We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Cole Moulton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Cole, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
The idea of Fxcking Hot Sauces is a long and arduous story but it all comes down to me loving any and all cuisine. I grew up in Southern California, the perfect mecca for being a foodie and the funny thing is, growing up, I was a super picky eater. My parents weren’t really into cooking when I was young and being in Southern California, there was always some sort of Mexican joint or a taqueria on the corner so, that was always an easy go-to. Of course, you can’t go wrong with your standard bean and cheese or street taco but the thing I loved most was always trying out the different sauces at the salsa bar. I definitely wasn’t picky when it came to that. The hotter the better. So yeah, spice was always something I have had a long love affair with. When I grew up and finished school, I expanded my horizons of food limitations and decided I was going to try anything once. From there, I completely fell in love with food and with experimenting across different recipes in the kitchen. I had moved to a super small town in the middle of nowhere in Colorado for work and out of necessity, it really kick started my need to make the food that was missing from where I grew up. This included growing my own ingredients, jarring and canning salsas and veggies, making pickles, pasta, fermenting hot sauces, beef jerky, and pretty much everything else you could imagine. This began my love affair. Fast forward to early 2020. I was married, with two small kids, living here in Dallas and had started a small web design and marketing business a few years earlier. Now, I still was making salsas and spice rubs for friends and family members for holidays, birthdays, and the like. Then COVID hit. With my web design business I was only working with Small Business owners on their marketing initiatives, and when the lockdowns rolled out, I watched them struggle to keep their doors open, let alone be able to pay me. I had a ton of time on my hands, way too many peppers in the garden, and decided to make some little care packages for our friends that we could drop off on doorsteps. Well, the results were everyone wanted more of what I was making. I was bombarded with “You should sell this” type rhetoric and with all the time on my hands and no foreseeable end to the pandemic, I decided to dive into the branding side of things as a fun little way to kill some time.
After 6 months of playing around and making more and more Hot Sauces for friends, I had the branding finished, my message was pretty clear about what my goals were, and I was ready to dive in. I launched Fxcking Hot Sauces in early 2021 with the goal of making a fun, locally sourced (so local we grow our own peppers), small batch craft hot sauce company that was all about ensuring a flavor forward sauce that compliments any and all cuisines.
I knew it would be a great opportunity from a business standpoint due to the popularity of TV and Streaming shows like Hot Ones. Everyone was talking about Hot Sauces and I was sitting in an untapped market here in Dallas. With only a handful of Hot Sauce companies in a sea of BBQ, I knew it was going to pan out in my favor. There was a demand for locally sourced products because of COVID, people were looking for spicy foods, and it really gave me the push to dive in head first.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
So one thing I’d love to tell everyone about myself is I’ve never met a stranger. I love to get to know people. That’s really part of the reason why I offer an array of products that aren’t just suited to the “Super Hot” fans out there.
So for someone who might not be familiar with Fxcking Hot Sauces, we create smoky, small batch, craft hot sauces and spices made using locally ingredients, minimal vinegar, and we’re all about a sauce that is flavor forward. We don’t do heat for heats sake. We want something that’s tasty, doesn’t ruin your palette, and enhances your favorite dishes, not just burn your mouth and leaving you with regret. It comes back to being accessible as a company. Yeah we make “hot sauces” but that’s just really a blanket term. We’ve got everything from your super mild taco sauce kind of vibe, the “I Don’t Do Spicy” to your super hot, this hurts in the best way type sauces with our “Redneck Reaper” and “The Rattler”. I even do a slow smoked spice rub, “The Angel Dust”, and a sauce called “The Mad Cow”, which can only be described as the spicy love child from a one night stand between Sweet Baby Ray and A1. So again, I want to appeal to everyone.
The thing I’ve been most proud of is winning multiple awards in International Hot Sauce Competitions. I entered my first competition shortly after launching the company and came back with TWO awards in the Hot and Medium heat level divisions. This is out of 3 sauces I submitted. So that got me really excited to start creating more and more sauces. I began to really refine my current lineup and ensure we’re staying on top of the game.
The final thing I want folks to know about Fxcking Hot Sauces is, we like to have fun. For me, it’s all about connecting with the customer. I love hanging out at markets and giving out samples. You get to tell your story face to face, meet like minded individuals, lay some hurt on a few folks here and there, and embrace the people that make up our communities. For me, it’s not about being the biggest hot sauce company in the world, it’s about providing a hot sauce that people tell their friends about. I love when we have new customers that tell us they tried this sauce or that at a friends and had to come meet us.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
So I would say the biggest life change, outside of having my children, would be starting Fxcking Hot Sauces. As I briefly touched upon, I was (I guess I still am) the owner of a small web design agency that works with small business clients. COVID really through a wrench with my agency and in all of our lives but, we’ve gotten the chance to make the most out of what was thrown at us by starting Fxcking Hot Sauces. Now, I get to do what I absolutely love and spend a ton more time with my kids.
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
When it comes to manufacturing my products, I do it all. I love growing produce. Especially peppers. This helps in the hot sauce business. I had no idea how to go about “manufacturing” hot sauces. Especially on a larger scale, but luckily we live in the age of technology so everything is right at my fingertips. I got started by reading a ton. Google was my best friend. I signed up for classes and got necessary certifications. I studied and became a Kitchen Manager to become commercially certified. I then went on to study Food Sciences through the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture in their Batch Control Processing school to ensure I had the licensing and certification for Acidic/Low Acidified and canned goods. And ultimately applied and received my manufacturing license through the state of Texas. So, here I am. Now we’re in a much bigger facility producing larger batches with less work for me so I can’t complain about any of that. It definitely has been a journey and I’ve learned way more than I’ll probably ever need to know but at the same time, wouldn’t trade any of it. I get to play in my garden and do something I love everyday.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fxckinghotsauces.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/fxckinghotsauces
- Facebook: facebook.com/fxckinghotsauces
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colemoulton