For Jason and Jennifer Grass of Fort Fairfield, peppers are a passion, and the hotter, the better.
The owners of The Hill Gardens make more than 27 different varieties of hot pepper sauce, ranging from mild to Dragon’s Breath, which as you might guess is their hottest.
In just a few years, they’ve taken the venture from a hobby to a living. But then they made a decision some would find surprising: they slashed their retail presence by about two-thirds.
Like pruning for a healthier tree, strategic downsizing can help businesses trim what isn’t working and refocus on what is. For example, Wyman’s, Maine’s blueberry giant, recently adopted a similar idea by selling off less productive land.
For the Grasses, it was about staying true to their community values. Now, they feel better about their products, and despite being in fewer stores, they’ve seen sales boom.
“We were in 19 stores in The County, and I said, you know what? We’ve saturated the market,” Jason Grass said. “I never did this to become a millionaire. I did this because I enjoy it.”
Hot sauce drew $877 million in sales across the U.S. in 2025 and grew the fastest among the wider condiments market, up nearly 6%, according to the Maine Center for Entrepreneurs.
The Grasses started producing hot sauce on a whim in 2020. Jason, who had cooked while serving in the U.S. Navy, loved pickled peppers, so he planted a small pepper patch. But he could only eat so many, so they pondered how to use the rest of the harvest.
Grass happened upon a YouTube personality who talked about fermenting foods. He was hooked.
Fermenting the roasted peppers in water and salt for a few weeks blends flavors, destroys harmful bacteria and pulls water out of the peppers, leaving more solids, Grass said. It also creates necessary acidity.
Once at the proper acidity, the fermented batch goes into a sieve or food mill. Then vinegar, spices and other ingredients go into the mix.
The couple first made a few bottles of hot sauce and shared them with friends.
“They said, ‘Wow, where did you get this?’ I said, ‘We made it,’ and they went, ‘No, you didn’t,’” Jason Grass said. “Then they said, ‘You should sell this.’”
The idea stuck. In late 2020 they started renovating their kitchen and filing paperwork for Maine home food licensing, then an inspector gave them the green light to start production.
They first set up at the Presque Isle Farmers Market and word spread. Soon, they were selling to more than 20 locations across Maine.
But after a while, something felt wrong. They were pushing hard to fill fluctuating demands. Some locations weren’t promoting the product, and Grass found expired sauce on shelves, he said.
They realized the production rush had overshadowed their love of creating their products.
“Growth has never been just about adding more locations. It’s about building lasting partnerships with people who believe in quality, integrity, and supporting local businesses as much as we do,” the couple wrote in a social media post earlier this month.
They pared down their retail commitments to focus on their own marketing.
Now, they serve three to seven retail locations throughout Maine at a given time. Some local restaurants, including Presque Isle’s The Maple Pig, use their products, Grass said. They also maintain an online store, which sells to people as far away as California.
The move proved successful. They’ve doubled their wholesale sales, and retail maintains a steady revenue stream, he said.
What’s more, they’re happier. They can take time to craft flavors, refine tastes and talk to customers about what they’d like to see in hot sauce.
Hot sauces are measured using Scoville units, according to the National Institute of Science and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Scoville scale measures the amount of the burn-causing capsaicin in peppers, ranging from green bell peppers at 0 units to the blazing Pepper X, which measures more than 3 million.
The Hill Gardens’ Dragon’s Breath sauce starts at 2.1 million and is their hottest, Grass said.
“I’ve never seen anyone who makes one past it,” he said. “Except for us, the highest I’ve seen in the state of Maine is 1.8 million Scoville units.”
The Hill Gardens makes sauces from mild to super hot, many with unexpected ingredients: berries, apples, pears, plantains, maple, cinnamon and clove.
They also collaborate with other producers. For example, Goughan Farms of Caribou had an abundance of pumpkins one year, and gave them a truckload. Naturally, a pumpkin spice hot sauce was born, combining pureed pumpkin, sweet spice and zesty peppers.
They’ve just introduced taste-challenge boxes, which contain a mix of four sauces going from hot to blazing with a narrative and steps that customers can follow as they taste.
They intend to remain at the Presque Isle farmers market, Grass said. The vendors support one another on sale day and beyond, using each other’s products in their own offerings.
“This is what I enjoy,” Grass said. “I’m happy. I love my customers. Our customers know us by name.”