When Dennis Zack’s business started to grow beyond a hobby, he turned to his community for advice.
A member of the Stockbridge Munsee Band of Mohican Indians, Zack asked his wife Michelle, tribal elders and friends about how to differentiate his product — a cold process soap sourced from a Midwestern family business.
“They told me to dive into what I know,” says Zack, who has spent years working with tribes on social programs.
Tribal Sun Soap does that by including scents that reflect Indigenous culture, such as sweet grass and pow wow passion. They also work with Indigenous artists to create designs for some of the soaps and donate a portion of profits to Indigenous nonprofit organizations.
Tribal Sun Soap was established in January 2023, and Zack initially intended to serve the retail market through a website and by selling in gift shops.
He approached the gift shop for North Star Casino hoping they would carry his soap, but asked if they would want to carry the soap in the hotel rooms as well, perhaps leading to more sales in the gift shop. They agreed and ordered 500 bars of soap to be delivered April 2023, just months after he launched the business.
Zack admits it was a bit of a scramble filling the first order. He gets the soap in loaves and has to cut and package the 5-ounce bars by hand. All of that is currently done in his basement.
“From there it really took off,” he says. “Most of my business is business-to-business sales.”
He found additional opportunities with other Indigenous-owned hotels and museums and currently sells to sites in Iowa, Wisconsin and Michigan.
“We’re going to try and work with as many Native American casinos as we can in the country,” Zack says.
The steady growth has meant Tribal Sun Soaps has hit its capacity. The next step is to invest in equipment, which also will require finding a location to process, pack and ship the soap.
Zack expects growth in the retail market and is working with marketing students from the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay to fine-tune those efforts.
“To really make this thing grow, I need some help,” Zack says.
