After mustard, hot sauces. Quebecer Simon-Pierre Murdock is taking advantage of the shortage of sriracha and sambal oelek sauces to set up shop across Canada.
• Read also: Shortage of mustard: a Quebecer outweighs the multinationals
• Read also: A $50 million Quebec tomato paste factory on the table
In 2021, his company Canada Sauce had bought up all that was left of mustard seed in Western Canada in order to take the place of the giants of the sector on the shelves of grocery stores.
Now the Chicoutimi company is doing it again with its spicy sambal oelek sauce.
Well known to spicy food lovers, this chili paste has been harder to find for a year. Huy fong foods, the American company that dominates the sector, is experiencing production difficulties.
The same goes for Huy fong foods’ other star product, the Sriracha sauce, the one with the rooster on the squeeze bottle with the green spout.
“We wanted to develop a product to make up for the sales they were losing. We enter 20 or 30 points of sale per week in Quebec and Canada with our sambal oelek,” says the entrepreneur.
This new product from Canada Sauce is part of a line of six Asian sauces marketed since the end of November.
“It’s crazy. We sell more sambal oelek than ketchup-relish-mustard. We are the only ones to produce it. It comes out of the factory with a truck load of 26 pallets”, is surprised Simon-Pierre Murdock.
In five months, his chili paste is already sold in almost 800 places in the country. We tear it up in Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Winnipeg, among others.
From idea to jar
The idea came to the entrepreneur a year ago, when he could no longer get his hands on the product from Huy fong foods.
“We were able to produce ketchup with local ingredients, I don’t see why we couldn’t do it with this sauce,” he said to himself.
While the original product only contains chili paste, Canada Sauce’s is made from 50% to 60% local tomatoes.
“We took an old classic and brought it up to date. It’s Canadian-Asian fusion cuisine, and we import peppers from the southern United States,” he says.
Next stop: Sriracha
The boss of Canada Sauce intends to ride on this success before Huy fong foods resumes production and its place on the shelves.
He wants to use the same modus operandior to “respect the aromatic lines and the flavors, then to bring [sa] little local touch”, to launch a sriracha sauce in the fall.
It is a more liquid sauce that contains vinegar in particular.
But for now, Simon-Pierre Murdock is trying to meet demand. “I could sell everything I sold in the month in two days,” he says.
Who would have thought that Canada was so fond of heat?