Today we’d like to introduce you to Joshua Sheets.
Hi Joshua, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started out making hot sauce as holiday gifts for my friends. Growing up, black pepper was considered spicy in my family. It wasn’t until I was in culinary school and working in the field that I truly had something spicy. I’ve been hooked ever since. I have worked in a large variety of restaurants and kitchens; however, it wasn’t until I was working as a corporate chef that I started to make batches of hot sauce to complement the meals I was creating. I started to put the sauces in bottles and let the customers choose what they wanted. People began asking me about the hot sauces and where I got them, and if they could buy them. Our company was born shortly after that. In 2016, I was working a full-time job, and we only had one flavor of hot sauce. We began to travel around our area and connect with restaurants and small businesses who began to support our dream. As the next couple of years unfolded, I slowly began working other jobs less and making more sauce. I am now a full-time hot sauce maker and have developed five flavors of hot sauce and two spice blends. I never thought I would like to talk hot sauce with people as much as I do; I have always been a kitchen guy, not a people guy. I really enjoy direct customer contact and talking to people about recipes and different ways to use the sauce. It’s like I’m at the dinner table with them.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t always been a smooth road, but each obstacle helped form our business today. One struggle we learned early on was scaling up recipes. This isn’t the easiest thing to do. If you want to make five times the batch that you have already been making, the process isn’t just multiplying each ingredient by five. Instead, you have to slowly increase the main ingredients, being careful to balance the flavor and the heat. After that, the spices come into play. There’s a lot of batches involved in creating the finished recipe. It’s usually very usable, of course, and I love to give it away and get feedback to aid in the process. Then there was the pandemic. I won’t go into detail about that, but for all of us it taught us to adapt. More recently, we are learning the hot sauce industry is competitive. It takes time to find the right fit for your products. We tend to connect to other small businesses and communities; large-scale distribution isn’t our dream.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
We make small batch, handcrafted hot sauce, and spice blends. My focus as a chef is on quality not quantity. When the option for growth comes, we take time to reflect on whether that growth will have a positive or negative effect on our product. It is incredibly important to us that as we grow, we don’t sacrifice the flavor in exchange or our happiness. I like to create recipes that focus on flavor and usability, not just heat for the sake of heat. Sauces that compliment and elevate food, not cover it up. I love being connected to the process that my wife and I make it ourselves. I hope we remain true to that as we grow. Hopefully having help along the way but still remaining hands-on.
What would you say has been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Finding our enough. We are in a society that celebrates productivity above all else. Yet, the busier people get the less happy they often are. This was brought to our attention early on in our business, and we ask the question often. Sometimes it’s a different answer next year compared to what we would have said last year, and that’s okay. Having healthy work and home boundaries is pertinent in maintaining our relationship. We talk a lot, we dream, but we also enjoy exactly what we have today. It is enough.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.oldirtysheets.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ol.dirty.sheets/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oldirtysheets/
