Slide Gourmet Potato Chips Needs Your Help

Hi -

I'm Christine, I am the owner of Slide Gourmet Potato Chips. I started this business as a side to my food cart and catering business. Due to demand for the chips and the fact that running a food cart in Wisconsin in the winter was not great. We have been in business and a separate entity from the food cart and catering since 2018. Growing slowly in the beginning balancing catering and potato chips, and for the past three years running full speed into national growth.

Last year we negotiated a new account that would nearly double our sales from 2021. During this negotiation we specified our available projected output, basically setting a capacity to what we were able to provide to this new account. About a month into the new account the orders got larger and larger, despite reaching out to the buyer with my concerns, the large orders kept coming. We were running in circles, working 24 hours a day. Hiring more people, changing our processes hoping we could be more efficient than we were so we could meet this demand. We spent a lot of extra money on oil and payroll than we ever had, so much so that our costs were higher than our sales. Five months later I recieved a call from the distributor letting me know they had over 100 pallets of our product in their warehouse and they wouldn't be ordering for a while, but we didn't know what a while meant. The next month our payroll was even worse, over-producing and resulting in layoffs and an excess in back stock.

The buyer no longer works for that distributor and the orders have since balanced out and given us a solid workflow. Stepping back after we were out of it, with the help of some industry mentors, we reassesed our processes and became more efficient than we were when we started.

We are continuing to grow in sales, almost without actively selling. I believe in my product. My staff believes in it. Our sales show our growth, we are going somewhere, somewhere BIG! We are in over 250 stores, Lambeau Field, and Fiserv Forum, with more like that on the way. We have shipped all over the US and even to Canada, India and Great Britain!

Due to 2022 we have BIG debt to a few of our very patient vendors. I have restarted the catering business recently to help with cash flows for the chip business, but it just isn't enough. My closest friends and family know the position we are in and have been so generous so far, but it still isn't enough to close the gap. If we don't see an influx of cash we will without a doubt be out of business by the end of the year. The purpose of this GoFundMe is to help pay off our debt, pay employees and keep us in business.

I hesitated in doing this for so long, but it has come to a point where I can't wait anymore. My pride was holding me back. I have worked to actively find an investor(s) or business partner, but it isn't coming fast enough. Do you know someone? Send them my way!