Growing Prime Sauce Co

0:00Welcome to The Barbecue Show. You guys are in a grill. And now, with the tastiest tips, recipes and stories, it's stunt and Jake. Welcome in to The Coffee Confines of The Barbecue Show with stunt and Jake. To my left is always Mr. stunt. And to the right, Jake Balmer. Thanks so much for what a second weekend of January. Here we go. Here we are. Isn't it funny how people do that all the time? Is that just me? I find it strange when people are like, it's the first Sunday of the new year. Or, it's the last Thursday of 2025. Who cares? Nobody, but yet you just did it. And I do it all the time as well. I think it's interesting to put a little interesting, like for the most part, as long as you're doing like the first week or two, after that, if you're doing like, hey, it's the fifth Thursday of the year, that doesn't matter anymore. Right, I get it. That's like saying your kid is 37 and a half months old. Yes, exactly. Okay. The old school boarding shows who also do like,

1:00it's the 37th day of the month of the year. Nobody cares. Yeah. Yeah. You got to have some fun with it. How did you do that in your show, don't you? That's not my show anymore. How did you survive Quitter's Day? Quitter's Day. The second... This is the truth. The second Friday of January is considered Quitter's Day. It's the day most people give up on their New Year's resolution. Well, I didn't have a resolution to begin with, so I guess I did okay. You were resolute in your resolution. That's right. You really was. Resolute in your lack of resolutions. Yeah. Something like that. I don't know. I never make resolutions either. I always... I always get... It's such a cliche line. I don't make resolutions. I make goals. And this is my goal for the year, you know? And so, yeah, I would love to be healthier, but I also want to do more cooking outside. That's my goal this year. And I did cook the first week of January. So, there you go. I had stakes on the grill this week. My goal this year was to not make a resolution. Nailed it.

2:00So far. Winning. You're so good. Look at that. I don't need to make resolutions about... I mean, we talked last week on the show about trying to, you know, go into the New Year, different trends, and different things, and what we might be doing differently, or more or less of, or experimenting with. So, I guess that's kind of along the same line. Yeah. I mean, it kind of is. It's what we see, what we want to do. I don't know. I just think it's the naming of it. It's a resolution that seems so weird, but a goal. Like, this is what I'm setting myself up for this year. This is what I want to do. I mentioned Christmas briefly last week on the show, but I forgot to ask, because we ran out of time. Now that we're in an hour, we're still pressed for time. Did you have a super-win gift for your wife or super-fail gift that you gave to your lovely bride? Super-win, of course. I'm nice. Well done. Thank you. Thank you. It was a record player, actually. Really? Yeah. She wanted a record player really bad. And so, it's kind of a boomerang gift, because I got plenty of records as well. So, you know, in the world of records,

3:01what goes around comes around. Wow. It's an actual record player. Yeah. All right. So, the win gift for me that I gave my wife was a, this is almost worse old school than yours. She asked for this, by the way. She wanted it. It's a CD player that looks like a record player. Oh, my gosh. So, when you put the CD in on it, it looks like it has an arm on top spinning, and you can see down through the thing. And so, it looks like a miniature record player. Yeah. And I was like, is what you want? Okay. And then, literally, the day after Christmas, the thing was out playing Garth Brook CD's all day. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I like the record player a lot. I kind of forgot how quickly the record will spin through, though. You know, if you're not up and around in the house, you're kind of like lounging, like, it's already done. Right. You were a little too used to just let a blue tooth speaker play until it never ends. Doesn't, and so, you had to get up and change your record over really quick. Kind of was like, oh, that's right. Dang it. Doesn't it have the cool little, remember you spilled a stack the records up on top? Oh, I want to end of the next one.

4:01This doesn't drop down that. No, okay, well. Yeah. So, a full disclosure, because on this show, we share our wins and our losses. Yes. So, one of the things when I was out grabbing some stocking stuffers and little things for my wife, I was like, I should get her something else. And I was at the target. And they had those hand mixers. You know, like, were you put it, what do they call them, immersion blenders? Were you put it down in the thing and you run it by hand? I was like, that's kind of cool. I kind of like that. I should get her one of those. And so, I kind of played it back and forth, and then they have the little froth or deals, which is like a miniature version of that that takes foam, you know, my picture milk. And I was like, oh, I'll get one of those. And I was like, ah, no, I'll go with the hand mixer. So, I got it. And Christmas morning, every's opening gift, the whole family around me, she opens it up and she peels it up and she's like, oh, hey. And I can just see her whole face just kind of go, and melt and I go, oh, dang. Kind of missed the mark on that one, didn't I? And I said, you know, I have the receipt for that if you, and she goes, oh, good. Like zero hesitation.

5:01Oh, man. Oh, man, I blew it with that. So, then she reminds me on the way home from Christmas. She says, I didn't mean to seem rude, but you know, I have one of those hand mixers. Same thing you gave me last year. And I said, I didn't know that. She goes, yeah, you wouldn't know that because I never used it. There it is, yeah. I'm like, oh, man, that hurts. So, she's like, well, I'm going to return it. I think I'm going to get a new air fryer instead. And I said, great, get whatever you want. Do your thing. And this is a long story. But we used to have one of the tabletop, like countertop air fryer. Yeah. Which is awesome, because you can take it outside with you if you're doing stuff. You can use it inside. Kids love it for like pizza rolls and French fries. Yep. When we got our new oven, the oven. That's a whole new story. Yeah, the whole new story. A couple of years ago, it was not only an oven, but it had a convection oven option. What? And an air fryer option. Like, oh, this is the best of everything you could ever eat. Amazing.

6:01And if you, on the glass in the oven, on the glass window, if you double tap it, you know, a little, the light comes on. Well, jeez. The wonder I bought it, right? No wonder you bought it. No wonder it's also gone to heck on you. Yeah, I know. Too many gadgets. So we've never liked the air fryer or the convection part of it. So now she's like, I don't get a new air fryer. So long story short, we're longer. I decided to keep the hand mixer. I think this is better than the other one I have. Oh, jeez. So, okay, great. And then you went and bought a new air fryer anyway. Of course. And now we need a new oven. And so maybe we'll just get a regular oven that doesn't have 500 contraptions built into it. Might want to go with that this time. What do you, Ben? What have you been cooking? I was digs this week. Stakes? Stakes? Yeah. I did the old Jake Palmer trick this time. Yeah. What's the, which, which trick? Sorry. You're not in jail. So I know it wasn't that trick. What other trick did you try? I smoked it for about 30 minutes on the smoker.

7:01Two 25. I think it was. It took to get two steaks up to 110, right? Brought them in off the grill. And brought them on the fry pan. It was kind of rainy out that night. I don't know when I was this week. But, you know, it was kind of rainy. You had mac and cheese on the side. And also some mashed potatoes and garlic bread. And so I had that stuff already going on the side. And then I came in with the steaks. I had the fry pans ready to go. Put on my cast iron pan, seared, seared. Tented them both with two pallets. Two things of butter on top. No, pallets. No, not pallets. They're like pallets. But it's small. Yeah, pads. There you go. And yeah, turn off pretty dang good. Yeah. The seared at the end of it was really good. Yeah. And, you know, it's, I think we talked about this last week. Or we talked about all the time. Like, just because you can't smoke something doesn't mean you should. Like, you can over smoke stuff. Right. But what the steaks like that, it's just that little hint. Yeah. A little bit of a hint that adds to it. I don't know. It's just money. Yeah. It was really good. I didn't do squat this last weekend between schedules and life and illnesses.

8:05As you can hear my voice. Yep. My voice. I did burgers one night. It didn't feel the same. I was glad because I wasn't feeling great. And it was kind of cold and just blah. Yeah. So I literally did some burgers on the flat top. Struggled again. It's just hard to get my flat top to stay at tempering this weather. Yeah. That wind coming through the backyard. The wind a little bit. And it was warmer. You know, it was in the like the low 30s. So I thought, well, maybe we'll be okay. So I'm just residing myself to the fact that anything needs to be flat top from now on. And it's going to just have to be charcoed. Which is fine. And I was going to do that. And even my wife said, you're going to lay charcoal for five burgers. And I was like, yeah, you're right. That's why that's what my argument was for two stakes. Yeah. Now, I know what you're thinking, folks. And you're absolutely right. I could have drug the gas grill out of the snow onto the patio and just fired them up there. But that seemed like a lot more work. I thought more work. And again, it felt unfulfilling because, of course, the french fries had to be done inside in the new air fryer. Of course. Yeah. Which they're fine. They're fine.

9:05But they're never going to match the hot oil on the flat top. And fry them like french fries should be fried. Yeah. I agree. The air fryer is a neat little tool that I ever get to use and stuff. But it's not the same when you do fries and a few other... Cheese curries and stuff like that too. It's not the same. Yeah, it's close, but it's never perfect, I guess you could say. I want the grease. Yeah, grease is our friend. Speaking of our friend, Mike Young, prime sauce co. He's going to come here. We're going to talk hot sauces. Friend of the show he's been on before. Yes, he has. And now he's really expanded his business. It was a backyard project. And now it's actually in stores. You kind of find a little bit about that. Yeah. That's still coming up. Speaking of coming up. Next week of the show, make sure you make plans to join us because our good friend of the show also, Andy Boderman's coming back. Yeah, he's been talking about digital photography. Like, you know, if you're taking pictures of your food, you made a great rack of ribs, and you want to share that with friends. Your photos never do justice. Right. How can we work on that? They'll talk about that, plus social media. He's a king about it when it comes to his photos of his food.

10:05So he'll share some tips and tricks. He's so good at everything. You think he's trying to take our job? If we let them, he would. Yeah, I think you're right. We'll keep a closer eye on him. But that's next week on the show. Before we get to next week, let's finish this week. Mike Young from Prime Sosco joins the barbecue show. You're listening to the barbecue show with stunt and Jake. The flavor continues next. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Fire it on top. Two guys in a crib gonna make it sizzle. Stone and Jake bring the heat and no drizzle. Smokey skies fling so high. You can taste the ribs as they kiss the sky. If the barbecue show will be late. Your whole stunt and Jake's serving flavor on a plate. The barbecue show where the calls are key. Grab a full grab a chair at the good time swing. The barbecue show. Oh, don't be late.

11:05Your whole stunt and Jake's serving flavor on a plate. The barbecue show where the calls are key. Grab a full grab a chair at the good time swing. We're back on the barbecue show stunt and Jake and our special guest. Returning guest. That's right. How about that in the world of sauce? It's all about sauce today. Prime Sosco company Mike Young's with us. When you joined us last time, you were just getting started. And we're doing like the farmer's market type stuff. But we've seen you grow a little bit. Welcome back to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me. A lot has definitely changed since last time I was on. Yeah, I would say. For one, it seems like social media as well, you know, that's real life. But you're everywhere on social media right now. Which is that part of the, what do I say? Part of the business plan? Part of the process? Is it going to just be out there? Yeah, that's definitely a conscious effort to put a lot of social media content.

12:06Just consistent social media. That's what it takes to be in front of everyone, to be the forefront of their thoughts. When it comes to things like that and people's purchasing decisions, they're getting bombarded with media all over the place. So you kind of have to just keep putting out content because not everyone sees all your content you put out. So you got to just keep putting it out there and different things and see what's works and what doesn't keep adapting. Well, you've definitely, you've definitely got the business plan part of it and the promotional part of it down. That's for sure. Yeah, you guys have been everywhere. Yeah. So let's, let's recap a little bit for folks who might have missed the first episode. Shame on you, by the way, because you can go back and listen to those shows. That's right. I'm sure Ken. I learned that in radio school. Always scold the listener. They appreciate that. So let's start at the beginning. So you're here in Mancadal, right? Yep, we're based out here in Mancadal. And what prompted the idea of like, I'm going to start making sauces? Well, it all started just over a year ago. I was messed around in my kitchen at home. It was actually a New Year's day. And I was, I had a whole bunch of peppers next.

13:07I planned on making hot sauces. I'd made sauces and stuff before. And I'd, you know, just have it down pretty good. And I made some. And they turned out really good. I took them to work. My coworkers loved them ate them all. I made more. They ate all that. Then they kept saying they wanted to buy some from me. So then I kept making it. And they're wanting to buy it from me. So I'll sell it to them. And I was like, well, was it take to do this legally? So I looked into the cottage food regulations in Minnesota here and turned out, you can do that legally through the Minnesota cottage food regulations. So I quickly signed up for all that because I was already basically there. And, yeah. And did all training. Luckily, I do come with a, with a culinary background. So that made all of that really easy for me. And all this stuff just kind of comes natural to me. So then I completed that stuff. And I started, and I figured it might as well just start a business with it. Might as well do some, do a few markets here there and see where it takes me. Right. What was the culinary background experience? So I went to school for culinary here in Mankato at South Central College. Okay.

14:07That was, and I worked at some restaurants and stuff. And well, I was right out of college. But it turned out the restaurant world just wasn't quite what I imagined it being. It wasn't really what I enjoyed. But I really enjoyed barbecue. And I tried for a long time to make, to find some way in barbecue. I could make some money as a side job. And it was, it was, it was really difficult with barbecue obviously being meat. It's very difficult to find ways to do that legally. So in the meantime, I cook a lot of barbecue. I cook it for my friends. I cook it for neighbors and stuff. And have a lot of barbecue parties. And that's just kind of what I kept busy doing over the years. And then it led me to this. Did you ever get into the world of barbecue competition? Any of that type of thing? Or was it always just been more of a hobby in the back? I cabled really, really lightly in it. I did a couple small ones. And it was all right. But it just, it really wasn't for me. I'm more of the relaxed laid back. The meat's done when it's done. People, people ask me what time it's done. I don't know.

15:07So Jake tells us why. It's done when it's done. We never know. You can't rush perfection. Yeah. See, he sounds like one of the barbecue show competitors. Yeah. That's kind of our attitude. That's where we've definitely leaned into as well. Well, you don't need to be grouching through this. And we also don't need to be taking all of our stuff out of our house to go to a competition someplace either. So it's a lot of stuff to haul around. It is. It's very, there's a lot of minutia there. It's very finite. You got to have a plan and a structure. And it's completely different than if you're used to doing it in your backyard the whole time. Yeah. Got a different feel to it completely. So. Very cool. So you and your wife started kind of getting really crazy with this, right? Yeah. So when I decided to start the company, my wife thought I was crazy for doing all this. And I was signing up for a lot of these markets and stuff. You got to sign up in the winter form is when they accept, when they accept new vendors, so I was signing up like the Mancudal Farmers Market, which people aren't familiar here in the local area. The Mancudes, it's a pretty big market in the area. And you got to sign up for it in January.

16:07January and February is when you sign up for it. So I was like, I'm signing up for this. She's like, you're crazy. I mean, I probably am. So that's, that's the, I'm glad she acknowledged that. I am crazy because I am. But I signed up for a bunch of stuff. And I was like, well, if I'm going to do the stuff, I got to actually do it. So then I started developing sales booth and other sauces. And like, well, if I'm going to have a couple of hot sauces, I need a barbecue sauce to go with it. And I've made barbecue sauces over the years before. So I knew I could figure one out. So I kind of just hunkered down and figured out actually two different barbecue sauces. I have a sweet barbecue sauce and what I call bourbon blaze barbecue sauce. They're really different in how they, how they taste. But I was happy with both of them. I got both of them worked on labels, worked on packaging. And that's a lot more worked than anyone can imagine. Figuring out labels, packaging, and all the menu shutters goes behind, all behind the scene stuff with all that. I'm sure there is. Yeah, just even trying to design things, let alone figuring out how you're going to print it to everything else. Yep. And figuring out how to do it all forwardly to getting the,

17:10because to get the number, to get the pricing where you want it, you need to be buying large numbers of all that stuff, the packaging, the labels, all that. And when you're really, really small, you don't want to dump a whole bunch of money into it, because you don't know how good it's going to go. Right. And so that took a while to get through all of that. And just kept developing other sauces along the way and came up with a couple of the summer. We had our, so I started three main hot sauces. And then I added another one, midsummer, and also added a rhubarb hot sauce midsummer. And some seasoned things also, because if you're going to have hot sauce and barbecue sauce, you really should have a seasoning too. And once again, because of my experience in barbecue, I've made plenty of rubs and stuff before. So I just, I pulled out the old cookbook of where I'd put all my notes down before, and luckily I'd saved some of that. And knocked out a good sweet rub and knocked out a steak and chop seasoning, both of them turned out excellent. And that's kind of, and then I focused on those throughout the summer.

18:12Okay. I know, during the summer, so I saw you guys doing a lot of farmers market stuff. And then I saw a few different team, competition teams handling your sauce. Yep, yep. That's kind of a cool move for you guys. Yeah, it was interesting. We had some competition teams trying our stuff a little bit and working with some of it. And that's, that was definitely fun. Yeah. What was it? How many sleepless nights did you have that spring and winter once you signed up for a farmers market? And then we're like, well, no, I just need something to sell. Is that the little pressure there? Yeah, there's a lot of pressure. And more of the pressure was getting, in the beginning was getting all the product ready because we were dealing with such small batches. And when we hit the man, when we hit the man, hit the farmer's market, we weren't prepared for what that was going to be. Our sales were three to four times what we expected. That was going to be my next question. How did it go? We were making very small batches at my house. You know, we'd make, you know, two dozen bottles at a time in a batch. And we would sell six dozen of one item in a day

19:14at the farmers market. So it literally turned into every single day, we both made my wife work full-time jobs. So we would come home from work. We would make sauce all evening, but by the as much as we could, and then go to sleep, go to work next day, come home, make more sauce. And then try to be ready for Saturday at the farmers market. Wow. And that was every single day was like that. We're making more product, getting stuff ready. And we knew very quickly we couldn't sustain like that. So we immediately looked at how we can scale up much quicker, which eventually we moved into commercial kitchen, and we'll make bigger batches, and scaling up all the recipes, scaling up how we're doing everything. And then the same time trying to make sure we have enough of the bottles, enough of the labels, enough of everything to go along with it. Because there's a lot that actually goes into all of it, enough ingredients, and it was very hectic. I can only imagine that it's got to be,

20:14because you really hit it on the head with the undertaking of a lot of folks we see that we talk to in this show. They start with, well, I like the barbecue, so I made some sauces, and then they forget about designing the label, finding the bottle, and what kind of bottle, what does that look like? How do you do all that? I want to dive a little more into the actual process of putting this all together. But we've got to take a quick break. We'll do that. We'll come back. We'll talk more with Mike Young from Prime Sources, and maybe you can start your own sauce company. You never know. We'll get into more of it in more detail in just a moment when the barbecue show continues, or right after this. You're listening to the barbecue show, with stunt and Jake. The flavor continues next. A cow, a chicken, and a pig. Walk into a barbecue. The end. Ooh. I love love stories. It's the barbecue show with stunt and Jake.

21:15Okay, we're back to barbecue show, stunt and Jake, and the new year and the new us. Are we supposed to change ourselves up? Same as the old us. Yeah, it's the same. I just changed my voice for the first two shows of the season. That's all. Yeah. For the better, obviously. Oh, really? Somebody I'll get over it. Hold us hanging on for both of us. It is the season, boy. It is the season. I agree. Mike Young's here. We're talking prime sauces. When we last left our heroes, we went from, you were experienced. And I want to talk a little more detail about the start up, if you will, because I think there's a lot of guys like me who think, you know, I have all this free time. I'd love to find a new hobby. You mentioned you had a culinary background, which helped with the development of the sauces, and that you were going to make some hot sauces. What does that process look like? I mean, you just boil them up some peppers. You smash them, and then you just kind of taste and add and add and taste, or how does that work? Yeah. So essentially making hot sauces pretty easy. All you got to do is take peppers

22:17and other veggies you want to add. Other common things are onions, carrots, all kinds of different stuff that you can put in there. And you just combine all the stuff. You cook it. You can roast it if you want to. You can, under a broiler, you can throw it on the charcoal grill. If you want to get some little smokiness to it, you can do lots of different things to manipulate a little bit. And add some vinegar to it. Add some water to it. If you want to thin it down a little bit, let the peppers cook. Tell it tender. Throw it all in the blender and blend the heck out of it. Get it to consistency you want it. And you essentially have yourself a hot sauce there. The seeds in the pepper stiller, you take those out. That's optional for however you want to do it. If you have a good quality blender, like a Vitamix, you don't have to take them out. It will make them disappear. Ask me how I know. Because when we're making our sauces, we don't see any of them.

23:17All the seeds go in there because it's just part of it. There frankly isn't time on this scale to take seeds out of peppers and stuff like that. And honestly, in the membrane, the pepper holds the seeds. That's where all the spices are. So if you start stripping all the seeds out, you're pulling the membrane out, and you're knocking the spice level down quite a bit on it. Which isn't something that we really want to do. So you cook it all. You throw all in the blender. You combine it. And you blend the heck out of it. You throw in a bottle, throw it in the refrigerator. And you're good to go with the sauce. You throw some salt in there too. You need salt. I mean, you don't have to. But you have at least a little salt in there. I know you're selling my mother-in-law. You don't need salt in that. Yeah. But it varies. Some people really like the saltiness of a hot sauce. And some people don't like salty hot sauce. Just depends on the person. Right. I'm a little on the medium scale. I'd say for my saltiness to a little bit below average. Because I figure most of the food you're putting on is probably salted properly.

24:17So I don't want to overload the salt on it. So I go kind of a medium level on my salt. And then at that point, you can throw it in the refrigerator and it keeps quite a long time. I was going to make a question. What's shelf life look like? So shelf life, there really isn't a shelf life given to hot sauces or even barbecue sauces. We can, like on the cottage food side, you don't have to worry. You just put a production data on there and it's up to the customer when they want to think, you know, you can. What have been open for a few months? Yeah, essentially what everyone do. Technically, they will last for essentially forever. Okay. There are things that can happen to certain sauces and stuff like fruit-based sauces can develop molds and stuff in them because of the, because the amount of sugar that's enough fruit and stuff. So there are a few things like that, but the mold's technically not a safety hazard per se. But yeah, you can, my recommendation, if you're not familiar with pH and stuff, and you're going to try to make your own hot sauces, though, if you'll always refrigerate them.

25:17Okay. My recommendation, people, is to always refrigerate your hot sauce after you open it. Anything that's commercially made, or like from us is, is perfectly shelf stable before you open it to keep it on the, you know, keep it in the cupboard, keep it, you know, just out of direct sunlight, sunlight won't you hurt it, but discolour it slightly made. Yeah. Yeah, change a little bit, I would imagine. But once you open the bottle up, you open it to contaminates and stuff and it just better keep it in the refrigerator. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. What's the over-under on swings and misses before you get a final product? Depends on which one. Hot sauces, to me, are easier to come up with. My first couple, I was really close on, but, you know, what I would do is I'd make it, and I'd try a little bit, and adjust a little bit, and try it again, and adjust slightly. It's kind of harder with hot sauces, too, to do that, though. You kind of, because the, how they taste when you're cooking them, isn't necessarily how they're going to taste when they're finished. So, there are a few batches. Like, my bourbon blaze barbecue, though, that one, I dumped out a lot of batches

26:18with that right down the sink. That hurts a little bit at that. Yeah. Yeah. Because you, you know, you end up with making about a quarter barbecue sauce, and you're like, yeah, it's okay, but it's not what I want. Dump it out. Right. Then you guys got to the point where you're ready to go commercial. That means, because you know, I can talk about it at the beginning of the show here, you said, we talked your last, and you're like, can you do the college license thing, and you're ready to ramp it up, because you're getting busy here, and you couldn't keep up even during the farmer's market, and then I started seeing you show up in stores. So, what would that step look like? Yeah. So, right away in the springtime, people, we were having stores reach out to us, wanting to carry our product, but because of the Minnesota college food laws, you, I have to sell it directly to the inconsumer myself. So, I essentially have to hand it to them, or they have to pick it up from my house. It can't be in a retail environment. It can't be shipped to the end user, through like UPS or anything like that. I have to hand it to them, or they have to pick it up directly from my house. Okay. So, what I did right away was I started looking into the commercial food laws and stuff,

27:21and it gets extremely, extremely complex, because when you get into hot sauces, barbecue sauces, those are what are called acidified foods, meaning you add acid to them to lower the pH to a safe level. And come to find out, that's actually governed by the federal government. They have a whole bunch of rules in place, because long, long, long, long time ago, people got sick from foods that weren't properly made. So, the federal government came in, put some regulations in place, and those are the regulated, the acidified food laws that we have today, and we need to follow all those rules, and there's a whole bunch of different registrations and... Taxes. There's some fees and stuff that's not horrible, but just understanding what you need to do to comply with all of them is not easy by any means. All right. So, what two questions here, I guess, really? What comes first, the license or the kitchen, because I would imagine to get the commercial license, you have to prove that you're preparing

28:21into commercial kitchen, is that true? Yeah, definitely. To make under commercial license, you need to prepare your product in a commercial kitchen that's been approved, inspected, and there's another thing called your PA, your process, it's called, your process authority. You need to essentially send your recipe to a food scientist, and your food scientist will review your recipe, review your instructions on how you make your recipe, and also review a little sample of your actual product that you've made from a couple of different batches, and then they will certify your recipe, basically, saying that it is safe to make if it follows these parameters, then they'll give you benchmarks. You need to hit along the way with temperatures at certain points, pH, certain amounts of time that certain things have to happen within, and then those are my legal instructions on how I have to make my product. I cannot deviate from that process. Right. And then the food inspector comes, they go over all that information with you,

29:21they watch you make the product to make sure you're making it in a safe manner, you're making a safe environment in the safe facility, and then you need to also have commercial storage. That's a proof, too. When I make commercial products, none of it can ever go to my house. I can't store any of it on my house at all for any length of time or at all. I have to have a commercial storage that's also inspected and improved by the health department. Wow. So yeah, I can see where the overhead here starts to get, it adds up pretty quickly. Yep. So there's a lot of overhead with all the different licensing, because the state wants their cut, and everyone wants their cut along the way. There's all that. There's a commercial rental of commercial kitchens. There's the commercial storage space you have to have, and the insurances, and the food scientists aren't free either. You have to hire that. Right. You have to hire that. Are you seeing to pay off, though? No. You have extra steps? Yep. Yep. So that was definitely worth it. This fall, we got the commercial licensing done

30:22this last fall. I believe on October 1st, was when I was officially had my commercial license to start producing commercial and the fall after that, when it was absolutely mind blowing to me. I was not prepared in any way for Christmas season. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad everybody gives hot sauces for Christmas. I got some for Christmas. I don't have to. Yeah. It's a normal thing. It stores you all selling that. So right now in the Mancato area, we are, let's see here. So in North Mancato, we're at Beans Coffee and Lower North. We are at Helitat Meets and Mancato, and actually all there are locations. They have three other locations, I believe it is. Yep. And we're at... Friends of the show. Yep. We're at Midwest Makers in the River Hills Mall. That's been a great store for us. We're also in Wistys Meat and Jamesville and their Waterville location. We're in Rochester at Tickled Pink Makers Market. I think it's called. Okay. They also have a location in E. Claire, Wisconsin.

31:24They're also in New Alm at Mabel's Mercantile. And I think that's all of them. A couple more to come here as soon as we get more product because I'm actually out of commercial product right now. Wow. We reached a point around Christmas so about a week before Christmas, we were trying to say if we were going to try to make another production run on some stuff and I just called it. And said, no, it's enough enough. We've got what we got. And we're... And then as soon as Christmas hit, just kind of felt like a relief to be through all that and we're taking just a little bit of break right now on making stuff. But though, I got a cook date coming up here next week and we're going to... We're going to ramp back up now and just start making a whole bunch of product for this spring. So when you talk about a cook date, now before you're saying you could do like what two dozen bottles at a time, you know, at home, what's the output look like now if you're in a commercial kitchen? Yeah, so not only in the... I should maybe back it up a little bit.

32:24We started in the commercial kitchen here in Mancudo and it wasn't... It was just a commercial kitchen. It wasn't equipped, necessarily for sauce making or anything. But we still able to use much bigger pots to cook stuff. We were using 10 gallon pots to... No, sorry, that was eight gallon pots there. We were using eight gallon pots there to cook sauce. So we're still cooking much bigger batches. And we'd do like, you know, five to six cases in a batch, which is still a much better output. But we were bottling literally everything by hand. We'd take a picture of the boiling hot product and with the funnel, we would pour into every single bottle by hand. And that was a lot. Your wrists were really, really sorted. You know, there'd be days we'd make, you know, 20, 25 cases in a day, anything after work. So that was a lot. And then we ended up switching commercial kitchen to a place we are now. And it's worked out a little bit better because we purchased some commercial equipment also that's more specialized for sauce making. We've got some steam kettles now. I got a pair of 10 gallon steam kettles.

33:25I've got a commercial bottling machine now. That helped a lot. Why that? Yep, you... So you just put all your hot product into this machine and you hold the bottle there and it dispenses the proper amount into each bottle. So that's been a game changer. That's really ramped. Help us ramp up. Random thought. Just for anybody listening who wants to try a commercial kitchen themselves, you just go to... You gotta just kind of look around town and find one that's getting rented out. Or how does that work? Yeah, it's... How I found the first one was Google. Okay. There are some places online that the kitchens can advertise if that's kind of something that they get into. Otherwise, you can call around, ask friends. Right. Find people in your area that are doing that type of thing. Yep. And you use rent time there then. Yep. Okay. You rent it by the day. So those cook days end up being pretty long. And as you're asking about batch sizing now, in a day we can do 50 to 60 cases. Wow. A product. It's a lot. I mean, that's a full long... That's going to be a 12-hour day by time we're done. Really?

34:25Yeah. I'm at the end of one of those days. Yeah, I bet. That's a ton. Yeah, but it really is. That's running a lot of batches through our steam keels too. You try to have all the batches. The more we focus on one product, the more we can put out than switching products. Right. That makes... That makes... Perfect sense, I would imagine. A technical question. How do you test your pH? You just go to Walmart and get one of those pool kits and just dip the strip in there or how does that work? So that is an actual acceptable way. A lot. Yeah, so no one really that I ran into does that way. Well, digital pH meters that we... I buy it off Amazon. Oh, sure. You know, 150 bucks a body pH meter. I got two of them just in case one gives me an issue. Because you kind of want to have a backup. Because if you're in middle making sauce, you got to do your pH test. And for some reason, it stops working on you. You have to throw everything out. If you can't test your pH, you can't bottle it. You can't hit your benchmarks. You stop what you're doing throw all the way.

35:25Right. It's important to have a backup for everything. Because you never know what's going to happen. What was the timeline like to get that commercial license? When did you start the process until October when you were officially certified? Yeah, so I started in June. Okay. So it's mid to early June. And the biggest thing with the whole thing is figuring out what you need to actually do. Because there's not a clear guide out there to tell you. And no one is really... I mean, there are people out there that can tell you what you need to do. But by the time you find those people, you already halfway through figuring it out. Sure. And you're like, well, this isn't great information in a few months. But it's not something that a lot of people get into. So it's not too widespread on the internet. And you can't rely too much on AI because you need to make sure you're doing it the actual correct way. Right. Because AI did give me some wrong answers along the way. Oh, I bet. Yeah, I can't use it all the time. I can see where that would be frustrating.

36:26All right. So it's right now still just you and the wife? Yep. So it's just me and the wife. Most of the time I do have some people that do come and help with any events and stuff with selling because it got to be certain times. It was just too much. And I really enjoy a lot of fall outdoor activities. So I would have someone come and help my wife sometimes at the markets when I'm out chasing the ducks around the swamp. Got a big time for the water. Got a big time for the waterfall. Yeah. What does the logistics look like? Getting the product to these places? Is that just you throwing them in the back here pick up and head now? Is it? Yeah. So right now I do what I call self-distribute. I distribute all the product myself. Or through, you know, yeah, you say essentially it's been me taking it to every single place. Right. And that's currently what I'm doing. There are other means of distribution through distributes and stuff like that. But we're now up with any distributes or anything yet. Is online an option for you now? Yeah. So since I'm commercial now,

37:26we do have shipping is legal for us. So we don't have all of our products commercial. Right now we have our two barbecue sauces and our two seasonings. I wanted to start it with those two because those were the easiest to, I felt to get, to turn in commercial products with the, like I talked about earlier with the process authority letters and having the help department sign off on all of them. I did those four products right away. And I'm currently working on one of my hot sauces and a potential new product too. I was just going to ask what's next. So what's on the horizon? Yeah. So I'm working on a salsa right now. I'm getting a medium and a hot version. It's, it's, it's, it's turned out pretty good. I've got it just about where I want it. I got to pH dialed in. I'm just dialed in the flavor. I should be one more batch. I think I'll have it. And then I'm figuring out packaging. And then that should be ready this, this spring. Okay. A big seller I'd farmer farmers markets too. You still going to do those? Yep.

38:26Yeah. Our, our plan still is to, to hit the farmers markets and stuff and we're currently kind of deciding if we want to try to do multiple markets on a given Saturday. You know, Saturdays are all the big day for the farmers markets. Right. So we, we, um, we're trying to decide if you want to try to hit multiple markets on Saturday if we want to maybe go up towards the Twin Cities and maybe hit a weekday market up there, where we're kind of, we're using the time right now between after Christmas and till we start back up in spring. We don't really have too much planned between last Christmas and late March now, freeing big events. We're going to do a couple local winter farmers markets but other than that, we don't have a lot planned in there. So I'm, that's where I'm working on recipe development right now. I'm working on some package redesign. I'm going to do a submit for a couple new process authorities. Like I'd mentioned and try to get all that stuff done here in the winters to be ready for the spring. Any plans to make this year full-time gig? No, not, not the time. Um, we, uh, me and my wife both work for the state. So we, uh, have, uh, uh,

39:28can't argue that insurance. You know what I've got a great job, great, great place to work. So I like what I do and so is, so is my wife. But yeah, we're, we're going to continue just to do what we do and who knows what the future holds in store. If you would have asked me a year ago at this time, if I ever would even contemplate anything like that, I would never told you never in my wildest dreams. Yeah. What's exciting? No, I've learned to say I don't know what the future holds. So, um, we're going to just keep on plucking away at doing what we can do and, uh, see where we end up with it. Well, I hope the future brings more success. We'll wrap up the show right after this. For photographic evidence of the barbecue food. Like and follow the barbecue show on YouTube. Instagram and Facebook. Alright, let's wrap this thing up. What a great conversation with Mike Young. Yeah. I'm glad he could come back in, talk about kind of his success that he's seen in the last year. I mean, a lot has changed for him and his family already. I mean, to be able to go from a, we're going to do this thing at the farmer's market to commercials. Pretty exciting.

40:28It's, uh, it's like the American dream. He's thinking about it. He only started a little hobby and then it just continued to grow. And by the way, and I'm not saying this because he's on the show. Great sauces. Yeah, absolutely. I guess we're not the expert. He keeps selling them. Yeah, yeah. We're not just us saying that. He's doing well with it. So I'm kind of an expert, but the rules say if you sell out day one, that's good. But if you don't sell out on day two, there's a problem. And he keeps selling out. So he could take that to the bank. I like it. I like it a lot too. Some are quotes. Some are put in the law right there. Words, words to live by kids to keep that in mind. So what's on the show next week? Next week we should have Andy Boaterman in. Don't bolt me on that, but I think he's going to make it in. And we're going to talk about social media and taking photos of your food. Just like fish. You got to know how to take the right picture. That's right. Otherwise it doesn't turn out like that. That's exactly right. You got to hold the stake way out in front of you so that it looks bigger on the picture. Perfect. Yeah. So we'll do that. Remember to like and follow wherever you find the barbecue show and on all the cool social media pages.

41:28The BBQ show. In the meantime, experiment. Have fun. Now go fire that thing up. Thanks for listening to the barbecue show with stunt and Jake. Missed an episode? Get up anytime on your favorite podcast platform. Just search for the BBQ show. Until next time, fire that thing up.