Have
you ever tasted a pasta sauce from the supermarket and thought, “I can do
better then that”? Or do you make a fantastic sauce, salsa, dip, etc.? That’s
what Dave Hirschkop of Dave’s Gourmet thought, which motivated him to start his
company that manufactures and markets award-winning sauces to millions of
Americans every year.
The
thing is, he’s pretty sure he’s not the only one in America who has a great sauce.
That’s why Dave is putting his money where your kitchen is by creating a
national contest to determine where America’s next great sauce, salsa
or dip will come from.
“I
know that somewhere someone is home making their own sauce because they know
it’s better than anything they can get at the supermarket,” says Dave, whose
sauces have won best in the industry awards two years running. “Well, I want
that sauce. I want to manufacture it and bring it to people around the world.
The only problem I’ve had in that equation was how to find it.”
Enter
Dave’s brainchild: the Dave’s Gourmet Recipe Challenge, which carries a grand
prize of up to $1,000,000 in sales royalties. Here’s how it works:
Send
Dave your recipe at the Dave’s Gourmet website
by December 31.
Entrants
have to warrant that they own that recipe and that they did not swipe it from
their sister-in-law when she wasn’t looking.
From
January 1-4, 2012, Dave’s team will test the recipes and choose a bank of
semifinalists.
Sauces
will be judged in five categories – taste, appearance, creativity, consumer
appeal and the recipe’s ability to be mass-produced. In other words, if Dave
has to hand-cut bay leaves from trees found only in the southernmost tip of Italy in order
to make your sauce, it might be too difficult for him to mass-produce.
Those
semifinalist sauces will be taste-tested by a panel from Dave’s Gourmet and finalist
sauces will be chosen and their owners notified between January 12-14.
On
January 15 to 17, hundreds of food professionals attending the Fancy Foods Show
in San Francisco
will taste the finalists’ entries and will vote for their favorite.
On
January 18, the winner or winners will be announced and notified.
Within
two weeks of being notified, winners must sign some paperwork and collect their
advance of $2,000.
The
sauce will be produced for Dave’s Gourmet’s retailers and might have the winner’s
name right on the label.
The
winner will receive royalties for six years, up to $1 million.
“Now,
I wasn’t anyone special when I started my restaurant and then moved into
manufacturing sauces,” Dave says. “I’m just like everyone else and that’s why I
know that somewhere out there, someone just like me is standing in their
kitchen stirring a sauce that could very well be the best one in America. So,
I’m going to find out where it is.”
Dave
Hirschkop is married with three children, and graduated from Boston University
back in the 1980s. Shortly thereafter, he opened a mom and pop restaurant
called Burrito Madness. It was there he first started experimenting with hot
sauces, later moving into pasta sauces. He started Dave’s Gourmet 18 years ago,
and now has products in major retailers like Safeway, Williams-Sonoma, Whole
Foods and Costco.
