Soupergirl: Fearlessly Fresh Soup, Salsa, and More.
For the 265th feature of our "Together Talks" campaign, we collaborated with Soupergirl and Co-Founder, Sara Polon. Mom has daughter. Daughter has idea. Mom and daughter start an ethical food company.
For 15+ years, we’ve been selling healthy, fresh, delicious homemade-style soups throughout the East Coast.
Now we’re making salsas with real, whole ingredients chopped by real people, in a real kitchen. We pay our people fairly (because, duh), and we source from Fair Food certified farms.
Proudly built on uncompromised ingredients. No factory formulas or funky ingredients. Just the good stuff. Fearlessly Fresh.
"Together Talks" feature 265: Soupergirl presented by KLS - Your Trusted Shipping Solutions In The USA
What separates you from your competition? What have been the biggest challenges? Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur? What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most? Share a decision that you made that was detrimental? What is your why?
Story of how it was created?
My mom and I started this business back in 2008, basically because we couldn't find a good bowl of soup.
I think soup is the perfect food, and I couldn't find a homemade-style, really healthy soup with fiber and protein and not a lot of junk added to it. At the same time, I had also started paying attention to the story behind my food. Where does it come from? How is it produced? One thing led to another, and I dragged my mom out of retirement and we decided to start a soup company.
I think soup is the perfect food. A well-made bowl of soup can give you a ton of protein and fiber, along with deliciousness. Soup is more than food. It's a memory. It's like a hug from your mom. Even 17 years later, we have still stuck to those original values, really paying attention to how we produce the food, how we treat the labor force that produces the soup, and how we treat the people who grow the produce that goes into our soup.
So, really, it's about the full supply chain. Now, in 2026, we not only have a soup line, but we also have a full dip line, including salsa, pico de gallo, verde, and things like that.
What separates you from your competition?
Simple ingredients. We are fearlessly fresh. We do not take any shortcuts. We do not use preservatives, and we do not use funky extenders.
If you don't find an ingredient in my mother's kitchen, you're not going to find it in our soup. That's why we say we are fearlessly fresh.
Sometimes we're not going to be everywhere we want to be. We're not going to satisfy everyone because we're not going to add a ton of salt. We're not going to add junk. But you're going to feel really good after eating a bowl of soup or dipping your chips into a bowl of pico de gallo from us.
You're always going to feel good.
What have been the biggest challenges?
After 17 years, I think the biggest challenge has always been trying to be proactive about planning for growth.
You can anticipate growth, but it's very hard to justify spending when you don't know if it's coming. Finding that balance is so challenging, and we have messed it up many, many times.
But after a lot of trial and error and coming close to the edge, we have figured out when to pull the trigger on hiring, machinery, and other investments when we know what growth is really coming.
It's over, I would say, an 80% chance versus, "We think this is going to happen, so we're going to hire and invest in all of this efficiency," and then it doesn't come.
And that ends up really costing a lot.
Goals for upcoming year + Next phase of the company?
It's so cliché, but right now we really are focused this soup season on our velocities like never before.
We really want to make sure that this soup season, our retail partners know that we are putting everything we've got behind supporting the brand and making sure the consumers see us, they understand our message, they understand our differentiators, and they buy us once, they buy us again, and they tell their friends.
And that's for all product lines. Once we nail that, we then want to take that story and go to other retailers with all of that data and success.
What were your concerns to transition to starting your own business?
Well, I notoriously don't think things through. So, I had this idea, and it never bothered me that I had no business background.
I did not go to business school. I went to college and majored in American history. I worked for a friend who had a small business, but I really had no business doing that.
And thank goodness I didn't think it through because, you know, here we are. You can fill those gaps.
But really, my personality is such that I have a tough time working for other people. Maybe you could call me a brat. I don't know. I have problems with authority. And I really believe in the values behind this business.
Even through the toughest of times, knowing that we were doing things right really helped propel us through some very challenging periods.
What have you learned since becoming an entrepreneur?
In terms of my journey to entrepreneurship, I never considered myself an entrepreneur. I never had that dream.
It just happened. When I say I don't think things through, I don't think things through. And I think, like all founders, I have ADHD. Everyone has ADHD at this point. I don't know anyone who doesn't, actually, but I find that founders really are full of big ideas, right?
And we have a lot of them. But we're very distracted. That works, actually, when you're trying to start a business and you're going from zero to 10 million, for example. You need to have the energy and the million ideas and kind of tackle all of them.
The problem is that then you have no ability to delegate because everything is in your head. You have developed all the processes, and you have developed the sales strategy.
In my case, I developed the delivery route, literally loading the van. For the first couple of years that we got into Whole Foods and whatnot, and were delivering, I knew all the receivers. But it's also not a way to grow a business.
So, a skill I had to learn was how to be a CEO, how to be a boss, and how to hire the right people. Again, this is what I'm talking about: being proactive, recognizing the needs, and hiring accordingly. Then, trusting and letting those people work, hiring people who are smarter than you.
And then trusting them to do the work and knowing when to pull the plug when it's not working.
What aspect of entrepreneurship do you appreciate the most?
Every day is different. That's a good thing and a bad thing. But you never know what any day is going to bring, and that keeps life really interesting.
Sometimes it's really interesting and fun, and you meet amazing people and you're presented with new challenges or new opportunities that you never could have anticipated.
On the other hand, every day is different, and sometimes you're met with new challenges and obstacles that you never could have anticipated.
But if you've hired correctly, and you have a plan and a team, you should be able to navigate them, hopefully.
Share a decision that you made that was detrimental?
We went into a major conventional retailer, and we did not have the budget to support it. We did not have the marketing budget. We didn't have any brand awareness in that region, and we kind of won a contest. So, we were supposed to be supported.
But at the end of the day, if you're going to go into a major conventional retailer, you better be able to put real dollars and strategy behind it.
And it was a disaster. Eventually, we were dropped. That ended up being a great thing because we were spread too thin and we needed to focus.
And that's why I'm saying this year, no, we are so focused on our current retail partners and making sure that we succeed and support them.
What is your why?
Fundamentally, I still believe that we can make a dent in the industrial food system. I think that we can produce a product that makes the world a better place, and that sounds so naive, but we are a values-driven company.
We're the first CPG brand to get a Fair Food certification, which is different than Fair Trade and other ones.
We work a lot directly with Fair Food Certified farms that truly take care of their labor force, and that is my why.
And when I tell you that during the darkest times, when it was really hard to get through to the next day, knowing that we were still supporting those initiatives kept us going and honestly helped us succeed. From that, I found the how. Once you find the why, you can find the how.
Do you have a moment that brings you the most joy?
There have been a lot, but when we got our first massive PO for our new salsa line, I was on the packaging line at three o'clock in the morning with my team. I mean, it was exhausting.
We were all just focused on getting it done. No one complained, and everyone smiled. I just remember pausing and being filled with such gratitude.
With that team, that was it. It's like, we have this team that cares so much.
We've done something right. If we screwed up so many things, okay, but we've done something right.
Current news?
We're so excited that we do have this new expansion for the soup season. We're now going to be in Giant Food, which is our hometown retailer.
We're very grateful for that. And we're doing a massive expansion with Costco. So this year, you'll find us on the entire East Coast, as well as in the Pacific Northwest and the whole San Diego region.
We're really proud of that expansion, and we are excited to just support it.
Find us below: Soupergirl Store Locator
Piece of Advice?
I've said this a few times now, and I really believe it. Don't follow your passion and feel the need to turn it into a business.
Do your passion if it brings you joy. But once you try to turn it into a money-making enterprise, you can kill your passion.
If you're someone who is really fortunate enough to thread that needle and make money off of your passion, that's incredible. But that is rare.
Do something that you're really good at. If you're really good at accounting, go into accounting or business finance or something like that.
And it's not glamorous. It enables you to live a life where you can pursue your passion on the side or retire early and do it then.
But when you mix passion and business, I think it's just terrible advice to give to people, and it sets standards that are not achievable. We've got to step away from the passion thing. It's killing people's passion.
Community Callout?
Any, any, any attention I can send to them, I want it to go to them.
In Closing
KLS wants to thank Soupergirl and Co-Founder, Sara Polon, for today's "Together Talks" feature. Follow along for their journey with their social handles below!
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