen overnight. Cassie and I are trying to do as much as possible to move the needle slightly. That's why we’re sourcing our pigs from only a certain number of farms that we know are open-pen gestation…We’re focused on slowly moving the needle and improving the economics of the family farms that we work with and trying to encourage best practices.”

Finding a co-packer and driving trial

One of the (many) challenges that comes with entering the meat industry, is dealing with USDA regulations, which require them to work with a USDA-certified co-packer. Chelsey says, “We have to work with a USDA-certified inspected facility, and surprise, there are not thousands of them. We pulled up a list of places across the US, and we started cold calling. It took over a year of searching for the right person. When you're starting, a lot of bigger guys won't take you on. But we knew we wanted to grow, and with Cassie's expertise and marketing abilities, we have been able to scale quite quickly. Now we're at that awkward point where we're right in the middle — we're too big for the small guys, and we're too small for the big guys. It's constantly evolving.”

Though challenging to find the right co-packer, Cassie and Chelsey say that starting their business with a co-packer turned out to be a blessing. Chelsey says, “It has forced us to get the product out there onto shelves very quickly, but it also freed up some of our time. We can do [events] every week if we want to. We're able to put our hands in a lot of cookie jars because the product is already made, and I'm not working away in a kitchen all day.”

The duo says yes to just about every event that comes their way, as Cassie explains “It’s a product that we need to drive trials so people can understand and taste and say, ‘wow, this is different.’ We probably say yes to more things than we should, but we're trying to get out there as much as possible.” Beyond in-person events, Lottie’s channels are split across retail, food service, and a bit of direct-consumer. They began in Denver, where Chelsey is based, but have recently expanded to select retailers in New York.

Advice for fellow founders

“I have told everyone they need a Cassie,” Chelsey says. “I knew my capacity before we started Lottie's, and I knew I couldn’t do it alone. Cassie also introduced me to Startup CPG and listening to all of the podcasts was incredible. I’ve had to learn that it's okay to ask for help — it's okay to use other resources. Don't limit yourself because you're too scared to ask.”

Cassie continues, “I don't think we would have had the confidence if there weren't so many resources. And I say resources in terms of knowledge, not capital. There's such a great community. For a while, I was trying to talk to a founder at least once a week because you just don't know what you don't know when you're starting a brand.”

Cassie also urges fellow founders to define what success means to them. She says, “Now that we have a few months [in business], we're more informed about how tough the industry can be. For instance, Chelsea and I are not striving to be in national conventional retail right now. We love community building, so we’re asking, ‘How do we stay true to what we love but also be successful?”

Though they both left demanding jobs to begin Lottie’s, the workload, Cassie explains, “has been way more than we anticipated.” That said, she says, “It has also been really fun. Not to say every day is always fun because there are countless challenges, especially when it comes to production. But it doesn't feel like the traditional work I'm used to because you're wearing so many different hats every day.”

Chelsey, who is now a Mom, says, “It's very much like parenting. Even though it's the hardest job I've ever done, it's also the most rewarding. It has been amazing to put a product out there that we both can stand behind and say this is from us and our family. And it is also so cool that I get to do it all with my sister.”