Oct 23, 2023 · 1h 35m · how-i-built-this
Sir Kensington's: Scott Norton and Mark Ramadan
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In this episode of How I Built This, Guy Raz interviews Sir Kensington's co-founders Scott Norton and Mark Ramadan about how they challenged Heinz's condiment monopoly, survived near-failure by expanding into mayonnaise, and achieved a $140 million acquisition by Unilever.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 30.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 4.5 Guest teaching 4.0 Guest disagreement 1.3 Guy pushing back 1.7
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:31:55 Mark dismisses Gladwell ketchup monopoly theory
Mark emphatically rejects Guy's suggestion that Heinz represents the unbeatable apex of flavor, calling the premise ridiculous and attributing category dominance purely to habit and distribution.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 23:59 Guy challenges founders on not launching immediatelyGuy refuses to let Scott gloss over their hesitation, pointedly pressing why they walked away to corporate jobs despite breaking even and building immediate brand traction.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 45:15 Mark educates host on specialty vs grocery trapMark clearly illustrates the critical structural difference between high-priced occasional specialty goods and high-velocity everyday natural grocery staples.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:08:45 Guy Raz demonstrates technical culinary knowledgeGuy jumps in to detail the exacting mandolin technique and dual-temperature frying needed to make pommes souffl e, earning immediate culinary props from Scott.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Power of Storytelling and the Ketchup Challenge | 6 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Guy Raz frames the episode by unpacking Malcolm Gladwell's famous thesis on Heinz's market dominance and the psychology of brand storytelling. The founders provide brief introductory color on their backgrounds. | |
| Meeting at Brown University and Contrasting Backgrounds | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Scott and Mark discuss meeting at Brown University, contrasting Scott's creative inclinations with Mark's structured academic focus. | |
| The Creperie Pitch and Food Innovation Landscape | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Guy asks about challenging Gladwell's premise, and Mark firmly explains why food entrepreneurs view brand connection and dining context as just as critical as flavor chemistry. | |
| Defining the Anti-Heinz Brand Identity | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Scott details constructing the Sir Kensington persona and deliberate anti-Heinz design choices like wide-mouth glass jars. Guy jokingly pushes on historical accuracy regarding corn syrup. | |
| Kitchen Prototyping and 'Kensington Kisses' | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The founders describe their hazardous home prototyping sessions, dubbing boiling sauce splatter 'Kensington kisses' before testing recipes at a student party. | |
| Sourcing Square Jars and the Providence Wrap Party | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Mark humorously explains buying square glass jars without lids and improvising bottling with a cut Gatorade bottle for their wrap party. | |
| Senior Year Reflections and Startup Ambitions | 5 | 3 | 1 | 4 | Guy presses the founders on why they did not commit immediately after breaking even. Scott explains that physical product startups seemed obsolete compared to the prevailing tech boom. | |
| The Skadden Arps Prank and Meeting Wynn Bennett | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Scott recounts sending a spoof legal letter from Skadden Arps to the student newspaper, which caught junior classmate Wynn Bennett's eye and led to their first co-packer connection. | |
| Defining Co-Founder Roles and Seed Financing | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Mark outlines the friction involved in renegotiating equity splits when he became the first full-time founder, and describes receiving pallets of ketchup at his New York apartment. | |
| Fancy Food Show Debut and High-End Retail Push | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Mark and Scott recount pitching in three-piece suits in sweltering heat at the Fancy Food Show, earning entry into Dean & DeLuca and setting a $2.5M seed valuation. | |
| Manufacturing Hurdles: The Kosher Label Debacle | 5 | 6 | 2 | 3 | Scott tells the story of sharpie-blacking thousands of kosher logos, while Mark schools Guy on why high price points create specialty traps instead of everyday grocery staple velocity. | |
| Whole Foods Launch and the Food Service Strategy | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | The founders detail breaking into Whole Foods and pitching high-end NYC restaurants to use their branded condiment jars as an organic marketing billboard. | |
| The Economics of Food Service vs. Retail Expansion | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Scott explains the adverse economics of restaurant ketchup where higher unit costs reduce margins directly, contrasting it with retail gross-dollar margins. | |
| Pivoting to Mayonnaise and Category Expansion | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | Scott and Mark explain how launching clean-label mayonnaise rescued the business from sluggish ketchup sales, while Guy playfully counters on how simple homemade mayo is. | |
| Mayonnaise Surge and Modernizing Ketchup Packaging | 4 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Scott admits they ate humble pie when moving from fancy glass scooping jars to standard squeeze bottles substantially increased ketchup velocity. | |
| Sponsor Break: Eight Sleep and Rocket Money | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Mid-roll commercial break featuring ads for Eight Sleep and Rocket Money. | |
| In-Store Field Demos and Scaling Whole Foods Sales | 4 | 5 | 1 | 1 | Mark and Scott explain why they avoided digital ad spend, directing capital into relentless in-store grocery demos that made them Whole Foods' most active sampling brand. | |
| Guerilla PR: The Museum of French Fries Pop-Up | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Scott shares the success of their $75k French Fry Museum stunt, and Guy demonstrates deep culinary knowledge regarding the preparation of pommes souffle. | |
| Growing Pains and the 'Two-Headed Hydra' Leadership Crisis | 4 | 5 | 2 | 2 | Mark and Scott reflect on executive growing pains as a confusing 'two-headed hydra' and how Mark resisted board pressure to fire Scott outright. | |
| The Difficult Conversation and Co-Founder Sabbatical | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Scott recounts the sting of being asked to step away at their usual 'firing restaurant', followed by Mark going on paternity leave the exact same week. | |
| A Cabin in the Woods and Rebuilding Company Culture | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Scott describes his sabbatical cabin retreat where he drafted the company's core mission values and re-entered the business in an energized role. | |
| The Decision to Sell: Sir Kensington's $140 Million Exit | 5 | 5 | 2 | 2 | The co-founders reflect on selling to Unilever for $140M amidst Kraft Heinz takeover maneuvers, and navigating culture shock and lost psychological safety during integration. | |
| Co-Founders Move On: Hu Chocolate and New Ventures | 5 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Mark recounts resigning while Mickey Mouse visited their Disneyland breakfast, moving on to scale Hu Chocolate before its Mondelez buyout, while Scott reflects on ketchup being discontinued. | |
| Re-evaluating Malcolm Gladwell's Ketchup Theory | 5 | 5 | 4 | 3 | Guy asks if Gladwell's ketchup monopoly theory was ultimately proven correct. Both founders strongly push back, asserting monopolies stem from marketing inertia rather than unbeatable recipes. |
Statements from this episode (44)
Guy Raz: Heinz Sold $10.5 Billion of Ketchup in 2010
“Anyway, in 2010, the year Mark Ramadan and Scott Norton decided to start a ketchup brand, Heinz sold 10 and a half billion dollars of the stuff.”
Raz: Global ketchup market exceeds $20B annually, with Heinz holding 50%
“We humans consume more than twenty billion dollars worth of ketchup a year, and half of it? Heinz.”
Raz: Sir Kensington's sold over 2.5M jars by 2015
“And by 2015, the two founders had sold over two and a half million jars of product.”
Norton: There had been no innovation in ketchup in 70 years
“There had been no innovation in ketchup in 70 years, and every other category of culture and of food had change, and so really it was, we saw this open space as an invitation to create something.”
Ramadan: Product formula alone does not determine food market dominance
“I think when we read this as food people, it didn't make sense to us that the only thing that matters to market dominance is the formula of a product. Of course it's not. That takes zero account of how people think about brand, how people discover brands, how …”
Norton: Previous Heinz rivals failed by copying its packaging and positioning
“But every other ketchup out there would copy Heinz, the market leader, on the packaging, the materials, the brand positioning. It looked like a copycat, right? It was Heinz, but less so.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's rejected founder-led naming to build an immersive world
“We were totally sure we were not going to call it Scott and Mark's ketchup. Like, to us, that was totally boring. We wanted to come up with something that was so radically interesting and different, and was a world that people could inhabit.”
Mark Ramadan: Industrial Ketchup Is Made From Rehydrated Paste
“The way ketchup is made industrially is pretty difficult to replicate at home, because it's essentially a rehydrated paste.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's founders initially thought physical products weren't viable startups
“We never thought this would be a viable business because Everybody starting companies around us, if they were starting companies, it was like Facebook and social networks, right? Like we didn't think that a physical products business was like a viable startup …”
Scott Norton Forged a Skadden Arps Legal Letter for Campus PR
“We used fake letterhead for the law firm Skadden Arps, and we wrote a letter to the Brown Daily Herald, the campus newspaper, accusing them of stealing Sir Kensington's recipe as a way to get the newspaper's attention”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's initial checks came from founders' parents
“And I think the very first check into the business was my parents, and then Scott's parents, and a few other people who were very close to, and that allowed us to order this minimum run”
Norton: Sir Kensington's set seed valuation at $2.5 million
“We were going to raise at one million a valuation, and then I met with someone who said you should raise at ten million, and I said ten million seems crazy, and so Mark and I agreed on two and a half.”
Sir Kensington's originally split equity equally at 25% across four founders
“When we first incorporated the business, none of us were full-time. I believe it was 2009, and so I say it was easy in the sense that there were four of us, so it was You know, 25% all around.”
Norton: Once you give equity to someone, you cannot take it away
“Once you give someone something, you cannot take it away. The experience of having it being taken away is a very difficult emotional experience at that point.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's Sharpied out kosher logos on first Williams-Sonoma run
“So we sat there with a Sharpie and we put a dot over every single kosher logo on every single label for that first run that we had for William Snow.”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's ketchup launched at nine dollars per jar
“When we launched in stores, they hit the shelf at nine dollars.”
Ramadan: Moving from specialty to natural brand perception is difficult
“And when you become a specialty brand, it can be really hard to change people's perceptions into your natural brand.”
Mark Ramadan: Restaurants Account for 70% of US Ketchup Volume
“70% of ketchup by volume is consumed on premise in the U.S. At restaurants.”
Ramadan: High-end restaurant distribution serves as both revenue and marketing
“If we could be the first ones to really break through, not everywhere, but at some select, very famous, in the spotlight restaurants, hotels, This is an opportunity to have a revenue channel that actually serves also as a marketing channel.”
Ramadan: Food service was never the majority of Sir Kensington's revenue
“It was never the majority of our revenue in part because it was so difficult. It was not a scaled strategy.”
Norton: Premium condiments increase grocery profits but squeeze restaurant margins
“The fundamental difference of the business of a retailer and a restaurant is that for a retailer, when they buy a product, if it's more expensive, then that actually means that there's more profit for them when they sell it. The opposite is really true with a …”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's raised roughly three rounds in its first three years
“That 250,000 that we had raised up front lasted us probably about a year. Until we needed to raise again, and then we raised, I think it was maybe just shy of a million in the second round, and I think we did three rounds over the course of three, the first th…”
Norton: Mayonnaise quickly grew to 60% of Sir Kensington's sales
“And we did that and launching the mayonnaise transformed our business nearly overnight. Now, 50% of our sales are mayonnaise. Now, 60% of our sales are mayonnaise.”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's used double the egg yolk of industrial mayonnaise
“And the reason that our mayo tastes thick and creamy and dense and like a culinary mayo is we don't pump air or nitrogen into it. And we use almost double the amount of egg yolk that a more industrial mayo would use because that's all we could do at our scale.”
Ramadan: Mayonnaise buyers lacked the diehard brand loyalty Heinz commanded in ketchup
“Our experience pretty quickly was that, especially the natural food shoppers, they weren't really buying Hellman's and Best Foods anyway, because they perceived it to be gross for whatever reason. And so it was an opportunity to actually say, well, here's a hu…”
Norton: Sir Kensington's created the first successful flavored grocery mayonnaises
“And because mayonnaise carries flavors so well, all of a sudden, we were making a sriracha mayo, and we were making a chipotle mayo, and so we really created, in Whole Foods and in grocery stores, the first successful flavored mayonnaises.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's ketchup sold better when matching category conventions
“The Closer that we got to category convention and ketchup, the more it would sell.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's spent zero dollars on Facebook ads from $8.5M raise
“Unlike so many of our peers, you know, Facebook didn't see a cent from that eight million dollar raise.”
Mark Ramadan: Sir Kensington's Conducted the Most Whole Foods Demos in 2015
“And I think in 2015, actually, we were the brand that did the most Number of demos in all of whole foods, the most number of demos in any category, we pushed it as far as we could.”
Scott Norton: Ad Agency Mother New York Took Discounted Equity for Services
“With a really fantastic award-winning ad agency called Mother New York, where they would invest and they would get shares in the company, but they would get a discount because they would deliver for us also an advertising campaign.”
Scott Norton: French Fry Pop-Up Delivered Sir Kensington's Best Marketing ROI
“Which was still definitely the best marketing money alongside the demo funds that we've ever spent.”
Advisors almost universally told Ramadan to oust co-founder Scott Norton
“The advice I mostly got was, number one, this happens to every co-founder set.
[4357] Mark Ramadan: It always happens.
[4358] Mark Ramadan: Co-founders have falling outs or fights.
[4360] Mark Ramadan: And then number two, the only solution is to remove Scott …”
Ramadan refused to fire co-founder Norton, opting for temporary step-away
“I ended up, I wouldn't say fighting with the board, but informing the board that that wasn't the path I was going to take, but that we would go down a slightly different path, which is that I would ask Scott to step away from the business for a little bit.
[44…”
Norton: Sir Kensington's conducted employee terminations at an off-site restaurant
“We had this restaurant that was two blocks from our office that we would fire people at. So we wouldn't fire people in the office. We'd fire people at this restaurant.”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's CEO and CMO simultaneously stepped away for months
“So on Wednesday, the company has both a CEO and a CMO, and by Monday, we're both gone for months.”
Norton: Sir Kensington's board would have advised against Unilever meeting
“Our board would have told us not to take the meeting.”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's 2016 revenue was around $20 million
“I think it was probably about 20 million-ish.”
Ramadan: Sir Kensington's was unprofitable prior to its acquisition
“But then the truth is, we weren't profitable, and so when you're not profitable, you have an end date to your cash, and you can either keep raising money, you can find a way to make your business profitable, or you can sell it.”
Ramadan: Acquisition deal champions differ significantly from day-to-day integration staff
“The reality of any deal is there is a big difference between your deal champions who acquire your business and the on the ground people who you have to work with day to day.”
Norton: Unilever's 400-person sales force tripled Sir Kensington's business post-acquisition
“We went from having a retail sales team of four people to Unilever's sales team of 400 people spread across these 50 states, and so together with the team and with Unilever's fantastic team, the size of Sir Kensington's tripled.”
Ramadan: Promising post-acquisition stability destroys startup employees' psychological safety
“One huge mistake that we, that I made Is post acquisition, we wrongfully and maybe naively painted a picture of there won't be change or the change will only be good, right? They're going to grow our sales and everything else will stay the same. And so we, in …”