It Is Happening....!!
I'm late in posting this, but last week we hit a milestone!
No-MaTer Sauce Company got our initial bottled sauce from the bottling company! (To taste and finalize)
Wednesday last week (Oct. 13th), myself, my fabulous and supportive husband, and a few great friends went to Motherlode CoPackers for the taste test. This was the official first big step to getting the product dialed in at the facility before sending off to get the regulatory approval to be able to legally sell product.
What a fantastic experience. Wonderful people and an awesome manufacturing setup with 800 gallon vats, conveyor belts, and an assembly line of individuals putting jars into boxes. I was in a cloud, it felt so surreal. I could envision my tomato-free marinara being produced here.
It took a few iterations to get the recipe dialed in with them making it in the little test pot. I don't know about you, but in my kitchen I use measuring cups and spoons and occasionally break out the scale that goes down to ounces/grams. In this kitchen, they weigh everything and their scales go to 0.001 grams!
I am so excited to announce that the flavor is on point! The color is gorgeous and I'm struggling to stop ogling the couple jars I was sent home with. You can see little bits of seasoning in the beautiful red sauce and the texture has an amazing mouth feel...ok, I might have a problem, but I am soo excited :)
Of course, getting the bill for moving forward, that put my feet back on the ground. But next steps are underway. We will be moving forward and making a small batch to get the letter from the authorities that allows me to actually sell my sauce legally. This does have a turnaround time of about 4-6 weeks. But only after this essential step can I actually make and sell my tomato-free sauce legally.
I wish this process were not so long. I wish I could give you the option today to buy some. But soon! I am hoping that January 2022 will be when I can actually announce we are here and ready to sell! If we're really lucky, it'll move faster than that...
Stay tuned!
A good friend of mine getting into the science of all the tests that they are now doing.
My sauce on the left and another spaghetti sauce on the right for comparison.
Questions, we had so many questions and these wonderful guys were very helpful. Adam and James (left to right). James was heading up the weighing and mixing all the ingredients in the mini-vat and Adam was helping all of us work with the flavor and tasting (note the black bowl filled with tasting spoons).
It. Is. Beautiful! I might melt when the label is on these 24 oz pretty jars!
We made meatball subs for dinner using one jar of the sauce. It was tasty! And that finalized the take home portion of the taste test (after the sauce was bottled, cooled, and sat for a couple days in the jars). YUM!
