Meet Nicole & Oliver Madsen | Mad Tallow Creators – Chips fried in 100% grass-fed beef tallow

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nicole & Oliver Madsen and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nicole & Oliver, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Mad Tallow really started with how we eat at home. We’re a two-person team, and Oliver has always taken pride in being the best chef for our family — cooking everything from scratch, using the highest-quality ingredients, and avoiding seed oils and processed junk. Over time, we realized how hard it is to find clean, quick snacks — especially fried food made with real fats like beef tallow. So the thought process was: if we can’t find it, let’s build it. We started mad tallow to make that kind of food more accessible — not just for us, but for others who care about what they eat and how it makes them feel.

What should our readers know about your business?
Mad Tallow is about bringing clean, simple and flavorful snacks to the table. We use 100% grass-fed beef tallow to fry our hand-cut potatoes, just like it used to be done before industrial seed oils took over. We’re deeply committed to simple, high-quality ingredients: no additives, no shortcuts, just food that feels good and tastes even better. What sets us apart is our refusal to compromise. In a world where most restaurants and food brands chase margins with cheaper oils and fillers, we’re doing the opposite. We want people to taste the difference that real cooking fat and honest ingredients make — and feel the difference in their bodies too.

We’re most proud of the reaction we’ve gotten so far. People come up to us and say things like, “I haven’t tasted fries like this since I was a kid,” or “I can actually eat these without feeling terrible after.” That means everything to us. Getting to this point wasn’t easy. We’re a two-person team doing everything ourselves — from sourcing ingredients to designing the brand to standing over the fryer. There have been plenty of challenges — from navigating permits to figuring out kitchen logistics to explaining to people why seed oils matter in the first place. But every challenge has been a chance to learn, adapt, and get better.

If there’s one thing we want the world to know, it’s: there’s a better way to eat, that is readily available. You don’t have to settle for ultra-processed food. We started Mad tallow to prove that simple, traditional, feel-good food still has a place in the modern world with a flavor you and your family will be mad about!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We definitely wouldn’t be here without the support of our families — they’ve encouraged us from the very beginning, even when the idea of starting a food business felt daunting. We also owe a shoutout to our customers and friends who have believed in what we were doing — people who went out of their way to try our food, share it, and cheer us on. That kind of support gave us the confidence to keep going. And lastly, we owe a lot to the people who’ve been speaking out for years about real food and traditional fats.

Website: https://www.madtallow.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mad.tallow/