The long road to making my own hot sauce
- Kevin Roopnarine
- 05 Apr 2020
Given that both of my parents are from Trinidad, the most southern island in the Caribbean, it should come as no surprise that I love hot sauce. I use it so often that I started making my own to use in my lunches at work. I began by fine-tuning my mother’s recipe to suit my own taste but soon it drew the eye of a crowd. Coworkers would ask to try it so frequently that I decided to leave a bottle in the office’s communal fridge.
Before you knew it, people were devouring it — this was the start of something big.
And so in 2014, I properly began the process of creating hot sauce in my mother’s kitchen – located on the Hamilton Mountain – with the intent of sharing it with whoever was interested.
While the taste was excellent, I had to adjust the viscosity levels (ie. the liquidity and pourability of the product). The sauce needed to flow smoothly out of the bottle and not get clogged in the insert of the cap.
Then there were issues of separation where you’d have to continually shake the bottles to maintain the consistency of the sauce. Oil and water are notorious separators so I decided to no longer use either. After these changes were met with approval from friends and family, I had sparked an idea: why don’t I market this product?
I never went to school for this nor did I know anyone who had created and marketed their own food product before. It’s at this point when I learned about GS1 barcodes, Nutrition Facts Labels, Food Handlers licences, sourcing ingredients, and securing a supplier for the bottling and sealing materials.
Many people warned me that the hot sauce market was oversaturated but so is every market when you really think about it. My philosophy is that if your product is great then society will make room.
Fast forward to present day six years later and I pause to reflect on how much has changed in so little time. From the initial recipes to the various names along the way — like anything of value, evolution is inevitable. Progress is what you need and want; even though constructive criticism can be hard to swallow, it really is useful if you actually apply it.
My sauce has gone through many phases. From the original name “Suprimir” Boss Sauce which was Spanish for “cut-out, eliminate, and destroy”, I changed it to “Bonne Bouche” Gourmet which was French for “gourmet tidbit, tasty morsel and an elegant treat”. I thought the latter was a genius idea for the bilingualism aspect of the Canadian markets, not to mention it would save space on the label by just having it in one language and not two like every other product on the shelves.
But something about the name still wasn’t quite right. That’s when I renamed the sauce to its current label “X-SRE™”. If you don’t get it, sound out each letter.
It’s a play on the word ‘accessory’, as in a kitchen accessory to any food: be it nachos, noodles, sandwiches, soups, salads, rice, chicken, seafood, vegetables, pastas, beef, pork — basically anything where you’d like to add some real heat and flavour. You can even use it as a marinade if you’re brave enough.
The sauce itself is extremely concentrated so a little goes a long way. There is no added salt, sugar, or fish oils. I took into account various common allergies and created a healthy option for vegetarians. It contains all natural ingredients and the three highest quality and hottest peppers from around the world: the Carolina Reaper, Trinidadian Scorpion, and Ghost peppers.
When designing this sauce, I wanted to build something that I was personally proud of and would actually use. Once I had a winning formula in terms of the recipe, name, and legal requirements, I knew it was just a matter of exposure. I compiled a list of retail outlets and began approaching them randomly, armed with bottles and samples. Watching retailers and employees’ reactions who tried it was comical. A few brave souls dived right in but later regretted that decision with shortness of breath, a red face, and begging for a drink afterwards. All you need is one tiny drop — it goes a long way.
After three months, I had it in about 10 convenience stores in Hamilton alone and then signed one grocery store with two locations in Hamilton. Currently I’m in talks to have it distributed in a few more cities including Brantford, Niagara Falls, and Toronto. The present count to date is 15 places.
I’m now trying to target Caribbean restaurants but there’s a limited selection in this area. Hello Iris in Waterdown has been carrying the sauce for three years now and Lyn’s Linstead Market on Upper Gage has also been great in stocking my product. Breaking into authentic places like these has been one of the greatest catalysts for my growth.
While I’m proud of how far the business has come, I’ve come to realize far too well that nothing comes easy in life. Throughout the process, partnerships have formed and dissolved; it’s a cycle. My background is in business marketing and automotive sales so I know I have what it takes to get this job done, and done properly, all the way from the conception and creation of the idea to packaging, advertising, and distribution.
It’s been a long road and I knew that going in from the beginning but with my experience backed by a quality product it cannot equal anything but success. Hard work and talent is always a recipe for a home run.
If you’d like to pick up a bottle of X-SRE™ and support a local business, please call me at 289-682-8034. I’d love to share some Caribbean hot sauce with you!
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