Karma Sauce® enlists Facebook group for Holé Molé launch

With help from members of the Facebook group For the Love of Hot Sauce (FTLOHS), Karma Sauce Company completed production on 1,440 bottles of Holé Molé this month. This twist on a traditional Mexican mole (pronounced mo-lay) sauce marks the first time in history that a sauce company solicited an internet community to elect a new product’s ingredients and name.

Karma Sauce owner and founder Gene Olczak conceived of the idea of creating the world’s first democratically-designed hot sauce after completing a previous collaborative sauce venture with Heatonist, the Brooklyn-based purveyor of independent, small-batch hot sauce brands and official sauce curator of the popular YouTube series Hot Ones. For that project, Heatonist co-founders Noah Chaimberg and Tyler McKusick desired a fennel-based hot sauce. Fennelo, the finished product, provided Olczak with creative control over a flavor profile he’d never imagined possible. “I was inspired by the Fennelo project because the final product was such a complete surprise,” says Olczak. “I thought about what other opportunities there might be for another collaborative venture where people are engaged and have a say about what goes into a brand new sauce. I wanted to be challenged and give power to people who love hot sauce as much as I do.”

While the final product just rolled off Karma Sauce’s Rochester, NY-based production line this month, it has been in the works since February 2018. That is when the first contest poll for ingredients occurred, where group members could either vote for or add ingredients at will to the poll. Forty two flavor combinations were pitched, and three rose to the group’s favorites list: 1) Mexican chocolate, dried hot chiles, and butternut squash seed oil; 2) Passion fruit, chocolate ghost pepper, and smoked poblano, and 3) Blood lime, passion fruit, and scorpion pepper.

The first combination won the majority of the group’s favor, and Olczak worked the elected concept into a tribute to a traditional Mexican mole poblano with a Finger Lakes twist.

In May 2018 the ingredients and recipe were finalized and group administrators selected Berkeley, California-based Heat Hot Sauce Shop as the sole distributor for the sauce’s initial release. The naming contest ended in September when “Holé Molé” received the majority of FTLOHS group members’ votes.

About The Karma Sauce Company

Gene Olczak established Karma Sauce® in 2008 in a quest to create the most bold and flavorful sauces possible based on locally-grown and sourced ingredients. Beginning with two sauces, Good Karma and Bad Karma, Karma Sauce® has since expanded to over 20 hot sauces, salsas, katsups, mustards, and spice blends.

Contact Information

Gene Olczak

Owner

THE KARMA SAUCE COMPANY LLC

(1) 5852641100

Contact via E-mail