THE BOOT ST O R I E S F R O M T H E T E X A S H I L L C O U N T RY
A M A ST E R D E P I C TS T H E H I L L CO U N T RY O N C A N VA S
T H E P E AC H STA N D T H AT G R E W I N TO A G LO B A L B U S I N E SS
FO R E V E R C A R S AND THREE MEN T H AT LO V E T H E M
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2021 | ISSUE 2
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ABOVE: Case Fischer and Mark Wieser in front of their old delivery truck.
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A FRUITFUL PARTNERSHIP STORY BY ANNE MCCREADY HEINEN
How a Hill Country peach stand became a global company.
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preading happiness as smoothly as jam on toast, Fischer & Wieser is a company that embodies all the warmth and authenticity of its Hill Country home base—thanks to the partnership of founder and chairman Mark Wieser and CEO and president Case Fischer. From its simple beginnings as a peach stand, Fischer & Wieser has blossomed into a ninetyemployee, specialty foods company whose products are sold nationwide and around the world. The foundation of their success has been Wieser and Fischer’s bond and business connection that began when they met as teacher and student more than four decades ago. A history teacher and tennis coach at Fredericksburg High School, Wieser often hired students for seasonal work at the family orchard. Fischer was a freshman when the two met, and his first job was thrashing berries off agarita bushes for jelly. He soon got the idea to join his teacher in business.
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“When Case became a [high school] senior, he came into my office and said, ‘You know, I think we could do something with these jams and jellies,’” Mark says. “I said, ‘Okay, you’re going to go to college first. We’ll talk in four years.’ But he was home every summer, and a lot of weekends, and we became very close. I really enjoyed working with him. I thought, ‘Wow, if he really wants to do this, I’m all for it.’ And so, sure enough, we formed a partnership.” Setting his professional course early seemed natural to Fischer. “I’m kind of an entrepreneur at heart,” he recalls. “And you’d see people coming back year after year to buy cases of peach preserves to take back to Dallas or Houston. They were happy when they came, and they left with a smile on their faces. And what drives Fischer & Wieser is bringing people happiness through our culinary products.” Mark adds, “For a young man to have that [business] interest that early was remarkable.”
FIRST FRUIT When Wieser insisted Fischer go to college, he was passing on the wisdom of his father, J. B. Wieser. J. B. required that Mark graduate college before taking over the family orchard. He died in 1960 when Mark was a sophomore at Texas A&M, but Mark earned
Fischer & Wieser Old Fashioned Peach Preserves.
Case Fischer making apple butter.
a history degree while taking plenty of horticulture classes as well. A lawyer born in Germany, J. B. was a community leader who first contemplated fruit trees for the Hill Country after cotton took a nosedive following the first world war. He bought 60 acres just outside of Fredericksburg in 1928 and planted 600 peach trees. Over the decades, J.B. and the family tended the orchard and sold peaches and jams to passersby, while he continued his law practice. “When I was hitting junior high (in the 1950s), I got up in the mornings, put on a long sleeve shirt, and followed my mother walking into the orchard, wading through all the stickers and the needle grass and fighting to grab peaches,” Wieser says. “We’d haul them back up to the house and by suppertime, we’d have all the peaches sold.”
JAM SESSION In the mid 1950s, Wieser painted and hung a sign by the farm’s entrance. “I built a Tahiti-type hut out front and discovered that the peaches sold even faster,” he says. “I’d make $85 and give all the money to my mother. Making $85 back in the fifties was like $850 now, so I said, ‘I want to do this for a living.’” In 1967, he bought an old wooden building in Fredericksburg for $150. “My mother said, ‘You just threw away $150,’” Mark recalls with a laugh. But the simple building, relocated and rehabbed, opened as Das Peach Haus in
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TOP: Das Peach Haus where Fischer & Wieser still sell products to customers. BOTTOM: Old Fischer & Wieser sign found in the tool shed near the peach grove.
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TOP: Mark Wieser's mother Estella in front of Das Peach Haus decades ago. BOTTOM: Mark Wieser in front of the same building today.
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1969 on the orchard acreage, and marked the beginning of a new era. The rough-hewn structure today houses the company’s store as well as its cooking school. The surrounding grounds invite visitors with a shady deck, picnic tables, vintage farm equipment, and rustic buildings. A charming pond is ringed with tall pine trees and lots of Adirondack chairs against a backdrop of 2,000 baby and mature peach trees. “It was always my goal to create a really special market,” Mark says. “I didn’t know what it was going to look like, but I knew it had to be different.” Fischer graduated from Texas A&M in 1987 while the company expanded in new directions, opening a showroom at the Dallas World Trade Center’s Gourmet Food Market and participating in the Taste of Texas program. “Instead of marketing cattle, [Agriculture Secretary Jim Hightower] focused on small businesses,” Wieser says. “That was the beginning of the gourmet industry opening up in Texas.” The program led to their Jalapeno Pepper Jelly being featured at a Paris food show. “People were saying, ‘What do you do with this? Are you crazy?’” Fischer says. Fischer and Wieser’s natural business synergy fueled the company’s growth. “Mark and I have always enjoyed working with each other,” Fischer says. “He’s like a second father to me. What I don’t have, he has, and what he doesn’t have, I have. We’ve really had the ideal partnership and were able to make this a success in a way that wouldn’t have been possible as a sole proprietorship.” Into the early 1990s, Fischer & Wieser made products during the week, and on weekends they sold directly to customers at festivals and shows across the country, from New York to San Francisco. Wieser would head in one direction and Fischer and his wife, Deanna, in another, with the underlying goal of establishing relationships with local shops. “The mom and pop shops were the ones who carried gourmet products,” Wieser explains. “Grocery stores wouldn’t look at them.”
GETTING SAUCY Fischer & Wieser’s growth was steady until a gigantic injection of Smoked Raspberry
Chipotle Sauce propelled them into the specialty food stratosphere. It began in the mid-1990s, when the Fischer & Wieser team decided to create a bottled sauce from a recipe beloved by customers. “The 1015 Onion Glaze was almost the same thing [as our 1015 Onion Jelly], but in a sauce bottle, so it was obvious that it wasn’t a jam,” Fischer says. “We had recipes for using it on pork tenderloin and ham, focused on protein. But we were like, ‘Gosh, we can’t have just one sauce.’” As part of its two-dozen strong assortment at the time, Fischer & Wieser offered a raspberry jam made from Pacific Northwest raspberries. “Not everything grows well in Texas,” Wieser says. “We took the view that we’d go to where a particular fruit grows best and have it shipped to us in Texas.” Meanwhile, people really liked the flavors like jalapeno jelly that hit both sweet and savory notes. “Instead of buying one jar, they’d buy two or three,” Fischer says. Fischer began experimenting, adding vinegar and poblano or serrano peppers to raspberries. He’d send iterations to foodie friends from the Dallas Market Center for feedback. “I was on my fourth or fifth try, when [restaurateur] Rusty Fenton said, ‘What about trying a chipotle pepper?’ I go, ‘What’s a chipotle pepper?’ Remember, this is 1995.” Fischer found a New Mexico supplier. “The
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Fischer & Wieser Roasted Raspberry Chipotle Sauce, winner of the 1997 Fancy Food Show.
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chipotle has that smoky flavor that the other peppers just don’t have. I sent my recipe to my friends and they all were like, ‘This is amazing.’” One of them, Scott Silverman of Rice Epicurean Markets in Houston, left a voicemail. Fischer recalls, “He said, ‘I want fifteen cases of this roasted raspberry chipotle sauce you sent me.’ “I called him back and said, ‘Scott, I don’t even have a label yet.’ “‘Well, I want my order as soon as possible.’ “‘Scott, you’ve never ordered fifteen cases of anything from us at one time.’ “‘Oh, I didn’t say fifteen,’” Scott replied. “‘I said fifty.’” Fischer adds, “That was the beginning.” The sauce won the Outstanding New Bestseller Award at the 1997 Fancy Food Show, the first of eleven Specialty Food Association SOFI awards that Fischer & Wieser has won. “It was our new bestseller and still is,” Fischer says, with restaurants ordering it by the gallons, Costco selling it in big bottles, and customers buying it by the case. “It flipped things around to where people started calling us rather than us calling them.” Meanwhile, grocery stores began carrying gourmet foods. Fischer & Wieser pivoted and created products for small retailers so the company could serve both markets without big stores undercutting the little guys. “We’ve been able to keep both of those worlds alive,” Fischer says. The company also expanded manufacturing, hired a food scientist to help develop new products, and delved into private label and contract product development and production, where it works closely with a partner company to develop a culinary item that the other company wants to offer under its own label. In 2001, Fischer & Wieser acquired the Austin-based brand Mom’s Pasta Sauce. It has since made another couple of acquisitions.
Today, private label sales account for thirty percent of revenues. Another thirty percent comes from sales to grocers, specialty stores, and club retailers, with the remainder divided evenly between sales to restaurants and directly to consumers, either online or at the Fredericksburg stores under the company’s own brands: Fischer & Wieser, Mom’s, Dr. Foo’s Kitchen, Four Star Provisions, and Stick & Tine.
A PEACHY FUTURE More changes are in the works. It will soon open Dietz Distillery at the company’s orchard headquarters to produce and sell peach schnapps and brandy. “Out on the property here, we grow the peaches, and you can visit our original store,” Fischer says. “We’ve always wanted people to be able to see our manufacturing, too. Eventually we’ll have a facility out here where people can tour and see the product being made right here on the farm, under one roof.” Manufacturing currently happens in Fredericksburg at facilities that aren’t conducive for tours. The duo frequently receives inquiries from other companies interested in acquiring Fischer & Wieser, but they plan to keep the firm in the family and Fredericksburg. “We’re looking to grow this as a legacy brand, so that our kids can keep it going,” Fischer says. “I can see retirement if we weren’t having fun,” he adds. “But we still get up every day excited about coming to work.”
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