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SHARON L. BONDWhat started as family Christmas gifts has become a hot commodity for the couple who own Your Hot Sauce Co.
ST. PETERSBURG - It started in 2000, the year Reyna Martin and Robert Teets didn't have money to buy Christmas presents for their families and friends.
They made hot sauce and gave bottles of it instead of traditional gifts.
"The next year we had a better year and gave everybody gifts," Teets said.
"Everybody said: Where is our hot sauce?"
So their substitute gift became their signature gift. Now it is a part-time company. Martin and Teets hope one day it will be a full-time business.
For now she stays at her day job as office manager for L&N Label Co. Inc. in Clearwater. He is busy with Bob Teets Handyman Service. They buy and renovate houses that they rent. They are engaged.
Martin said she got the idea for selling hot sauce from her job at L&N. She saw all the different types of things people brought in for labeling and started thinking, what about the hot sauce we make?
Your Hot Sauce Co. sells about 1,200 bottles a month at $5 or $6 per 5-ounce bottle. It has eight hot sauces, plus a barbecue sauce, jalapeno glaze, pepper jelly and a relish that comes from a recipe of Teets' great grandmother.
"I went to the Internet and found recipes," said Martin. "I would substitute, making some little bit of change. We were having taste tests with our friends."
"We were doing lots of think-tanking with our friends and writing down everything that came into somebody's mind," Teets said.
Two commercial kitchens make and bottle the sauces. A friend draws the labels for free, and Martin has them made at L&N.
Your Hot Sauce Co. sells at benefits and various shows such as gun shows on weekends. It recently was in the Chili Blaze in Pinellas Park. Since that is a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association put on by the Pinellas Park firefighters, Martin and Teets donated 13 cases of their hot sauce with a label made for the benefit.
"They were great," said Nick DelGrosso, a firefighter. The company called up about entering the chili contest, found out it was a benefit and offered up their donation. They also had a booth where they sold their sauces.
Good income from a show is $700 in a day, Martin said. A slow day is $150 to $200.
"We have a lot of fun at these events," Teets said. "We do hot sauce because we can meet people and have fun interacting."
The business is paying for itself, they said. They sell through their Web site, several shops and cafes in Pinellas County and out of their own store in Lakeland.
Teets said his parents, who work in Lakeland, saw how much fun they were having selling the sauce and donated part of their store to be a Your Hot Sauce Co. outlet. They hope one day to have a store in St. Petersburg.