CaJohns from Columbus Partners to Promote the Pungent and Powerful Pepper
by Cody Badaracca

John Hard of CaJohns

All alliteration aside, CaJohns Fiery Foods out of Columbus, Ohio has been doing some deal making in the world of hot food. The company is nationally recognized for its vast catalog of sauces, salsas, and rubs and has won multiple awards for them. They’ve garnered attention at food festivals all over the country and have been featured on the Food Network and the History Channel. Heck, CaJohns owner and founder John Hard was even assimilated into Southern Culture when he was made an “Honorary Cajun” at the New Iberia Hot Sauce Festival. Quite the honor for a self-proclaimed “Irishman from Ohio.”

A quick history: John Hard has spent the last 14 years building up and running CaJohns Fiery Foods, which started out as a way to teach his teenage children about running a business, and to get himself deals on hot sauce. After attending the 1997 National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show, and gathering samples of various hot sauces, Hard and his children decided what sauces they were going to sell, assembled everything, and proclaimed “OK, we’re in business.”

“It took about 6 weeks for the first order to come in for two bottles,” Hard said. “The kids were excited and we thought we were on our way.”

It would be another eight weeks before the next order came in for a single bottle. Excitement began to wane. “I could see that I was losing their interest and a lot of momentum, so we started booking festivals here in Columbus,” Hard said. Eventually, Hard began making his own sauce. “We started with some recipes and actually had some success with them in the 1999 Scovies. Our salsa won three first place Scovies in the Hot, Habanero, and Extra Hot categories.” 

CaJohns’ “big break” came when appliance manufacturer Frigidaire used CaJohns hot sauce as part of a gift package for customers after seeing an article about the company in the paper. At the time, both CaJohns and Frigidaire were located in Columbus, Ohio--Frigidaire has since relocated to Atlanta, Georgia. “They wanted a premium gift to give to people who bought ranges,” Hard said. “We ended up doing 7,500 gift packs for them, which put us all over the country and made us a viable company.”

In 2004, Hard sold his prior family business of fire protection and began to work on CaJohns full time. “I thought this would be a nice little business for me and my wife. We could travel and sell hot sauce, but I never realized that we would pick up the momentum we did.”

Momentum like an avalanche: in the first three years of business, CaJohns product went from 7,500 bottles sold, to 75,000 in the second year, to over 200,000 in the third year. “We’ve had a phenomenal growth rate,” Hard said. “If we go back over the last 11 years, we’ve had 30 percent growth per year, and if you look at the last 5 years, we’re at just about 20 percent. Of course, as the number gets bigger, it gets harder to grow.”  

Hard estimated that the company will go over 1.5 million in sales this year.

CaJohns and Winning Collaborations

There are numerous reasons why a company does well in the world of free trade: timing of the product, advertising, and knowing how to play the game while not biting the invisible hand that feeds you. In addition, there’s CaJohns’ fiery foods business model of collaboration and quality.

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