Inside North Carolina's iconic hot sauce: Texas Pete
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Texas Pete on the shelf at Harris Teeter. Photo: Zachery Eanes/Axios
The Texas Pete factory in Winston-Salem is an assault on the senses.
- Workers and robots move in sync as conveyor belts churn out bottles of hot sauce and salsa. The air is thick with the sinus-clearing aroma of freshly cut peppers, shipped by train from New Mexico.
Why it matters: For nearly a century, TW Garner Foods has made one of America's most popular hot sauces in Winston-Salem. Now it's trying to ensure Texas Pete thrives for another century.
State of play: Texas Pete is the fifth most-purchased hot sauce brand in the U.S. on Instacart, behind Frank's RedHot, Huy Fong Foods' Sriracha, Taco Bell and Cholula. Yet many people don't realize the brand is made in Winston-Salem, CEO Matt McCollum told Axios.
- McCollum, the fourth generation of the Garner family to lead the company, said the name has puzzled people since the sauce debuted in the 1930s, after the family pivoted from operating a Winston-Salem barbecue stand.
- Originally, the sauce was going to be called Mexican Joe and served as a spicier barbecue condiment.
- "But Sam [Garner, the company's founder] said, 'No, it's got to be patriotic,'" McCollum said. Texas was the nation's largest state at the time, and his son Harold's nickname was Pete.
Zoom in: Nearly a century later, Texas Pete has become one of North Carolina's most enduring brands. But the hot sauce market has exploded as Americans have embraced spicier, more adventurous flavors.
- "You go to the hot sauce aisle now, and it seems like the Wild West," McCollum said. "We're trying to do more innovation to try to stay ahead of the curve."
- A lot of that innovation is done at its test kitchen in downtown Winston-Salem, where it brings in retail and restaurant partners to try out new sauces. It's a process that can take 18 months to go from idea to reality, said Katie Chaffin, the company's director of marketing.
What's next: Garner Foods now owns two core brands: Texas Pete — which has expanded into products including Sabor Mexican-style hot sauce — and Green Mountain Gringo Salsa, acquired in 2004.
- Some stick around; some fizzle out. The company is monitoring buying habits every month. Several new sauces could debut next year, though the company won't say what they are yet.
- "Consumers are more adventurous these days, and they don't think of hot sauce as just this one hot sauce for everything I use," Chaffin said.
The big picture: While the flagship Texas Pete sauce remains the keystone of Garner Foods, McCollum said the company is continually thinking about growth and how to support its operations of around 150 people in North Carolina.
- That includes potentially acquiring new brands, but also strategies around expanding its market share outside the Southeast. Somewhat ironically, the company views Texas as a major growth area.
- After 97 years in operation, the company hasn't taken on outside investment, even as McCollum says he gets what feels like dozens of weekly inquiries from private equity firms.
- The incentives there are real. In 2020, spices maker McCormick bought the Cholula hot sauce brand for $800 million.
- "I have to ignore it because we're just not interested at this standpoint," he said. "We're proud to be a family business. We're proud to employ the people who have worked for us for years."