Anne & Dean Panovich - a tasty new dip

“One little bean and a dream.” That is both the motivation and slogan for the business established by Dean and Anne Panovich about 10 years ago.

The little bean is the edamame (pronounced (ed-uh-mah-mey), a green vegetable known as a soybean. It is harvested at the peak of ripening, still in the pod, and is soft and edible. The beans are generally parboiled and quick frozen, and they’re known for being packed with fiber, protein, vitamins and minerals. Edamame has been used for hundreds of years in Asian cuisine.

The dream was one Dean and Anne realized they shared when they met in 1991 in Des Moines, Iowa, while working for a data processing company. They both wanted to start their own business.

Anne Panovich on a distribution day

That dream stayed in the background for the next 13 years, as they married, started a family and made a living. Anne’s background was growing up on an Iowa soybean farm. Even as a young child, she knew she was going to be a business owner one day. “I wanted a food business,” Anne said. “Cookies. I never thought it would be soybeans.”

But Dean is the dreamer of big ideas. Anne said that one evening, while relaxing with their two daughters who were toddlers at that time, Dean suggested they try to make some sort of hummus dip using edamame. You might be thinking, eda-what? But the bean wasn’t new to Anne and Dean. They had learned of it while exploring fertility options in trying to start their family. And making a dip was a natural choice for two people who snacked on lots of dips.

Anne set about trying to find a recipe. “I got on line, but there were no recipes,” she said. “I couldn’t find a thing. So I started tinkering.”

She started with a recipe for hummus dip, but it didn’t work well. So she played with different recipes and ingredients, spending about an hour a day on the project. A few months later, Anne had created six flavors of dip that she started serving to family and friends.

She received such good feedback that she and Dean decided to try selling it. They took the product to a trade show hosted by Whole Foods. “We had a little table in the back,” Ann said. They didn’t think they would even be noticed, but eventually guests began making their way back and sampling their dips. Again, the feedback was good enough to move forward with a business plan.

During the next year, Ann perfected the recipe. She and Dean worked with Kansas State to establish nutritional data. Dean chose the name, Soy-Sen-Zay. They learned about packaging and marketing.

In 2005, Ann started selling the dip at farmers’ markets. Hy-Vee became a local distributor in 2006. They landed their first national grocer, Whole Foods, in 2007. In 2008, both Dean and Anne began officially working full-time as business owners, their dream finally realized.

Looking back, Anne can see God’s hand, God’s timing, in the way things fell into place. When they were looking into how to design the packaging, they discovered their neighbor was a graphic artist specializing in food packaging, Anne said. They visited a food consultation firm in Lenexa, and while talking with the owner about how to grow a business, they discovered he was another neighbor who lived near them. Dean and Anne also made good connections with local retailers, who supported their product and in turn, helped their business grow.

Panovich daughters

When they first started out, Dean and Anne rented space in a commercial kitchen. Eventually, they were able to renovate a farm house, turning it into their own commercial kitchen. Dean has since returned to the outside work force, but Anne continues to run the business. Their daughters have always been a part too.

Anne said the business is now at a place where she needs to work with another company to take it to the next level. Whether that will come in the form of a buyer, a partner, is yet to be seen. “This is something Dean and I did together,” Anne said. “It was way out of our realm of what we went to school to learn, but it’s been fun and we’ve met some great people.”

Soy-Sen-Zay dips

Soy-Sen-Zay edamame dips are gluten and dairy free, with no preservatives added. They are great with chips and vegetables, as sandwich spreads, or as zesty toppings for fish, chicken and wraps. Flavors are original, cucumber, garlic, spicy garlic, spicy Asian pepper and ginger wasabi. Each 10-oz. tub is $4.99, and can be purchased at several area stores on by visiting the web site www.soysenzay.com.