Fiesty Foods’ Hatari sauce brand has been chosen as the best brand in the Dragon’s Pantry competition at the UK Food & Drink Shows this week.
The brand, run by father and daughter duo Gary and Annie-Mae Tomlins, wowed the judging panel, which was made up of a host of industry experts, with its single-variety chilli sauces and mash pots.
The single-variety sauces contain just one type of chilli, with nothing added to sweeten or “dilute” the flavour, while the mash pots offer mashed chillies, bottled after their first stage of fermentation. They can be used like their fresh counterparts but are billed as offering “a lot more flavour”.
The sauces include Mild Sauce with Cayenne Chillies, Hatari Hooch with Bird Eye Chillies, and Hot Sauce with Habanero Chillies. The mash pot range includes Green Pickled Chilli, Amber Pickled Chilli, and Red Pickled Chilli variants.
All the chillies used in the products come from a dedicated farm in Tanzania.
The judges tried a wide range of the duo’s products, and thought the mash pots had a lot of potential, advising the entrepreneurial duo to produce recipe cards and PoS so customers could understand their many usage options, such as in curries or being spread like a pickle.
The brand was also praised for its sustainability and ethical initiatives, such as avoiding air freight to limit its carbon footprint, as well as its efforts working solely with women in Africa.
It was “just starting out so to get advice from such well-respected and experienced people is invaluable”, said Annie-Mae Tomlins. “We were so excited [to win] and have had some really great conversations because of it and it’s opened lots of doors already.
“For us, it’s just reconfirmed that being at a show like this means we’re doing the right thing. It really feels like this is our time.”
The UK Food & Drink Shows took place at Birmingham’s NEC this week (24-26 April).
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