How to Start a Hot Sauce Company
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Tom Schickel of http://www.tomshotsauce.com has written a step-by-step guide on how to start up a hot sauce company:
So you want to start your own hot sauce company, but you keep running into roadblocks. You are going through the same thing I went through. It starts out simple, you figured out the right recipe and now want to take the next step. Well, I thought I would take a few minutes to share what I have gone through to help other pepper-heads and share some resources that I have found and maybe save you some time.
1. Supplies: (Woozy Bottles, Shrink Bands) There are many sites out there, selling products to make your own sauce, but most are very expensive. I have ordered from several sites and have had great success with Specialty Bottle. Until you are ready to make several thousand bottles, their prices for 5 Oz. Woozy Bottles are the best I have found. They also have drippers and shrink bands.
Website: www.specialtybottle.com
2. Labels: I have used companies that use either digital, or printing presses. The digital seems a bit more expensive, but there are minimal set up costs. I am in Colorado and have used Lighting Labels, you can probably find your own local company by doing a web search...this is not a hard part of your set up. If you are having a company produce your sauce, you will need to make sure you get label rolls that work on auto labelers.
Website: www.lightninglabels.com
3. Bar Codes: There are many free sites as well as very expensive sites for bar codes. You will need to purchase a barcode that cannot be used by someone else and is registered. I found a Nationwide Barcode through the CO Department of Agriculture that seemed very reasonable.
Website: www.nationwidebarcode.com
4. Production: You will need to make your sauce in a clean facility, no more cooking it in the kitchen... I am in Colorado and went to the CO Department of Agriculture to find many local resources. Your state's Department of Agriculture site should provide you with local Clean Kitchens and Co-packing facilities. I had to call around to many different companies, most companies didn't have equipment to bottle using a 5 oz. Woozy Bottle. There was also a huge difference in the pricing between the companies out there. Make sure you shop around to find a company that can produce your sauce and still leave margin for you. My first run was is for 800 bottles of each flavor, that's about as small of a batch as you can get.
5. Nutrition Facts: I was able to have the production facility complete the nutrition facts for me for a few hundred dollars...avoid the companies that want to charge you thousands; it's not that difficult.
I hope this gets you started and is helpful. If you like the advice or have any questions, let me know on my blog. If I really helped, why don't you order some Tom's Hot Sauce, that's the best way to say thanks.
Best of luck.
Tom
Tom's Hot Sauce is a Colorado-based company that focuses on making sauces that enhance the flavor of the habanero while offering a balanced amount of heat.
Comments
2010-04-13 19:20:48
2010-04-30 06:48:41
2010-06-25 09:56:32
Best of luck to everyone in their sauce endeavors!
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