We were lucky to catch up with Alissa Peña recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alissa, thanks for joining us today. So, let’s imagine that you were advising someone who wanted to start something similar to you and they asked you what you would do differently in the startup-process knowing what you know now. How would you respond?

The food business is something that I’ve immersed myself in for almost 20 years. If I were starting over from scratch with my salsa business, I think I would give myself more of a financial plan. The salsa is loved and making food that people truly love and are loyal to seems to be the best and most rewarding part! Creating a business plan and having solid financial goals with more funds allocated to start up costs would have been a tremendous help from the very beginning. I was very fortunate to receive advice from some hugely successful salsa company owners who have encouraged me to follow through with a launch of my brand of salsas and have answered some very helpful questions when faced with a jar shortage, rising food costs and a pandemic. Had I had a more detailed financial plan in place, I might have been able to reach my financial goals a bit faster, with less of a learning curve.

Alissa, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My culinary background started in my mother’s kitchen and progressed later through years of restaurant service in both front and back of house. I served, managed, cooked and opened restaurants for independent owners in Austin, Houston, and my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas. I spent 3 years on the East Coast as a rep for The Chefs’ Warehouse selling high end food to chefs in restaurants and hotels. Through the lens of a restauranteur, it’s easy to see that no matter how much money is put into a space, how much local exposure you get or how well trained your staff is the ONLY thing that truly matters is the quality and love put into the food. After leaving the restaurant world, I sold advertising for a local tv station but I was still making my own salsas at night and doing small pop ups as a side hustle. As JalaPena’s Salsa gained more and more popularity, and the website and retail orders grew, I knew I was on to something and took the leap of faith. These salsas have given me the opportunity to travel and meet people across the US as part of food shows and markets as well as open some doors in the tv world cooking for local stations across Texas. I put everything I have into finding the perfect ingredients and maintaining excellent quality in all of my salsas.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

We manufacture the salsa in a commercial kitchen here in Corpus Christi. In the beginning stages, I was in my tiny home kitchen while sampling, testing and jarring and I found out how quickly I was going to outgrow that process. Little did I know that soon I was going to have to apply for a manufacturers license, have all the jars be tested at a facility for proper acidity and shelf stabilization, and register with the FDA and State of Texas. As I continue to grow, I hope to one day have a manufacturer take over the cooking and jarring process so I can fully devote my time to landing new retail placements across the US – but I’m not quite ready to hand over the reigns quite yet.

What’s been the best source of new clients for you?

Best source of new clients for me is and always has been word of mouth. Having people post pictures of recipes they’ve made with our salsas and sharing their love for them has gotten us more exposure than we were even ready for! Social media has been a cost effective way to share pics, recipes and partnerships with retailers but the most fun aspect of finding new clients is pop up tasting and markets! I love watching people try the salsas and react to the heat levels!! It takes people watching to a whole new level.

Contact Info:

• Website: jalapenassalsa.com
• Instagram: @jalapenassalsa
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jalapenassalsa

Image Credits
Gerald Flores Debbie Noble