Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Pierson.
Hi Matt, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Freaky Ferments the company started in 2019, but Freaky Ferments the people have known each other all of our lives. Three of the four of us went to high school together. In our early 20’s we started to experiment with homebrewing and made several beers and wines in our home kitchens. As time went on, we started getting better and better at it and naturally wanted to use better and better equipment and techniques. In 2016 we renovated a building in the back of Chads backyard into a full-on home brewery. We would all meet up over there almost every weekend to brew, grill out, and drink the beers we had come up with. It was during this time that we also started to experiment with other fermented foods, notably hot sauce but also sauerkraut and kimchi. We ended up making some very tasty hot sauces for ourselves – notably a Ghost pepper sauce and a jalapeno sauce and thought it would be a cool idea to make this hot sauce and sell it as a means to fund the purchase of better and better equipment for our little homebrewery. It worked better than we could’ve hoped and we quickly raised hundreds of dollars operating under the Texas cottage food law and selling our sauces at local farmer’s markets. We kept at it and before long, we were struggling to make enough hot sauce in the small batches we were making it in. We knew that we were onto something and wanted to persue it. In 2019 we formed our LLC and found a commissary kitchen in Fort Worth that we could set as our manufacturing facility to produce our hot sauce in. This allowed us to upscale significantly as well as sell online and to retailers. We started out making 20-30 bottles at a time and are now averaging 600-1500 bottles per batch. We still brew beer together occasionally, but the homebrewers with a hot sauce hobby have now become hot sauce makers with a homebrew hobby.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I think the most difficult part to date has been being patient. We started the company with less than $10,000 and so have had to tread carefully with balancing the books with our expansion. We don’t take any pay from the company and also all still work full-time day jobs. This is in an effort to put as much money back into growing our business as fast as possible. It’s not uncommon for all of us to work 10 hour days both days of the weekend and then go back to work on Monday. We knew this would be hard work going on and take the struggle head on. We have a really special group of dedicated people making this thing happen.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I started working in restaurants right out of high school while taking some classes at Tarrant County College. After getting my associate’s degree, I worked for a small healthcare company doing stress testing in cardiology offices around the DFW area. I did that for about three years and left to continue pursuing my education. At 24, I enrolled at the University of Texas at Arlington, where I earned a bachelor’s degree in biology, graduating in 2015. After college, I started working for a large food products manufacturer in Garland, TX as a laboratory analyst, where I still work today. I now hold the position of Shift Coordinator in the Quality department.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Freaky Ferments is heavily community-based – we have busy social media and are at some kind of market almost every weekend.
As someone just looking to show some support – a like and a follow on our socials goes a long way. Coming out to see in at our markets or purchasing a bottle or two on our website is also a great way to show support.
We also like collaborating with other local businesses – we have done several custom orders for businesses around the DFW area and the United States that wanted a hot sauce with their label on it to sell or for special events.
What we really are looking to do is find a distillery wanting to collaborate on a bourbon barrel-aged sauce!
Pricing:
- Limited Edition Sauces – $10-$12 per bottle
- Premium Sauces $8.50 per bottle
- Green Sauces $6.50 per bottles
- Wholesale as low as $3 per bottle depending on quantity
Contact Info:
- Email: freakyferments@gmail.com
- Website: www.freakyferments.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freakyfermentsbrewing/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freakyferments
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCngHZMbzv20dRTd0Prr1Ezw
Image Credits:
Allison Pierson Lifestyle Photography https://www.instagram.com/allisonpiersonlifestylephoto/
