Baumer Foods - They Make Good Food Taste Great

The Story of a Brand

Ramon Vela

Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 145 Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

I’ve interviewed a lot of founders, but few with stories as rich and enduring as today’s guest. In this episode, I sit down with Pepper Baumer, President & CEO of Crystal Hot Sauce, a product of Baumer Foods. We explore how this iconic, family-owned brand has been flavoring kitchens for over a century, surviving everything from World War II to Hurricane Katrina to global supply chain meltdowns. It’s a powerful reminder of what it means to adapt, persevere, and keep a legacy alive.

Pepper shares how his grandfather flipped a snowball syrup company into a global hot sauce business, how his aunt Ella Brennan instilled business smarts in him one Wall Street Journal article at a time, and what he’s doing to bring the brand into its next era. From private label to industrial partnerships, from NOLA roots to nationwide shelves—this is one flavorful story you don’t want to miss.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

* The origin story of Crystal Hot Sauce and how a hidden recipe changed everything

* What Pepper learned from his aunt Ella Brennan that still guides him today

* How Baumer Foods survived Hurricane Katrina and rebuilt their business

* Why investing in manufacturing and industrial partnerships is key to the future

* The brand’s flavor-first philosophy: “We make good food taste great”

Join me, Ramon Vela, in listening to the episode and discover how a century-old hot sauce brand continues to evolve with heart, hustle, and a whole lot of heat.

For more on Baumer Foods, visit: https://crystalhotsauce.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So my grandfather started this company in 1923. So we just turned 100 years old. I think we're 102 now. It will be
0:06.4	102, I think, next month to be honest with you. But just pure luck, I guess, is the best way to describe it. My
0:13.6	grandfather went to his future father-in-law and asked for a loan to purchase a snowball syrup making
0:20.2	company. Down south, we call them snowballs,
0:22.1	everywhere else they call them snow cones. It's just the way the world works. Ironically,
0:25.4	and coincidentally, how we want to say it, inside the archives of said company, Snowball syrup company,
0:30.5	was a recipe for Crystal Louisiana Pure hot sauce. And he just decided to flip his business model from snowball syrup to hot
0:39.4	sauce. And then from there, we just became bomber foods. We started producing crystal hot sauce.
1:00.3	Hey, everyone. This is Ramon Vela, and this is another episode of the story of a brand.
1:04.6	Like always, we have an amazing guest and brand that we're going to feature on today's show.
1:14.6	But before we do, if you're a better for you CPG brand thinking about Amazon, let me ask you something. Are you scaling or just surviving? Because here's the truth. Most agencies throw your product on Amazon and hope for the best. But Revive Amazon marketing partners isn't most agencies.
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	...

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