Ansel's Awesome Sauce

Ansel’s Awesome Hot Sauce, founded by Ansel Cummings in Riverside, IA, creates a variety of tasty hot sauces that prioritize flavor, heat levels, local producers, and exceptional quality and practices. Ansel started his journey in crafting the perfect hot sauce by searching for a hot sauce that satisfied his needs for heat and flavor.  

“I found a few [hot sauces] that were rich with flavor, but didn’t pack any heat. A few more used pepper extract that set my mouth ablaze, but had no flavor to back it up... I decided to step in."

He started off creating hot sauce from ingredients in his own garden! After sharing the sauce with his close friends, they asked him to bottle it up.  

"My little home garden couldn't produce enough to share in that capacity, but this request got my wheels turning on how I might be able to."

Ansel attended classes at University of Nebraska-Lincoln to become certified in acidified-food processing and learn more about state and FDA approval processes. Ansel built his FDA-regulated food processing facility from the ground up and takes pride in maintaining full control over every step of production.

This approach supports the local economy, ensures small-batch quality, emphasizes sustainable practices, and allows him to provide fair wages. 

"Handcrafting my hot sauce allows me to maintain control of production, to make sure my ingredients are responsibly sourced from small farms, which gives support to the local economy."

Ansel’s Awesome Sauces come in an original or smoky flavor and range from 2500 to 450000 Scoville units. All of Ansel’s Awesome Sauces start with a robust base combination of peaches, carrots, onions, garlic, apple cider vinegar, honey, and salt (all local ingredients). 

 Try out Ansel’s Awesome Sauces at any of the New Pioneer Co-op locations!