47 trails to find the flavor of Thanh Hoa's chili sauce

47 trials to find a traditional flavor

Every day, the chili sauce production facility of Spicy Country Co., Ltd. on Ba Trieu Street, Hac Thanh ward (Thanh Hoa), fills with the distinctive aroma of raw ingredients and fermenting chili sauce. Inside the facility, dozens of ceramic jars stand in orderly rows.

Le Minh Cuong (born 1992), the company's director, once studied hospitality and tourism and worked in Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City, but he decided to return to his hometown and start over in agriculture. Though he had no formal training in the food industry, his years of studying and working abroad exposed him to culinary cultures in many countries and taught him how traditional products are made and marketed, laying the groundwork for his eventual venture.

In 2016, he returned to Thanh Hoa, opened a food business, and tried his hand at processing gac fruit. After three years of investment, the plant was forced to shut down, and most of the capital he had put in could not be recovered. Financial pressure and mounting debt worried his family, who even opposed his continuing in business. At times he fell into crisis, questioning whether he was on the wrong path.

After the failure of the gac fruit venture, a turning point came for Cuong during a trip to his wife's hometown in Thieu Toan commune in late 2019. There, he saw fields of ripe red chili peppers with no stable market. At times the price of chili dropped to just a few thousand dong per kilogram, forcing farmers to abandon their fields because the harvest could not even cover costs.

That reality led him to ask why a crop grown so widely still left farmers dependent on middlemen and volatile purchase prices. Could chili peppers be processed into another product to extend shelf life, raise value, and give farmers more control over their market? That question drove Cuong to search for a solution. One day, watching the children in his family eat industrial chili sauce with their meal, the idea struck him: try making chili sauce from ingredients grown right in his hometown.

He set out to learn the fermented chili sauce production process. His early visits to production facilities yielded little more than tours, since recipes and techniques were closely guarded. With no other option, he observed, took notes, researched, and brought what he learned home to experiment. The process was far from simple. He had to continually adjust ingredients, fermentation methods, and timing from batch to batch, gradually working out a process suited to his own product.

More than once, Cuong woke up in the middle of the night struck by an idea for a different salt ratio, a different fermentation period, or a different temperature that might change the flavor. Each failed attempt meant discarding tens of kilograms of ingredients, but also brought him a deeper understanding of the character of each chili pepper.

By the 47th trial, what he had been waiting for finally appeared. The sauce reached a natural thickness, with a mild aroma and a heat that spread slowly across the tongue rather than striking sharply, leaving behind the natural sweetness of the ripe chili itself.

In late 2020, Cuong brought his first bottles of sauce to market for Tet. His early customers were mostly friends and family, but he was surprised when many came back for a second purchase. The positive feedback convinced him that the path he had chosen, though difficult, was not the wrong one. In February 2020, he founded his company and began building the traditional chili sauce brand Spico.

Raising agricultural value through deep processing

At the company's workshop, jars of sauce ferment naturally, using methods much like those of past generations. The difference is that after fermentation, the product passes through a modern pasteurization and sterilization line to meet food safety standards before reaching consumers.

That is also the biggest distinction between Spico's products and many industrial chili sauces on the market. The company adds no coloring to keep the sauce a bright red for months and no additives to alter its taste, so the color naturally darkens over time, a normal characteristic of naturally fermented products. Some customers have brought bottles back to Cuong asking why the color had changed; he simply smiles and explains the natural oxidation process of the ingredients.

"Making products the traditional way takes more time and is harder to sell, but once consumers understand the true value of the product, they come to trust it and stay with us," Cuong said.

He said he has never seen himself as simply a condiment producer. What he wants to do is bigger: extend the life cycle of agricultural products. A chili pepper does not have to last only a few days after harvest, and a tomato does not have to be sold off cheaply during peak season. With that in mind, he has sought out chili-growing areas across the province and built a linked supply chain with local farmers.

In the early days, many farmers looked at him with skepticism. Could such a young company really guarantee to purchase their crops? He chose to prove himself through action. Season after season, as sales grew and orders increased, farmers' trust grew along with them.

Today, the company has built a growing area of more than 2.5 hectares, linked with numerous farming households to control quality starting from the field. Each year, the facility purchases about 10 tons of chili peppers and 6 to 7 tons of tomatoes, producing 400 to 500 bottles of condiments per day.

Cuong believes that if farmers sell only fresh chili peppers, they remain dependent on middlemen. But once the peppers are processed into a condiment, their value is no longer measured in kilograms of raw material but in knowledge, technology, branding, and the cultural story behind each product.

That is also why, after chili sauce, Spico went on to develop tomato sauce, soy sauce, chili oil, and other condiment lines. Each product begins with a familiar Vietnamese agricultural ingredient, elevated through modern processing methods and market-oriented thinking.

The company now offers 12 product lines, including Phuc Loc Tho chili sauce and tomato sauce, both recognized as 3-star OCOP products in 2021. Cuong won second prize at the 2020 Thanh Hoa Innovative Startup Competition, was recognized at the 2021 national-level startup competition, and received the Luong Dinh Cua Award in 2025.

"Today's young generation has not turned its back on agriculture. They are entering the field through a new path: bringing knowledge to raise the value of agricultural products, and bringing ambition so that the flavors of home no longer stop at the edge of the field but can reach much larger markets," Cuong said.