Salsa Texas – Interview With Dennis Cohn & Review Of Product

Interview Done By Mike Wilkerson

MW: Tell me about how your product came about?

DC: I am from Texas, and found myself living up in NYC back in the early ’90s. I couldn’t find any good salsas, and thus I had to resort to having my mother ship me some. People in Texas put salsa on everything, and it killed me not being able to find any in NYC. So being in this position sparked a dream to one day develop my own salsa.
I knew having gone down to Mexico numerous times what kind of salsa I wanted to make. I sat on it for a good number of yrs, and finally decided to act on it. I asked my friend Ron if he wanted to join me on this journey, and thus was the creation of Salsa, Texas.

 

MW: How me different lines do you have?

DC: We currently have a mild, medium, and hot.

 

MW: Do you have any other products coming out?

DC: Our green sauce should be coming out shortly.

 

MW: What is your best selling product?

DC: They all sell extremely well, but the medium is the biggest mover.

 

MW: Where can consumers find your product in the store?

DC: We’re currently in about 160 Kroger locations throughout Texas (mainly the Greater Houston and Dallas/Ft Worth area). We’re also in Central Market in Houston, Dallas, Ft Worth, San Antonio, and Austin. As well as Whole Foods in Dallas and Houston.

 

MW: Can consumers buy it from your website?

DC: Yes customers can buy these items on our website which is: www.salsatexas.net

 

MW: Do you do food trade shows?

DC: We haven’t done any trade shows as of yet, however we have entered the two largest Hot Sauce festivals in the country (Houston Hot Sauce Festival and the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival)

 

MW: How have they gone for you?

DC: We won the People’s Choice award for Best Salsa at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival all three times we entered it as a salsa (’04, ’05 & ’09). We also won the People’s choice award for Best Red Sauce at the Houston Hot Sauce Festival in ’04 & ’10). We also won Best Salsa (Judges) the only time we entered the Austin Chronicle Festival back in ’10.

 

MW: What do you see in the future for your company?

DC: Our goal is to continue to develop our brand here in the state of Texas, but we also have every intention of going National with Salsa, Texas.

 

MW: What would you like to say in closing?

DC: We feel like we have a very unique product and that there isn’t a product out on the market like ours. We actually use fresh tomatoes as opposed to using tomatoes from a drum which 95% of the salsas on the market currently use. All our ingredients are fresh. We actually take the time to truly fire roast both the tomatoes and the Serrano peppers. We don’t add any preservatives, sugars, oils, or tomato paste or puree, nor do we add any onions or cilantro. Texas is the Salsa capital of the world, and there’s over 1,000 different salsas sold in the state. Thus people in this state know their salsa. The response we get when people try our salsa for the first time is “that’s the best salsa I’ve ever had”. The Dallas Morning News endorsed Salsa, Texas as their favorite salsa out of all the salsas from the state of Texas last February right before the Super Bowl. Leslie Brenner (Dallas Morning News restaurant critic) said the following about Salsa, Texas. “That it was the best salsa she’s ever tasted from a jar, and also one of the best products she’s ever had from a supermarket”. Obviously we were very humbled by her words. If you like salsa you should certainly try our product as we feel very confident that you’ll come away flat out loving it. We’d also like to thank you Michael for spreading the word to people who follow your blog.

Video review of Salsa Texas

Stagecoach Salsa Company – Interview With Larry Kling & Review Of Product

Interview Done By Mike Wilkerson

MW: Tell me about how your product came about?

LK: I was working for a Defense Contractor in one state with my family in another, so it was just the cat and I in a small apartment. It was one of those jobs where you could not take work home and had to leave at a designated time to prevent costs overruns. So, there we were bored and watching this infomercial about a manual chopping device, and it came with a “salsa recipe”, so I ordered it. The recipe didn’t work out too well, so I started experimenting with different ingredients, and inflicting them on my co-workers. Pretty soon, instead of brings something to drink to our gatherings, I was asked to bring my salsa. The job went away but the salsa hobby stayed. I went to work for a Government agency, and that didn’t work out, so I decided, after a whole bunch of family and friend encouragement to start the Stagecoach Salsa Company with 4 Texas Red heat levels – Mild Tenderfoot, Medium, Heat, and Ignite. We’ve sinced changed the name of Heat to Kinda’ Hot, and Ignite to Really Hot.

 

MW: How many different lines do you have?

LK: We produce 9 salsas, 2 BBQ Sauces, 2 Specialy Sauces, and a Jalapeno Mustard.

 

MW: Do you have any other products coming out?

LK: Before the end of the year we’re current planning on introducing a Specialty product, Miss Belva’s South Texas Caviar, a Chipotle based black-eyed pea relish.

 

MW: What is your best selling product?

LK: The Medium salsa, followed by Kinda’ Hot, and Mild Tenderfoot, and Really Hot, the original four.

 

MW: Where can consumers find your product in the store?

LK: We are currently available only in a few Texas stores, mostly in the San Antonio area – Greenfields Market, all the HEB Central Markets (San Antonio, Austin, Dallas/Ft Worth, and Houston, and The Boerne Epicure Shop in Boerne, TX.

 

MW: Can consumers buy it from your website?

LK: We have all but one of our products on our website at www.StagecoachSalsa.com

 

MW: Do you do food trade show?

LK: I no longer go to a lot of food trade shows, I rarely recovered the costs and in reality never generated a whole lot of trade business.

 

MW: How have they gone for you?

LK: Mediocre at best, but usually a lot of hard work and fun.

 

MW: What do you see in the future for your company?

LK: I see us slowly progressing to become a household name, and then I can let someone else run the company and travel before I get too much older.

 

MW: What would you like to say in closing?

LK: I’m chasing a dream right now, and I encourage everyone to chase a dream when the opportunity arises. We’ve been lucky enough to win 19 national awards in the last for our products over the last five years. Being recognized by one’s peers in the industry is truly a great experience. If we went bust tomorrow, I could honestly say it was a helluva ride and I really enjoyed it. Meanwhile – buy more salsa.

The video review I did of  4 their products: