Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Linneweber

Chris , we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?

Linneweber’s Sauce Company continues to evolve every year. It all began when I started traveling for a living in my teens. I began trying hot sauces that were sitting on tables in southern United States and found that I enjoyed spicy foods. I worked industrial construction and would be gone for weeks or months at a time. When my friends started buying houses and planting their own gardens, they also planted chili peppers. Every summer a couple of them would become over run with the chilies. They knew that I like spicy things, so they’d call and say- come get these so they don’t go to waste.
I’d make pastes, powders, and sauces out of them when I while I was waiting on the next job and would give them away to friends and family. Years of doing this eventually led to people coming to me asking where they could buy the products.
Covid hit, and I was on a plane heading to Canada for a job. The office caught me transferring planes in the U.S. and told me to turn around and head home because they just closed the border. This gave me more time to do my research, set up an LLC, take training classes to obtain certifications, and become “legal” through the department of health.
Just by chance, a friend of mine had planted 110 chili pepper plants that year, mainly because he just likes to watch them grow.
During this time, I stumbled into the need for home remodeling contractors in my area as well. I had remodeled my home over the years, as time and money had allowed, and had friends calling and asking if I could do projects for them because they had seen my work and trusted me. I ended up not returning to the traveling job and also started a Home Renovations business. This allowed me to be home and be more involved in the growing side of the sauce business.
Once certified by the Department of Health and sharing a commercial kitchen, I began learning how to make larger batches of sauce. The first year I won a Watermelon business challenge by using locally grown watermelons to make one hot, and one mild sauce. During year two I won an International Award with a different mild sauce.
Each year presents new challenges as I learn how to operate and scale the business. I work my daytime job that pays my bills, and work nights and weekends in my shared commercial kitchen to keep the award-winning sauces flowing.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

There has been nothing smooth about starting a business from scratch in an industry that I knew nothing about. Getting past Department of Health regulations to even be able to sell my products was a huge challenge. It took me over 8 months to gain my retail food establishment permit. During that time I had invested lots of time and money into growing the ingredients for my products by seed. I learned how to do the fermentation process with larger batches. I had to learn how to begin marketing the sauces and where I could sell them at (up to this point, I had no social media profiles.) Offering tastings at the local farmers market proved to be a valuable resource for me. Growing chili peppers from seed that mainly come from South America and India in Indiana is always a challenge. Sharing a commercial kitchen space and operating at nights and on weekends can cause lack of sleep/free time. Finding labor to help make these handmade products, especially in today’s work economy, is extremely difficult. Pricing these handmade items that were made from seeds that were purchased months ago is also very difficult. Finding wholesalers to sell the sauces for me as I can’t be everywhere at once is challenging. Highly inflated packaging/shipping costs have made moving liquid food products in glass bottles very expensive. The cost of insuring a business in the food industry puts a strain on the companies yearly budget. Food, fuel, and lodging prices make it difficult to attend events very far from home. I believe I’m just gonna stop there for now, or the “challenges” list will continue to roll on…

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I am currently known for producing Award Winning, small, craft batch mild and hot sauces. All chili peppers are grown from seed in Indiana, naturally fermented, then aged, before becoming one-of-a-kind sauces. I am just proud to have started a business in the food industry from scratch that has put smiles on so many faces of my customers. My sauce business is different from alot of others, because I mainly grow/source local ingredients and process them hours after harvesting. These high quality ingredients, combined with my fermentation process create unique sauces that aren’t found anywhere else.

If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?

I grew up on a hog farm in rural Southern Indiana that my family still operates today. Like most farm kids, I began working with my dad at an early age. My High School class graduated less than 100 students. I lettered in every sport the school had to offer, except golf. I didn’t ever play that sport.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.linneweberssaucecompany.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linneweberssaucecompany/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100068053132325

Image Credits

Matt Ramsey.
Emily Roark