Fired up

Fired up

How a passion for spicy food became a thriving new business.

For Jesse Long (Computer Systems Technology Alumni, 2015), life has been about finding things that make him feel “fired up.”

A few years into a career in information technology, Jesse decided to change directions and pursue his passion—building a business to sell his own brand of hot sauce. In 2019, he started his company, The Hot Sauce Co.

In summer 2020, Jesse enrolled in Fanshawe’s LeapIN Business Accelerator to learn more about expanding and strengthening his business.

“We learned everything about how to run a business,” says Jesse. “The funding I received from LeapIN allowed me to invest in equipment that took me from making 35 bottles of sauce per hour to 250.”

As business continued to grow, he wanted to take his company to the next level. Fanshawe’s Centre for Research and Innovation (CRI) was key to unlocking this growth. With a focus on supporting small and medium-sized enterprises with research and development (R&D), CRI specializes in product development, proof-of-concept testing and quality assurance. “The Hot Sauce Co. reached out to us for assistance with analyzing their production process and identifying opportunities to scaleup the business,” says Mustafa Khdair, industry development coordinator and research associate at CRI. “We provided a feasible scale-up solution to increase capacity while ensuring consistency of product quality.”

This work was funded by SONAMI, a FedDevsupported network that supports R&D activities for manufacturing companies in Southwestern Ontario.

“The team went through every step of the process and calculated costs to find efficiencies,” says Jesse. “Their solution was a bottling system that will make a big difference in reducing waste.”

Hot Sauce Co. sauces are now sold at more than 50 stores and restaurants across Ontario, as well as online at thehotsauceco.com.