It's Day 2 of Birthday Week - Our First Year in Review

It’s Day Two of Birthday Week, and we thought we’d share a few stories about our first year.

Whilst most of the branding and design work was completed well in advance, 2024 was the year we finally perfected our recipes ready to launch — and with that came the task of scaling production to our manageable small batches of 250 bottles per run. Thankfully, we were introduced to an established hot sauce producer, and by working with them to utilise their ‘free kitchen time’, we began testing and refining our recipes with these new, larger production runs.

Whilst we had some initial setbacks in scaling up the recipes — and a few batches we simply couldn’t bottle — through much trial and testing we finally mastered the process, learning along the way just how essential great ingredients are.

We’ve been working with independent producers for many years through our @provenancegrocer sister brand, and we were well aware of how tough production at scale can be. But this year has truly tested us — whether keeping up with demand, maintaining quality, or managing the timely supply of ingredients and glassware. It’s been a constant, time-consuming juggling act requiring lengthy planning and oversight.

On the labels alone, we’ve spent countless days finding a printer who can match our exact ‘Bertie Blue’ — learning far more than we ever imagined about different label printer brands, their varying abilities to reproduce blues, and how colour is affected by different substrates (what’s being printed on). Even now though, we’re still not quite there yet — something for us to continue to work on in 2026.

Summer bought some great news for our Pineapple and Basil Chilli Sauce, winning a Star at this years Great Taste Awards - and with it some useful feedback for our other sauces that we have taken on board, believing still that our other sauces deserve the same, if not better merit, and then in September we were delighted to hear that all three of our sauces are Finalists at this year's Great British Food Awards.

So, as our first year ends and our plans for Year Two are already in motion, we’re certainly wiser and more agile than a year ago. We’re planning for growth that keeps production in-house, at a scale that remains manageable, and — most importantly — retains our small-batch, handmade principles. That, in turn, will allow us to revisit some of our other product ideas.

For whilst we launched with our three hot sauces, we are a condiments brand at heart. We’ll be sharing a little peek at our new 2026 product ideas tomorrow — and asking for your feedback.

For all of you — our wonderful customers — who have championed us through the year, we’ve got some very special Birthday Week offers running from this Thursday until Sunday. Watch this space for details!