VFM Spotlight: Roasters Hot Sauce can add a kick to all your dishes

In this series, the Georgia Straight visits different vendors at the Vancouver Farmers Markets to learn about their business, products, and why they love being at the weekly markets.

Vendor profile: Roasters Hot Sauce owned by Austin and Tara Hill.

What do you sell? We make gourmet hot sauce here in Vancouver, and we source ingredients locally as well as produce the sauce here in Vancouver.

How did you get into your business? I’m a research scientist by training, and we were really interested in doing something to work for ourselves. Hot sauce has been a passion of mine since I was very young, and so sharing that with people is what really gave us the push we needed to commercialize our recipes and sell here at the Farmer’s Market.

What’s your specialty? Our roasted jalapeno garlic is our best seller, followed by similar sales of the roasted carrot habanero and the roasted harbanero pineapple.

Favourite item you sell? My favourite is the carrot habanero. They’re eight dollars a bottle, or we have a special at the market that’s three bottles for $20. It goes well on everything and it is super healthy with the carrot. The number one thing to put [hot sauce] in is chili, or mix it with mayo for a sandwich.

Favourite thing about the city’s farmers markets? Meeting all the customers face to face.