Teddy’s Tallow turns family recipe into rapidly growing national brand

Cedarburg-based Teddy’s Tallow, founded by Katherine Horvath and her sons Teddy and Henry, launched in April 2025 with a line of potato chips cooked in beef tallow. Just over a year later, the company has expanded to a national footprint, adding tortilla chips and tallow-based skincare products to its lineup and is preparing to launch a protein bar.

“We’re right now in about 4,300 retailers nationwide,” Horvath said. “Our goal is to keep expanding nationally.”

The company’s roots stretch back much further than its official launch date.

When Teddy Horvath was a child, he struggled with severe food allergies and asthma. After medical testing revealed a long list of sensitivities, Katherine began eliminating processed foods from the family’s diet and experimenting with alternatives.

“I remember throwing out every processed food in the house that day,” she said. “I reintroduced foods one by one for Teddy to try.”

On the advice of her grandmother, she began cooking with tallow, a rendered form of beef fat. One of her earliest experiments with tallow was making homemade potato chips.

“I got potatoes, sliced them thinly, cooked them in tallow and sprinkled salt,” she said.

The results were immediate.

“He didn’t break out in hives and he could breathe,” Horvath said. “It was just so amazing. We were just so thrilled.”

The homemade chips became a staple for Teddy, who often carried bags of them to playdates and other gatherings where other kids were eating treats that he could not eat.

Years later, Teddy noted the growing trends to eliminate seed oils from foods, along with the popularity of keto, paleo and whole-food diets and approached his mother with an idea.

“Teddy came to me and said, ‘Mom, it’s time to make our chips again,'” Horvath said.

He showed her a mock-up of a product package featuring the company’s bear logo. Teddy, a web developer and designer, believed consumer interest in tallow-based foods would make the chips a hit.

“I didn’t think people were going to get it like they do,” Horvath said. “I give him so much credit for that.”

The family launched the business in a commercial kitchen at Vineyard Church in Grafton after numerous churches declined requests to rent kitchen space.

“They gave us the key to the church and they were just angels,” Horvath said.

The family introduced their chips to consumers through local farmers markets. As demand grew, the church basement evolved into a makeshift warehouse. The family hired local teenagers and college students to help keep up with production, often spending 14- to 16-hour days cooking, packaging and shipping chips.

“We were going to do whatever it took,” Horvath said.

Growth came quickly. The popularity of the chips at farmers markets encouraged Horvath to visit local grocery stores with product samples and submit applications to regional retailers. One of the company’s earliest wins came when Sendik’s agreed to carry the chips.

“The only hesitation I have is I don’t know whether you can keep up with production,” Horvath recalled a buyer telling her.

At the time, the company was operating with two small restaurant fryers in the church kitchen.

“I said, ‘No worries. We just doubled our production capacity,'” she said with a laugh.

Additional opportunities followed. A customer who discovered the chips at a farmers market connected the company with a grocery chain in Florida, leading to one of its first large wholesale orders.

“I didn’t even know what a pallet was,” Horvath said.

As orders increased, the family outgrew its church-based operation and transitioned production to a co-manufacturer in Iowa. Today, the company operates from a 4,400-square-foot warehouse while family members continue to oversee production runs.

The rapid growth has been a team effort. Henry Horvath, who was attending flight school in Spain when the company launched, returned home to help build the business.

“I called him and said, ‘Henry, if you want to get involved, we need you here,'” Horvath said. “Henry said, ‘Let’s go.'”

The company now offers four potato chip flavors in multiple package sizes, including Himalayan Salt, Summer BBQ, Jalapeno Heaven and Vinegar Vibe. It recently expanded into tortilla chips made from organic nixtamalized corn and has introduced a line of tallow balms sold through local retailers and farmers markets.

Next on the horizon is a protein bar made with grass-fed tallow, bovine collagen, whey protein, honey and organic ingredients.

While the pace of growth has been remarkable, Horvath said the family has embraced the challenge.

“If I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it as big as we can do it,” she said.

The emphasis on “going big” shows not only in their list of retailers, featuring both national chains like Marshalls and local powerhouses like Sendik’s, but also in their product list. For a company that launched with a single bag of potato chips, the growing product lineup suggests Teddy’s Tallow is still in the early stages of its expansion.