There are plenty of successful food businesses in the East Midlands, but few have grown quite like Sauce Shop.
When we visited the company’s Nottingham factory this week, it was hard to believe it all began with two people, a home kitchen and a small market stall.
I first met founders James and Pam Digva around 2014, the year they launched the business. Great Food Club was still called Great Food Magazine, and we were both exhibiting at a small market in the grounds of The Griffin Inn at Swithland.
I remember tasting their sriracha sauce that day. More than a decade later, I can still remember its flavour.
At the time, it was just Pam and James selling bottles across a table. Today, Sauce Shop employs around 50 people, produces approximately 25,000 bottles every day and is stocked by most of Britain’s major supermarkets. It has also developed exclusive products for brands including PizzaExpress, with further collaborations in the pipeline.
It’s an extraordinary East Midlands success story.
The accidental beginning
Like many great businesses, Sauce Shop started almost by accident.
James had made a ketchup for a barbecue. Friends tried it and encouraged him to sell it.
“We’d been thinking about starting a business anyway,” James told us. “Originally we’d considered opening a coffee shop, but the commitment of premises, rent and long opening hours didn’t feel right. Sauce gave us something we could build from home and grow at our own pace.”
Both James and Pam had backgrounds in food science and understood the industry well. Looking at supermarket shelves, they believed there was room for an independent producer focused on flavour and high-quality ingredients rather than simply competing with the established household names.
A name that almost wasn’t
One of our favourite stories from the visit concerns the company’s name.
On the morning of their first farmers’ market at West Bridgford, they still hadn’t decided what to call the business.
“We needed a name there and then,” Pam said. “Sauce Shop just seemed obvious. It said exactly what we did.”
Without time to commission branding, they reached for an old Dymo embossing label maker. Those embossed labels became their first logo.
More than twelve years later, although the Dymo tape itself has long disappeared, the distinctive embossed style remains at the heart of the Sauce Shop brand.
Sometimes the simplest ideas really do last.
Why Sauce Shop tastes different
Walking around the factory, one process stood out above all the others.
Unlike many manufacturers, Sauce Shop ferments its own chillies in-house.
Every couple of weeks the team processes between five and ten tonnes of chillies, turning them into a mash before allowing them to ferment for around a week. The result is deeper, more complex flavours that form the backbone of many of the company’s sauces.
Buying ready-fermented chilli mash would undoubtedly be easier.
“But we’d lose control,” James explained. “We want to oversee every stage because that’s how we achieve the flavour we’re looking for.”
Standing in the fermentation room, the aroma alone made it clear why they remain committed to doing it themselves.
A growing range
Today Sauce Shop produces more than 35 products, from its bestselling Buffalo Hot Sauce and Tomato Ketchup to Honey Sriracha, Original Smoky BBQ Sauce, Chipotle & Lime Aioli, Brown Sauce, Scotch Bonnet Chilli Jam and a growing range of mayonnaises and cooking sauces.
High quality has always been central to the business. The company has amassed an impressive collection of Great Taste Awards, with an entire wall dedicated to its stars. During our visit, the team had just received news of yet more Great Taste success.
Sauce Shop has also recently achieved BRCGS accreditation, regarded as one of the food industry’s highest standards for food safety and quality.
A Nottingham success story
Despite the company’s growth, Pam and James remain hands-on, and that entrepreneurial spirit still runs through the business.
The culture they’ve built is obvious. Staff recognition boards, long-serving team members and enthusiasm create a workplace that feels every bit as authentic as the products coming off the production line.
Nottingham has every reason to be proud.
From a pub garden stall to supermarket shelves across Britain, Sauce Shop has become one of the region’s standout food success stories – and if the past 12 years are anything to go by, this is only the beginning.
