artwork Looking to Start my Own Hot Sauce Company

V

Valdal

Hello World I have just found this forum last night and decided to make a account and get into the world of hot peppers and hot sauces. I come from a family of business people and have been wanting to start my own food based business for a while now.
 
I am located in Ontario,Canada so do not know the many laws or legal troubles with starting a hot sauce company. I am doing this for the love of food and am still in the early stages of getting all the information I need to start a business plan.
 
So I came here to ask people I have no knowledge of how to start a hot sauce company or where to even start. I was thinking of finding a small office space to start off making small batches then as profits come in get a warehouse big enough to pump out the volume.
 
Does anybody have any advice or where to start. Should I start making batches at home? Look into a small office space with a big enough kitchen to start making batches? Look into a good marketing firm to help me with getting my product into peoples ears and mouths? Being in Canada i have a huge market to tap into with regarding hot sauce as there are many diversities scattered around from Caribbean to Indian and Chinese 
 
My first big step is to start testing out recipes and see which one is going to be the main starter for my company.I do not know Canada and growing hot peppers so I would have to see which peppers are grown in Ontario by local farmers or suppliers.
 
Any help would be appreciated. 
 
Thanks
 
Tyler Valdal
 
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Hey Tyler welcome to THP!  Your family business background will help you a lot.  I have for you the following heavily condensed advice:
 
1. Read and eat everything you can about hot peppers and sauces.  You probably know a lot already, but you'll need more if you're going into business.  Many informed and cool vendors around here, as well as  a wealth of info on growing peppers, making sauce, finding/retaining business advisers, etc.
 
2. Found out what types and styles of hot sauce you like and then spend time in the kitchen at home making small batches of recipes that you like.  Share them with friends and get feedback - more feedback the better.  Once you have tweaked the original recipes using said feedback and everything is solid you can focus on finding suppliers for bottles and labels and raw ingredients.  A graphic designer (or friend who'll take hot sauce in lieu of $$ for label artwork) can be of help around this time, as well as a few good business books.  Figuring out how and where to sell your product is also key; having a great sauce won't matter much if you can't be or find someone to talk about it and give out samples, etc.
 
3. Now that you've got the recipes and the hands on know how of making and marketing sauce you're almost ready to get famous and rich!  Just before the fame and riches you have to GET LEGIT though.  That means finding an approved space to make a food product (or adapting your own home to qualify) and then you need insurance and business licenses and tax id numbers and such.  Do not skip this step.  
 
4. Make sauce, sell sauce.  Charge enough to cover your costs and also make a decent wage for yourself and all involved.  Be charitable, be enthusiastic.  Sponsor a roller derby team.  ;)
 
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SmokenFire said:
Hey Tyler welcome to THP!  Your family business background will help you a lot.  I have for you the following heavily condensed advice:
 
1. Read and eat everything you can about hot peppers and sauces.  You probably know a lot already, but you'll need more if you're going into business.  Many informed and cool vendors around here, as well as  a wealth of info on growing peppers, making sauce, finding/retaining business advisers, etc.
 
2. Found out what types and styles of hot sauce you like and then spend time in the kitchen at home making small batches of recipes that you like.  Share them with friends and get feedback - more feedback the better.  Once you have tweaked the original recipes using said feedback and everything is solid you can focus on finding suppliers for bottles and labels and raw ingredients.  A graphic designer (or friend who'll take hot sauce in lieu of $$ for label artwork) can be of help around this time, as well as a few good business books.  Figuring out how and where to sell your product is also key; having a great sauce won't matter much if you can't be or find someone to talk about it and give out samples, etc.
 
3. Now that you've got the recipes and the hands on know how of making and marketing sauce you're almost ready to get famous and rich!  Just before the fame and riches you have to GET LEGIT though.  That means finding an approved space to make a food product (or adapting your own home to qualify) and then you need insurance and business licenses and tax id numbers and such.  Do not skip this step.  
 
4. Make sauce, sell sauce.  Charge enough to cover your costs and also make a decent wage for yourself and all involved.  Be charitable, be enthusiastic.  Sponsor a roller derby team.   ;)
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Thank you very much I appreciate it. I don't know that much about hot sauce, especially with people on here. But I have been eating it for my whole life and have wanted to make a trully Canadian hot sauce to sell to the world
 
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:welcome: valdal!
 
Glad to have you join this crazy group of chileheads.
 
Regarding your business aspirations- Sounds like you're kind of going about this backwards.  You like hot sauce and want to go into business but don't have a "secret recipe" or any experience making food products? 
 
Step 1 is making a sauce that's all your own, that you can "take to the bank," that everyone loves, that you HAVE to bring to every social function or you'll be strung up like a horse thief....
 
Without an absolutely Killer sauce to start with, there's not much point in going further.  Marketing mediocre sauces is a recipe for disaster.  (no pun intended :lol: )
 
 
Maybe there's a family recipe worthy of production, maybe create your own sauce....
when you have the recipe, make it at home in small batches and give it away.
Make it again using exact measurements in your home kitchen and give it away.
Do it again, give it away to folks willing to fill out a questionnaire.
Make ANOTHER and another and another and another batch.......
 
Repeat as necessary until every time you make the sauce it is exactly the same.....then proceed to step 2, which is contacting your local health district to find out what regulations are required to be a food processor in your area.  It's always different for different areas in the US, I imagine it's the same in Canada.  In the end it will come down to your local health district for licensing etc.  Don't rely on internet information for what's required, talk to your local people.
 
Good Luck and most importantly...Have FUN!  Lot's of people have gotten into and make money in the food industry.  Find your niche.  :)  you can do it!
 
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salsalady said:
:welcome: valdal!
 
Glad to have you join this crazy group of chileheads.
 
Regarding your business aspirations- Sounds like you're kind of going about this backwards.  You like hot sauce and want to go into business but don't have a "secret recipe" or any experience making food products? 
 
Step 1 is making a sauce that's all your own, that you can "take to the bank," that everyone loves, that you HAVE to bring to every social function or you'll be strung up like a horse thief....
 
Without an absolutely Killer sauce to start with, there's not much point in going further.  Marketing mediocre sauces is a recipe for disaster.  (no pun intended :lol: )
 
 
Maybe there's a family recipe worthy of production, maybe create your own sauce....
when you have the recipe, make it at home in small batches and give it away.
Make it again using exact measurements in your home kitchen and give it away.
Do it again, give it away to folks willing to fill out a questionnaire.
Make ANOTHER and another and another and another batch.......
 
Repeat as necessary until every time you make the sauce it is exactly the same.....then proceed to step 2, which is contacting your local health district to find out what regulations are required to be a food processor in your area.  It's always different for different areas in the US, I imagine it's the same in Canada.  In the end it will come down to your local health district for licensing etc.  Don't rely on internet information for what's required, talk to your local people.
 
Good Luck and most importantly...Have FUN!  Lot's of people have gotten into and make money in the food industry.  Find your niche.  :)  you can do it!
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Yes thank you for all the advice.
 
I am passionate about food and the industry and choose the hot sauce industry because it is a billion dollar a year business and booming each and every year for the past 10 years.
 
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Valdal said:
 
Yes thank you for all the advice.
 
I am passionate about food and the industry and choose the hot sauce industry because it is a billion dollar a year business and booming each and every year for the past 10 years.
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In my opinion that's a terrible reason for starting a hot sauce business.

If you have passion for money, open a luxury car dealership. If you have a passion for hot sauce, and have been working at it for a while, hone your recipes and take the plunge after developing a business plan.

But going into the hot sauce business because it's growing at a rate of X and makes Z billions a year is both flawed reasoning and a poor use of your $.

Hot sauce as an industry is growing collectively - individually we're not all millionaires. Hardly. There are 1000s of sauce companies out there. Tabasco, Sriracha, Tapatio & a select few other giants dominate the market. This isn't like baseball where the Yankees have to pay the Astros a luxury tax. :rofl:

SL said it best - you're going about it backwards. Make something people want - then try to sell it. Solar power is a rapidly growing industry too but I'm not about to try to open a solar panel manufacturing plant.

Good luck. Plenty of great reading material on these forums for sure if you look around (including a topic about starting a hot sauce business I believe...)
 
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Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
In my opinion that's a terrible reason for starting a hot sauce business.

If you have passion for money, open a luxury car dealership. If you have a passion for hot sauce, and have been working at it for a while, hone your recipes and take the plunge after developing a business plan.

But going into the hot sauce business because it's growing at a rate of X and makes Z billions a year is both flawed reasoning and a poor use of your $.

Hot sauce as an industry is growing collectively - individually we're not all millionaires. Hardly. There are 1000s of sauce companies out there. Tabasco, Sriracha, Tapatio & a select few other giants dominate the market. This isn't like baseball where the Yankees have to pay the Astros a luxury tax. :rofl:

SL said it best - you're going about it backwards. Make something people want - then try to sell it. Solar power is a rapidly growing industry too but I'm not about to try to open a solar panel manufacturing plant.

Good luck. Plenty of great reading material on these forums for sure if you look around (including a topic about starting a hot sauce business I believe...)
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Thank you.
 
I know what I said is flawed but I am extremely passionate about food and have in the past 5 years come to appreciate hot sauce and believe Canada needs its foot in the market badly. I know many people who live in Canada, that have a international background and I have tried each of there home made or store bought hot sauces. The one thing we always end up talking about is why there is not a hot sauce company in Canada.
 
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Valdal said:
The one thing we always end up talking about is why there is not a hot sauce company in Canada.
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Well that's odd because there are Canadian sauce companies. Jungle Heat is Canadian and has won a ton of awards. They're very well known, and they have a robust product line, very diverse.

Google "Canadian Hot Sauce" and you'll see a pretty extensive list.
 
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Agree
 
Lucky Dog Hot Sauce said:
In my opinion that's a terrible reason for starting a hot sauce business.

If you have passion for money, open a luxury car dealership. If you have a passion for hot sauce, and have been working at it for a while, hone your recipes and take the plunge after developing a business plan.

But going into the hot sauce business because it's growing at a rate of X and makes Z billions a year is both flawed reasoning and a poor use of your $.

Hot sauce as an industry is growing collectively - individually we're not all millionaires. Hardly. There are 1000s of sauce companies out there. Tabasco, Sriracha, Tapatio & a select few other giants dominate the market. This isn't like baseball where the Yankees have to pay the Astros a luxury tax. :rofl:

SL said it best - you're going about it backwards. Make something people want - then try to sell it. Solar power is a rapidly growing industry too but I'm not about to try to open a solar panel manufacturing plant.

Good luck. Plenty of great reading material on these forums for sure if you look around (including a topic about starting a hot sauce business I believe...)
Click to expand...
 
 
Agreed. 
 
I have a product that we are about to launch in the Farmers Market and its very small and already there has been times where I have wanted to throw in the Towel. If you are entering the space because of the numbers and statistics you wont make it unless you have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest into hiring Marketing geniuses and PR Executives that are experts at making mediocre sauces look amazing and even it probably wont be worth it. 
 
Good Luck Man. 
 
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Valdal, if its your dream... do some serious research, develop some recipes, get people to try your stuff... and THEN think really hard if you want to take the plunge.  The industry is an easy one to fall in love with.  But there are a lot of pitfalls that could sink you and crush your momentum.  Losing momentum is the one thing I dealt with a few times this season.  Just gotta power through!  :)  
 
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Valdal, Im Canadian (Quebec) I started my hot sauce company last spring and I can say its a very fun business to be in if you are REALLY passionate and open to learn from other and make projects with other. If you are there for money forget it, I have a very nice product that people like and have a very nice packaging, I even have my band to make the promotion! I started buy selling my hot sauce in our show (country-bluegrass band) and people asking for more so I started the company. The sells are good but I have never been that poor! Starting a company is tuff, I know I will make a decent living with time but never expect to be rich! I just expect to be happy, having my own business where I can freely express myself and be around passionate people.
 
This summer I passed 2 long days (12h or more) a week in the kitchen to make and bottling the sauce, the other 5 days I was like a gypsie traveling from town to town to do festivals and market and meet people. You have to work hard to make you a name but to me it was just natural, I feel bad if I pass a day without doing nothing for the company. But yes on these rainny days, or in a festival when all your friends are drunk and have fun and you have to stay at your stand it can be tuff but it worth it, lots of peoples discover my product at these place, so its like an investment.
 
I learned a lot from the chilies heads I meet this summer and realized I have a lot learn, you have to be humble, but I now have lot of great projects with talented peoples and pepper growers from Quebec that I didn't know when I started.
 
You have to be drive by the passion of making better products and making project with talented people, I don't think its the kind of business you go for money, I my goal was to make money I would stay at my last job as a geologist!
 
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Those are great points Damn

My friends all think I'm lame because when they're all hanging out ok the weekend, I'm in bed by 9:30 PM since I'm up at 5 for the markets.

Weekends are my lifeblood - festivals & farmers markets.

As Damn! said, it takes passion & drive - you're constantly hustling to get your name out. It's a lot dollar item & you have to sell a lot of it to make it.

And as Damn! also said, I've never been so broke in my life - but I'm happier than I've been in years.
 
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