Chile Collaboration: A Recipe for Success

CaJohns from Columbus Partners to Promote
the Pungent and Powerful Pepper
by Cody Badaracca

All alliteration aside, CaJohns Fiery Foods out of Columbus, Ohio has been doing some deal making in the world of hot food. The company is nationally recognized for its vast catalog of sauces, salsas, and rubs and has won multiple awards for them. They’ve garnered attention at food festivals all over the country and have been featured on the Food Network and the History Channel. Heck, CaJohns owner and founder John Hard was even assimilated into Southern Culture when he was made an “Honorary Cajun” at the New Iberia Hot Sauce Festival. Quite the honor for a self-proclaimed “Irishman from Ohio.” More.

Profiles of Fiery Folks

Blair Lazar is a New Jersey Gen-X'er whose record-breaking hot sauces put the 'x' in extreme. His motto is "Feel Alive^®," and that's exactly how you'll feel when you're running around the room searching for a beverage. His Original Death^® Sauce, gets tossed over more than 50,000 pounds of Buffalo wings every week, plus countless other uses. While the Death Sauce^® (in many varieties) has mass appeal, Blair's Reserves have developed an amazing cult following. Released sporadically and in small batches, the Reserve products come in special glass bottles, signed, numbered and hand-dipped in colored resins--a 24 karat gold skull sometimes tops them. Fans avidly collect the bottles, which sell for hundreds and sometimes many thousands of dollars on the Internet and through private collectors. Blair's Reserves are the hottest of the hot, including his 16 Million Reserve, which is listed by Guinness World Records 2007 as the "hottest chili sauce commercially available." Funny, frank and frankly obsessed with hot stuff, Blair is the kind of personality that makes fiery foods so much fun.  More.

How to Choose a Co-Packer

Contract packaging, also known as co-packing, is the increasingly popular option of having someone else produce and package your product. This method of manufacturing is a growing segment of the Fiery Foods Industry as more cooking stores, gourmet and hot shops and even supermarkets carry a wider variety of unique and small house brands. Even restaurants are taking their homemade salsas, sauces and spices, having them co-packed, then retailing them. What were once "family secrets," are now becoming available to many households across the United States.

Some co-packers start out as general manufacturers, while others begin with a recipe that they decide to manufacture themselves. Some co-packers will let you put your private label on their products and market them as your own; if you are entering a market where your best chance at success is to go in with multiple products, then this might be a good idea. Also, if you are interested in retailing, but have not yet developed your own product, this might be the way to make a name for your company.

The best ingredient for a successful partnership between a co-packer and an entrepreneur is trust. Both of you are interested in a profitable venture, and achieving this goal means working together to do the best job possible.

A properly chosen co-packer will provide the bridge between your basement or commercial kitchen and the mass manufacturers. Given the pace with which the hot and spicy market is growing, using a co-packer gives you a good chance to cross that bridge successfully.  More.