A happy New Year’s greetings to all from the evil minions at Droolin’ Devil Fine Foods!
2006 has been an eventful and somewhat tumultuous year for us with a lot of activity both personally and corporately that has seen great things happen for Lorien and I.
After coming off of our best sales year ever in 2005, we saw that the bar was raised for our little company and we set our sights on achieving even greater things in 2006. Thankfully we have succeeded with that mandate and once again each year proves to more rewarding for Droolin’ Devil.
The Droolin Devil product line and Uncle Big’s Killer Brand had an amazing response worldwide as we shipped product into several new countries including Germany, Finland, Romania, Mexico, and The United Kingdom. It was very exciting to hear the positive feedback from our overseas Chileheads on our products.
Our relationship with the Hatari brand (our beloved co-packer) deepened as we started to act on their behalf in scouting new hot sauce talents from the U.S. and Canada and exposing them on a national scale to the Canadian market. Sam Shivji and his son Jamil have mentored us and helped guide us through this crazy industry every step of the way. For that we are truly grateful.
We are very proud to say that Hatari and UncleBig.com now are the exclusive Canadian distributors for Danny Cash, Defcon Wing Sauces, Tangy Delights and the Three Hot Tamales. We have also begun dialogs with CaJohn’s Fiery Foods, Loco Luna, Super Spicy, Fat Kid Sauces, Jersey Boyz Jerky, Psycho Mark, Fired Up Foods, Marco’s Not Yet Famous brand and several other manufacturers both big and small from the U.S. and Canada.
We look forward to helping the Canadian makers penetrate the Canadian market on a national scale as well as bringing the U.S. makers north of the 49th parallel and retailing them within our network of sellers and presenting them to the Canadian grocery chains.
Further to that, we will be presenting our products, as well as our U.S. supplier’s products to two national grocery chains which represent the possible exposure to over 1400 stores reaching every province in Canada.
Uncle Big’s Mission Statement for 2007 will see him continue his guerilla sales and marketing campaign widen as he hopes to penetrate the virginal territory in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (that sounds a little dirty doesn’t it?) Most people would be surprised to see how little fiery foods selection there is in the 640,000 square miles of Saskatchewan and Manitoba. It will be no small undertaking, but we’d like to make a huge dint in that marketplace over the next calendar year.
As most of you know, Droolin’ Devil moved their operations lock, stock and two smoking barrels from the BoomTown of Calgary, Alberta to the sleepy little city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan a city one quarter of the size in September of this year.
It was a personal choice as well as a business strategy that is paying off tremendously in both regards. Uncle Big’s blood pressure is almost normal again and the people of Saskatoon have been more responsive to Droolin’ Devil’s Gospel of Fire than we could have imagined. We are truly one of a kind in this city. We don’t dabble in selling a hot sauce here and there, that’s all we sell, and people have responded in droves. The last Friday before Christmas saw our little store standing room only with people all the way out the door just to pick up that last minute fiery stocking stuffer.
There isn’t a day that goes by without at least one customer coming into our little shop and standing in awe at our selection of sauces and fiery foods selection. They had no idea that there were this many options to spice up their life. I’ve even had a few say there were going home to toss all of their grocery store brand “hot sauces” in the trash to make room for all of the new “real hot sauces” that they have purchased in our store. It really warms the heart to know that we have opened people’s eyes to the fiery foods industry.
We have been test marketing two new sauces and a salsa over the holiday season, those being our Mean Ass Mustard Habanero Hot Sauce, Sinfully Wild Garlic Salsa and our new flagship sauce for 2007, a new fiery Habanero based sauce, which we will be unveiling shortly on Hot Sauce Blog. We will unleash these new offerings on palates around the world in the first few weeks of January. We will be submitting them for review to the Hot Sauce Blog and welcome the feedback and look forward to hearing what the finely tuned palates of the reviewers have to say.
As well, we are almost ready to launch the rest of the Uncle Big’s Killer line of products which will include Uncle Big’s Killer Wing Sauce, Uncle Big’s Killer BBQ Sauce, Uncle Big’s Red Eye, Uncle Big’s Killer Salsa and Uncle Big’s Killer Hot Nuts. Prepare yourselves, Uncle Big this way comes”¦
We plan on creating two special reserve products for Droolin’ Devil and Uncle Big’s Killer to sell as a charity fund raiser for Jamil Shivji from Hatari in order to raise awareness as well as research money for the Canadian Arthritis Society. “The Son of Sam”, Jamil, will be trekking across Machu Pichu this summer to raise money for the cause. Keep your eyes peeled to Hot Sauce Blog and UncleBig.com for details on how you can help support Arthritis Research in North America.
As a final note to those of you reading this on HSB, Lorien and I would like to thank everyone in this industry that have been so helpful, entertaining and controversial all at that same time. You all know who you are, and we shall continue to banter for many years to come.
The characters and personalities I have met over this past year both in person and online have enriched my life and solidified my belief that life is too short to eat bland food. It has stirred my passion to attempt to create the best fiery foods products that we are capable of making.
A huge kudos and much appreciation needs to be given to Nick Lindauer from HotSauceBlog.com for his tireless efforts in perpetuating the growth and awareness of this industry.
We must include in that thank you to Nick, a personal thank you to Anthony Prugo, HSB reviewer as well. His work in the eastern Canadian market exposing that part of the country to the who’s, what’s and where’s for hot sauce and associated heat bearing products has been exemplary. He is helping spice up Canadian’s lives without any remuneration, but simply for the love of hot sauce. Thanks buddy.
Nobody does it better than HSB.
We wish everyone who reads this great prosperity in 2007 on a business level and much peace, love and happiness in their personal lives as well.
Get sauced!!
Craig and Lorien Lowenberg
Uncle Big and “Mrs. Uncle Big”