We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jack Moore a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jack , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. One of the things we most admire about small businesses is their ability to diverge from the corporate/industry standard. Is there something that you or your brand do that differs from the industry standard? We’d love to hear about it as well as any stories you might have that illustrate how or why this difference matters.

Something I do differently from the industry standard of hot sauce is preserve the living culture in the ferment. We make Black Cap Hot Sauce as a small batch ferment and never cook or pasteurize it, meaning it retains gut-friendly bacteria, and must stay refrigerated. Most hot sauces, even if the label states they are fermented, are usually still cooked after the fermentation process, killing this healthy bacteria in order to be shelf stable. If Black Cap was shelf stable, we would avoid some of our logistical challenges. Needing to be mindful of refrigeration requirements for storage, shipping, and events ultimately creates additional work and cost, but we think it’s worth it.

Rather than see this as a disadvantage, we see it as our competitive edge. It pulls us out of the noise of the hot sauce aisle and puts us in a prime position to stand out. We also love being associated with other natural refrigerated fermented foods, as the health and wellness movement is only positioned to grow. Being a fermented product and preserving the culture is key to our brand identity and a sticking point for our customers.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have always loved working with my hands. After a short stint as a master mechanic, I decided to pursue the culinary arts. After graduating from Bradford Culinary Institute, I worked for some reputable and James Beard award-winning restaurants in Columbus and Cleveland, including Sage American Bistro, The Greenhouse Tavern, The Black Pig, and most recently, Watershed Distillery’s Kitchen and Bar. For about 13 years or so, my chef career was heading in a very positive direction.

And then the pandemic happened.

In an instant, restaurants were closed. Watershed’s restaurant remained closed for several more months to focus on the distillery production of hand sanitizer. We kept our team working for a bit, preparing meal kits and supplies for our team members. During and after that time, I had the opportunity to reflect on my career path in a way I hadn’t before. Rather than working 60+ hours per week, I was removed from the bustling day-to-day of the restaurant and left with my thoughts. During this period of rest, I was able to do things like spend time with my family, help upkeep their farm, and experiment with food at home. I struggled to reconcile what came next, but after some soul searching, I decided I could not go back to work for someone else again – it was time to forge my own path. When Watershed reopened, I got them back up and running and parted ways to pursue my next culinary adventure – Ruffled Feather Ferments.

I have always loved the art of preservation. My mom used to can all of her green beans, make salsa with the tomatoes we couldn’t eat fast enough, make fruit jelly with the peaches and apples from the yard, and pickle our beets. As a chef, the preservation technique I found most exciting was fermentation. Over the years of cooking in restaurants, I had always made a fermented hot sauce of some kind. I dialed in that recipe and people would always ask where they could buy it. Ultimately, the pieces of the puzzle started to align, and during our off time in 2020, I was able to work with an incredibly talented group of friends (who also found themselves with some extra time on their hands) to create a brand for this hot sauce.

Ruffled Feather Ferments was created to explore my love for transforming local and seasonal produce into something new and exciting. Black Cap Hot Sauce has been the flagship product, and we are excited to introduce a few new items this year. Our first bottle was sold on March 1 2021 and has cultivated a grassroots following in the time since. We are excited to grow Black Cap also plan to expand to other small batch, chef driven living culture ferments in 2023.

In terms of our customer value proposition, we focus on a few things. First, education on fermentation, living culture, and the benefits of incorporating more fermented foods into everyday routines resonates. Additionally, we think the flavor and quality is always surprising to people. The reason we do taste tests of hot sauce at all of our events is because most people have never tasted one quite like this – mild in heat, wild in flavor, and retaining all of the bold funky elements of fermentation. Lastly, more shoppers today are committed to supporting small or local businesses, so they feel great about buying from an innovative, chef driven brand.

What I am most proud of are the people in my corner that have helped make this thing go. From the friends who heard I was launching a hot sauce and brought in cases of it without even tasting, just because they knew it would be great, to other friends that helped create the branding and vision for Ruffled Feather and Black Cap, and to the customers that have become diehard fans. I am currently technically a one-person-show, but I don’t do it alone. I am fortunate to have an incredible support group of friends, family, and wife that have put me in the best possible position to succeed.

The best part of my “job” is seeing people’s faces when they try Black Cap for the first time – it’s a reminder that I have something special here, and can’t wait to see what the future has in store!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

My personal chef “brand” definitely helped establish some credibility leading up to the launch of Black Cap. I became very well connected in the culinary world, especially in the Columbus and Cleveland areas. So many people there had either met me, knew of me, or had a chance to try my food. In the grand scheme of things, we will expand well beyond the Ohio market where customers may not be as familiar with my background. For now, though, it’s creating a grassroots following. So many people I worked alongside or rubbed elbows with have gone on to open their own restaurants. They were some of the first places to pick up my stuff, and the chef-driven culinary influence will continue to support our growth.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

Doing events or markets where I can be face-to-face and sampling Black Cap with people has been an incredibly effective strategy for growing our clientele. If 10 people taste our sauce, 9 people buy it. We purposefully cultivate retail relationships in the neighborhoods we do those events in, so if we aren’t there every weekend, our customers know where to find us, helping us to scale in an organic way.

To reiterate, Ruffled Feather Ferments, parent company to Black Cap Hot Sauce, is a VERY small company, currently only “employing” myself, the owner/founder. I say “our” company often because my friends and family are a big part of this early success, but it’s truly just me for now, chasing a dream. I know that be being at every event, farmers market, and retailer when I am the one producing, bottling, labeling, delivering, covering finance, and eventually doing more innovation and product development under the Ruffled Feather Ferments brand, is not sustainable. That said, there is power in connecting with people and sharing our story, and I’ll make that a cornerstone of this company, always.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.blackcaphotsauce.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blackcaphotsauce/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlackCapHotSauce/

Image Credits
No Credits