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28 MARKETWATCH GOURMET NEWS JANUARY 2014 www.gourmetnews.com MARKETWATCH HOT SAUCES Hot Sauce Fever Spreads Across the Nation BY LORRIE BAUMANN Over the past few years, the news media has been prompting people around the world to think a great deal about heat in its many manifestations. A growing number of us have concluded that one thing we want to do about heat is put it in our mouths. In short, the hot sauce market has gone nuclear. In 2013, CompaniesandMarkets.com reported that sales of spicy chili pepper sauces grew 9 percent in the previous year, with the industry reaching a current value of $540 million. This upward growth trend is expected to continue. IBIS World, a marketing research company, noted last year that hot sauce production was the eighth fastest growing industry in the United States, with industry revenue projected to grow over the next five years at an average annual rate of 4.1 percent. "The hot sauce industry is extremely strong," says Dave DeWitt, founder and Co-Producer of the National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, scheduled to take place Feb. 28-March 2, 2014 in Albuquerque, N.M. Now in its 26th year, the show presents the annual Scovie Awards, a tribute to foods whose spiciness is measured in Scoville Heat Units. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and Carolina Reaper peppers are currently considered the hottest peppers in the world, with Scoville ratings in the range of about 1.5 to 2 million SHU. The mild Anaheim, Peppadew and Poblano peppers come in around 1,000 to 2,500 SHU, with most of the world's other peppers measuring somewhere in between these two ranges. There are more than 800 products entered into the Scovie Awards contest for 2014, with 161 of those hot sauces. "Everybody seems to make them, and they do it very well," DeWitt says. "The criteria for judging are flavor, appearance, aroma and texture. The heat level just has to be appropriate. If something says it's a hot sauce, it's got to have some heat in it." Pete Burback of Cooks Corner in Green Bay, Wis. is one of the retailers riding that wave. He says Cooks Corner has always had some hot sauces in his store marketed mainly as impulse items to the tourists who come by busloads to spend the day in the nation's largest kitchenware store. Accord- largest display of hot sauces in the state. "It was more of a gut feeling than anything else," he says. In those days, a selection of 250 hot sauces was what Burback had to put on his shelves in order to have more sauces for retail sale than anyone else in Wisconsin. Today, Cooks Corner stocks more than 400 varieties. As a result of Burback's efforts, hot sauce sales have been growing steadily for the store over the past three years. "We absolutely blow through hot sauce," he says. "I was surprised at how many people collect them." Although Cooks Corner has the largest hot sauce shop in Wisconsin, its selection is dwarfed by the array offered by Peppers of Key West, located in Key West, Fla. Owner Pete Legrady sells 1,200 SKUs, of which about 900 are hot sauces. The clientele are mostly tourists com—Ronald Reagan ing off the cruise ships that call in at ing to Burback, many decide at the cash the island, as well as day-trippers register that they should probably take from Fort Lauderdale and Miami. home a little something for the spouse who Legrady also has many cusstayed home to change the oil in the car or tomers who visit his online store watch a football game on television. For at www.peppersofkeywest.com. many of these shoppers, hot sauce perfectly "Not everything we have in the fits the bill. store is hot. Just because something says About three years ago, Burback called his 'habanero' on the label doesn't mean it's distributor and asked what he would need going to be hot," says Legrady. to stock if Cooks Corner were to have the Legrady bought Peppers of Key West six years ago after he fell in love with Key West and decided to leave the corporate rat race for a business he could be passionate about. Around 100,000 people a year come into his store, where every product offered for sale has something to do with chili peppers, whether it is a rub or dry spice mix, a chili-seasoned jerky, a cookbook or a tea towel printed with an image of a chili pepper. "People are getting more adventurous about enjoying spicy foods more. With the Baby Boomers, maybe their taste buds are dying, so they're using hot sauce to put more flavor into the "If you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat," foods. With the younger generation, it can be an ego thing," Legrady says. "There really is no specific demographic that hot sauce appeals to. It's really all over the board." In addition to selling chili sauces made by others, Legrady also makes his own Peppers of Key West-branded sauces that are winning plaudits from hot sauce aficionados. These plaudits include seven awards for a Peppers of Key West Asian marinade, two for a chicken wing sauce and three for a very mild jerk sauce. Most of the company's awards have come from both the Fiery Foods Show and Zest Fest. "We have all kinds of variations of hot sauce from super mild to super hot," Legrady says. "I enjoy it when people come in and say they don't like hot sauce. We sit them down and get them tasting, and they find something they like. We can always match a flavor profile to a personal preference." Dave's Gourmet makes sauces that cater to the hot sauce aficionados who love to feel the fire. "This is extreme heat, and that caught on right away," says Dave Hirschkop, the "Dave" of Dave's Gourmet. The very hot end of the chili sauce spectrum is just a small niche of the industry, but he thinks it is the most exciting. He finds that the super-hot sauces appeal to younger men, but there are no geographic boundaries to a taste for the fiery. "Places without a hot sauce tradition were a little slower to jump on, but they've caught up," Hirschkop says. "There are people who can handle the heat and who can taste the flavor and appreciate it." Hirschkop, like many other hot sauce makers, is experimenting these days with some of the hottest peppers on the planet. "Super-hot is going to move forward from habanero to ghost pepper to scorpion, with a lot of debate about which is hottest," he says. "That's meaningful to people. It's a point of interest." Johnny McLaughlin of Heartbreaking Dawns makes hot sauces for the segment of the market that is more interested in chili peppers for their flavor than their heat. McLaughlin launched Heartbreaking Dawns five years ago with three products

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