ORLANDO, Fla. – Not many can say their sauce made Will Smith cry — but Eyal Goldshmid can.
“Nothing against Will Smith, we just find that fact surreal,” Goldshmid said in a prepared statement.
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He and his wife Deborah Moskowitz are the creators of the Orlando-based brand Fat Cat Gourmet Condiments & Hot Sauces.
But before Smith was tearing up from the brand’s “Chairman Meow’s Revenge Scorpion Pepper Sauce,” Goldshmid was just making sauces at home.
“Like a lot of sauce makers, I started as a hobbyist, making sauce at home either out of stuff picked from our garden or veggies I found in a farmer’s market or the store,” Goldshmid said.
At one point, the duo shared a sauce at a friend’s cookout and it was so beloved that the friends asked for a gallon of it. That is when they both got the idea to explore creating a sauce brand, he said.
The push though was when Goldshmid’s job was being transferred to Texas and he was unable to make that move.
“My wife was already an established attorney locally and it didn’t make sense for us to move, so we stayed. After that decision, my wife pushed me to pursue something I enjoyed doing and I am so glad she did,” Goldshmid told News 6.
That was in 2010. The brand has since grown and reached some milestones, from having its products on shelves out of state, to being featured on the YouTube series “Hot Ones.”
He accredits this milestone of being on this YouTube channel with over 14 million subscribers to luck.
“Sheer luck, to be honest. We attended a food convention in New York, and one of their scouts happened to visit our booth, try our stuff, and liked what we had to offer. A few months later, we got an email from them asking if we were interested in having one of our sauces featured on the show. It totally stunned us,” Goldshmid said.
To add on, roughly a month ago, the brand spiced it up a notch by being named one of the 13 sauces featured on the cult-like following Firehouse Subs Hot Sauce Bar.
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“Over the past few years, we’ve heard from countless guests on social channels, by email and even through handwritten letters begging for the return of our Hot Sauce Bar,” Dena VonWerssowetz, chief marketing officer at Firehouse Subs said via press release in September.
Fat Cat Peach Maple Bourbon Hot Sauce and Glaze is at Firehouse Subs all over the U.S. It is described as a rich sweet and savory sauce with a mild heat tase, per a press release.
Goldshmid also said that this nationwide achievement is due to luck.
“Again, a lucky break. A friend of ours happened to give the company’s culinary director some bottles of our sauces to try on a whim. A few weeks later, we got an email from the culinary director himself, saying they were bringing their hot sauce bar back to restaurants and that they were interested in potentially using our Peach Maple Bourbon sauce for it,” he said.
All in all, Goldshmid said the next plan is to expand its product line and into other chains and marketplaces.
He also offered advice to local entrepreneurs - the food industry is slow-moving and complex, as there isn’t a handbook to follow.
“You’re going to make mistakes, it is unfortunately part of the process in learning the ropes of this type of business, there’s no way around it. But learn from those mistakes and move forward. We have made many over the years and are grateful that we have learned from those missteps and have also been able to pivot and adjust when we had to,” Goldshmid said.
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