Crazy Uncle Jester’s
Products: Hot sauces, salsas, pepper jellies, barbecue sauces, dry rubs
More info: Call (937) 550-1025, e-mail j.stevenson@crazy unclejester.com, or visit www.crazyunclejester.com
CENTERVILLE — A Centerville-based producer of hot sauces has captured a grand prize award for its product logo and label in a national spicy-foods competition, has hired a national sales director and predicts sales will catch fire in 2011.
Crazy Uncle Jester’s is the brainchild of Jeff Stevenson of Centerville, the company’s founder and president, who started making his own homemade hot sauces and salsas more than a decade ago. At the urging of friends and relatives he began selling them and ultimately quit his job as a financial planner two years ago to throw himself full time into the business.
He’s getting noticed.
In addition to three 2011 “Scovie Awards” and a grand prize for marketing and advertising materials announced last week, Crazy Uncle Jester’s won four more 2011 Scovies for its products, including a second place for its “The Jester” super-hot sauce and third-place awards for its “Spontaneous Combustion” hot sauce, “Wholly Smoking Jolokia” dry rub for meats and “Angel Fire” wing sauce.
The annual Scovie Awards are part of a national competition to recognize top fiery-food products. The contest, which drew 639 entries from 139 companies, is named after Wilbur Scoville, a chemist who created the Scoville Units measurement to gauge the heat level in peppers and prepared foods.
Crazy Uncle Jester’s products are currently available in 46 states, and are especially popular along the Gulf Coast, where 400 Winn-Dixie grocery stores carry the sauces, Stevenson said. Sales exceeded $100,000 in 2009, and 2010 sales have already surpassed last year’s full-year total, the company’s founder said.
Stevenson recently hired a national sales director to help him crack the specialty-grocer market.
Crazy Uncle Jester’s top-sellers include “Jamaican Hellfire” habanero-pear hot sauce and “Brushfire” barbecue sauce. Stevenson works out of an office in his Centerville home, while the products are made at a food-service company in Englewood.
Locally, the sauces are available at All Mixed Up at the 2nd Street Market in downtown Dayton, Bourbon Street Grill & Cafe in downtown Dayton and at Archer’s Tavern in Centerville.”
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2258 or mfisher@DaytonDailyNews.com.
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