Tia Lupita is a line of non-GMO certified hot sauces named after owner Hector Saldívar’s own mother, thanks to her integral part in crafting all the recipes. “If we could use her wooden spoon to measure ingredients, we would!” Saldívar joked to Thrillist.
The hot sauces are made in tiny batches in order to ensure the highest quality and the ingredients -- of which there are only seven -- are simple and recognizable. Though Saldívar faces some challenges creating hot sauce this way, like being unable to get discounts on larger orders of materials, his focus remains on quality. “[We] ensure that every bottle that comes out of the line has been made with the highest standards and best ingredients… For us, there is no other way. We are honoring and keeping true to my mom’s family recipe and process. And like everything that is made with love and care, it takes time. You can’t rush perfection.”
Tia Lupita’s has four hot sauces in total: salsa verde, chipotle sauce, habanero sauce, and their original hot sauce. The OG hot is a favorite of mine -- bright, spicy, and subtly sweet, too. It works great on breakfast tacos, used as a tortilla chip dip, and perfect in a tomato-forward michelada.
Read the full article here: https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/best-craft-hot-sauces
]]>After more than a decade working in the food industry, Hector Saldivar knew the lay of the land better than most aspiring entrepreneurs when he quit the day job in 2016 to start his own food brand, Tia Lupita, and part of that was knowing the power of a good story.
Read the full article here: https://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Article/2020/02/07/Tia-Lupita-taps-into-Nopales-to-meet-demand-for-authentic-Mexican-cuisine-with-a-healthier-spin
]]>Hector Saldivar’s dream wasn’t to be a successful business owner or to create a legacy. His dream was to unite people through food and remind them that no matter who you are, we’re all human.
“I believe that food has always had the power to unite,” Saldivar, 42, said firmly in his deep, warm voice. “It doesn’t matter what your point of view, your religion, or your language is. If food is on the table and we’re both hungry, we’re gonna eat.”
Saldivar is the founder of Tia Lupita Hot Sauce, sold in over 800 stores nationwide, with more than 10,000 bottles produced monthly. The Tiburon resident sources his hot-sauce ingredients from Santa Clara County. Just recently, the two-year-old company expanded its product line of three flavors of hot sauce — original, salsa verde, and chipotle — to tortillas and chips made entirely from cactuses that only grow in Mexico.
Tia Lupita isn’t just about hot sauce, but also about family. The hot sauce, which can be found in Whole Foods and other natural grocers, has a distinct bottle. The label art features a drawing of a smiling woman—Saldivar’s mother, Tia Lupita—with an inviting round face and a curler in her hair.
Read the full article here: https://thebolditalic.com/tia-lupita-is-more-than-a-bottle-of-hot-sauce-2f159cdbf420
]]>When Hector Saldivar moved from Monterrey, Mexico, to California nearly 15 years ago, he quickly discovered he was missing a taste of home—his mother’s hot sauce.
Lupita Maldonado’s hot sauce was a favorite in the family’s neighborhood when Saldivar was growing up. His friends would invent excuses to come over in hopes of a taste.
“In Mexico, ‘tia’—aunt—is a term of endearment,” he said. “My friends would show up at our house and call, ‘Tia Lupita, I brought some tacos! Do you have any hot sauce?’”
In California, Saldivar scoured retail shops and farmers markets to no avail. Soon, Maldonado began shipping her son bottles of homemade hot sauce. As Saldivar shared the sauce with friends, his supply became in high demand.
With a background in consumer packaged goods at companies such as Nestlé and Diamond Foods, Saldivar saw an opportunity to introduce something unique into the market—if he could convince his mother to share the secret, generations-old family recipe.
Read the full article here: http://www.californiabountiful.com/features/article.aspx?arID=2205
We’re feeling the love! Food writers have been raving about the great taste of our authentic Tia Lupita® Hot Sauce and Tia Lupita® Salsa Verde. San Francisco Chronicle writer Sarah Fritsche was really impressed after she sampled Tia Lupita® Hot Sauce at the Fancy Food Show in California. She said, “Hands down the best thing I tasted at the food show this year was a pleasantly peppery and spicy condiment from Hector Salidvar. It’s a flavorful sauce with the just the right amount of heat to not detract from the food you use it on.” Thanks, Sarah. My Mom, Tia Lupita®, and I feel very proud. Our sauces are made from family recipes that go back several generations.
Another thanks to writer Gil Zeimer who told the story of Tia Lupita® Hot Sauce in the Marin Independent Journal. He noted that “sales are hotter than Hector’s mom’s sauce.” Good news travels fast, I guess! But it’s not only the great taste of Tia Lupita® Hot Sauce that’s attracting attention. Our label made the cover of the Marin County Alternative News Weekly. Writer Tanya Henry wrote: “The condiment’s label – which features a hand-drawn image of a woman with a pink curler in her hair, glasses and a big smile on her face – brings a fresh sensibility to a category overcrowded with hyper-macho images.” Thanks for noticing, Tanya!
That drawing is my Mom, who always wears a big pink curler to hold back her hair while she cooks. (Thankfully, I did not inherit the pink curler gene.) There are so many hot sauce labels featuring tough-guy images of the devil, flames or raging bulls. I decided to lighten up our label and focus on Mom’s home cooking.
]]>Full of flavor and balanced with the perfect amount of heat. You’re gonna love the bright, punchy mixture of ripe tomatillos and mild heat from green jalapenos blended into smooth creamy salsa perfection. Like our Tia Lupita Hot Sauce, our Tia Lupita Salsa Verde is a generations-old family recipe handed down to me from my Mom, known by our friends as Tia Lupita. We make it the same way she does, in small batches using only six simple ingredients.
Our Salsa Verde goes with anything. It’s fantastic with grilled or slow-cooked beef, pork and chicken. I like it with seafood too or anything served with a tortilla. And, oh yeah, sometimes I mix it into rice or pour it onto eggs. How do you use our Salsa Verde? Tell us by tagging us @tialupitahotsauce or https://www.facebook.com/tialupitahotsauce/.
Tia Lupita is a family-owned craft food business based in the San Francisco Bay area. We are proud members of www.GoodFoodMerchantsGuild.org, which only accepts companies with the highest standards for taste, authenticity and responsible food production. Because we have close ties to local farmers, we can track our peppers and tomatillos from seed to harvest. You might say we obsess over each ingredient. And though Mom taught me never to brag, I just have to say this: Every bottle of Tia Lupita sauce contains all natural, non-GMO and gluten-free ingredients with no added sugar and very little salt. But lots of awesomeness. Lots.
Hector
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