The opening of a spicy new walking taco hotspot in Uptown Westerville this last summer is just the latest milestone for locally-owned Flavor and Fire Foods.
The salsa-and-hot-sauce company, owned by
flavor and fiery foods
Westerville couple Mike and Debra Laviolette, has long emphasized its community connections as a key part of its journey. All of the company’s 75 products are manufactured in its facility off Old County Line Road.
“Deb and I started the company in 2015,” says Mike. “When we first started, we had one brand, which was Clamlube. That was the original brand that we started with, and we grew that into 11 different products.”
The company took a big step forward when the Laviolettes bought CaJohns Fiery Foods – which had also been headquartered in Westerville – from previous owner John Hard in 2019. The purchase included CaJohns’ merchant space at the North Market.
“He sold us that brand, as well as all the recipes for those products, so that grew our entire product line substantially,” Mike says.
The North Market stall has made a big difference for Flavor and Fire, as have the awards the company has won for its recipes. The sauces and salsas have placed among the top three competitors at prominent hot sauce competitions such as the Chili Pepper Awards and the Fiery Food Challenge at Fort Worth’s ZestFest event.
Flavor and Fire was recently introduced to new audiences thanks to a collaboration with Reynoldsburg-based Pepper Ninja Hot Sauce. The sauce, Ninja Napalm, is featured in the current season of the YouTube talk show Hot Ones
Each episode of the show sees host Sean Evans sit down with a celebrity to conduct an interview while both eat increasingly spicy chicken (or vegan chicken) wings. Episodes have topped 100 million views, with recent guests having included Will Smith, Serena Williams, Chris Hemsworth and Ariana Grande.
hot sauces
“The biggest draw with the hot sauce, though, is just the community,” says Debra. “They’re all very friendly. They love to share their experiences. They love to help each other. … Everybody wants to succeed and wants you to succeed because the better you do, the better they do.”
Flavor and Fire is dedicated to building relationships with its customers and finding the right hot sauces for their individual tastes, the owners say. Its Westerville storefront has a serving bar for sampling a variety of products, with food and beverage options to cool off.
Heat is never the company’s focus, Mike says. Instead, the mission is to put flavor first and help people with their true taste preferences.
“Anybody can buy super-hot peppers, get some vinegar, get some salt, maybe a little sugar, maybe a little garlic, and they can make a sauce that is flaming hot,” says Mike. “But does it taste good? It’s not balanced. … No matter what the pepper is, whether it’s chipotle … or Carolina Reaper… we always try to find that balance in having that flavor profile hit you first before the heat hits you.”
A lot of this balance relies on Debra, who manages many of the company’s recipes and culinary decisions.
“There’s a certain amount of adjustment that needs to
FFF show room
be done so the product is balanced, so that has a lot of layers,” she says. “There’s some research and development that goes into how to develop sauces.”
The founders are working to turn their new location at 20 S. State St. into a major community meeting space, and planning different events to host there.
“We really want to make this a place where people come and hang out and, for the curious, to come and check out the hot sauce,” Debra says. “I’ve contacted a couple of (animal) rescues and talked about doing some adoption events. … It’s almost become a little bit of a fad where people have their own wing-eating challenge or hot sauce tasting, and we can provide those kinds of things here.”
Elliot Fryman is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
