St. Augustine buddies grow A Frame into major sauce brand (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — For those who haven’t spent much time on the First Coast, they might not have any idea what a datil pepper is.
A couple of St. Augustine entrepreneurs have spent the last decade introducing it to the masses through their hot sauces.
Former Flagler College soccer players and now longtime friends Scott Herlihy and Caleb Cooper have turned an interest in agriculture into a growing sauce company called A Frame.
With three different flavors, visitors to St. Augustine and up through Jacksonville are liable to see the brand on the table of their favorite independent restaurant or in the hot sauce aisle of a grocery store.
One might even run into Herlihy or Cooper promoting the products at one of the many area festivals. Or if you’re lucky, you might strike up a conversation with one of them while enjoying a libation around town and even score a sample bottle.
“We do that kind of thing all the time,” Cooper told the Business Journal. “That works better than any kind of marketing dollars. Our marketing dollars are in the sauce.”
That’s how these guys are building a brand without a parent company in charge and while still working other jobs.
“It’s 10 years of pushing it as hard as possible,” Cooper said.
The effort has put bottles of A Frame sauces on the shelves of cupboards around the country and on the shelves of major retail stores like Publix, Whole Foods, Buc-ee’s and Ace Hardware, among others.
“We’re certainly a well-recognized brand when it comes to datil pepper products,” Herlihy said.
It’s quite a leap for guys who started out with an interest in growing products organically because of friendships they made after college at an organic coffee farm in Jinotega, Nicaragua in 2008. (While A Frame’s datil peppers are grown with organic techniques, they are not certified organic.)
When they returned to St. Augustine, they started growing peppers using the kind of techniques they learned about in Nicaragua. They found found the taste of their peppers to be superior to that of other growers.
But as a business, two guys growing some datil peppers wasn’t ever going to be more than a hobby. So they ended up developing sauces that impressed their friends. They were encouraged enough to bottle the sauces and start A Frame 10 years ago.
While Herlihy and Cooper continue to run the business, as it has grown, they’ve had to outsource some of the work. They found a farmer to grow the peppers to their standards and use Endorphin Farms of St. Augustine to manufacture the sauces.
“Their consistency is … it’s almost like we don’t need to check,” Herlihy said. “We’re so confident in what they do.”
The pair doesn’t have time to grow all the peppers because they’re busy growing the brand. The big break was getting into Publix stores through the Florida Local program about five years ago.
Learning from that process, they attended a convention in South Florida for Whole Foods and managed to get into 28 stores in the state.
“Whole Foods is amazing,” Cooper said. “They really do support local businesses. They have been great to work with.”
Then came the deal with Buc-ee’s, the giant gas station/retail empire that has opened in St. Johns and Volusia counties as the company expands throughout the Southeast.
“We’re kind of growing with them as they build their brand outside of Texas,” Herlihy said.
While also carving out an online presence, Cooper and Herlihy said it’s been exciting to see their products in more and more stores — even the small, local retailers. They’re hoping the groundwork they’ve laid will allow them to continue building momentum.
“It makes a big difference being able to talk to someone as opposed to emailing,” Cooper said. “That’s probably why we got Whole Foods. We went down to the convention and got to shake hands with people and make a little connection there.
“There have been a couple of key people in those organizations that have helped us a lot because they believe in us. Without that we’d be (finished).”
Added Herlihy: “Once the sauce gets in there, it sells itself.”
Right now, A Frame is producing about a few thousand bottles a month. Its founders are confident that the growth is far from hitting its peak.
“We’re proud of hard far we’ve (advanced) the company,” Cooper said. “We’ve always grown it organically.”
Photo courtesy of A Frame