It was the creation of a fluke wing sauce for a garage party that led Ben Bonish to the brand of gourmet everyday sauces called Saucy Pete’s.
Now Bonish has eight distinctively different sauces under his flagship name brand.
“Over the last 15 years, there were Masters parties and Superbowl parties. We would hook up about five deep fryers in the garage and make wings at my home in Minnow Lake,” Bonish said.
“I was attempting to make a dill sauce. It is now my Incredibly Tasty Sauce but once everyone tasted it, they would always ask me to make it for the next function,” he said.
All that changed during the pandemic. The family business, Pete’s Rental, is named after his grandpa Pete who started the company, and business was slow at the height of COVID-19.
“It was pretty touch and go for a while,” Bonish said.
With more people experimenting in the kitchen at home, Bonish received requests for his sauces.
He started by packaging it in small jars affixing Saucy Pete labels using grandpa Pete’s picture as the logo.
Demand then grew to larger, squeezable bottles. It’s now turned into a full-time job.
There’s Honey Bourbon BBQ, Sweet Heat Pineapple, Sizzlin’ Honey Garlic, Chipotl’eh and the list goes on.
Garmesan, which is a mix of Garlic and Parmesan is the flagship sauce and it’s the go-to sauce at home, too, for the family.
Second to that would be the Incredibly Tasty Sauce.
But with four children in the home ranging from a toddler to young teenagers, the business needs to move out of the house.
Bonish has inked a deal to relocate Saucy Pete’s to a vacant church in Blezard Valley within the next two months.
“There will be no more working in PJ pants. It’s becoming harder and harder to be productive in the house. Plus, we need our kitchen back,” he said.
Ben credits his wife for being the social media manager, master labeller and a great troubleshooter for the business.
“This all started with just a stove, a pot, funnel and a whisk for stirring. Pouring thick sauce into bottles was difficult until my wife found a hand-based piston pump and now we have a filling machine that can tackle 100 bottles in five minutes flat,” he said.
Bonish said they have also substituted the stove for a steam kettle system that allows them to double their batches to achieve up to 600 bottles per week.
The feedback and support has been astronomical.
There are many stores carrying the Saucy Pete line of sauces including Amici Food and Beverage Company, Long Lake Variety, Local Jerky Plus, The Valley Market and more sites are listed on the website.
A number of local grocery stores here in Sudbury along with North Bay, Espanola and Val Caron carry the product line.
Twelve Superstores in other jurisdictions like Midland, Scarborough and Wasaga Beach stock it, too.
One tourist store in British Columbia has been stocking the sauces for a year.
Bonish also sells Saucy Pete’s at the Farmers Market at Science North.
He’s also connected with a distribution company who has listed the product to share it with other interested stores in the province.
His goal is to get another 10-15 stores on board in the coming months.
To learn more about Saucy Pete’s, visit the website SaucyPetes.ca or the social media handles.
The website also contains a recipe section.
Anastasia Rioux is a writer in Greater Sudbury. Let’s eat! is made possible by our Community Leaders Program.
