Our Story

Ira’s salsa started 16 years ago as a quest to find something better than what we found at the grocery store. Ira made it for parties, get togethers and just for eating. It became a favorite among our friends as the best fresh tasting salsa. No longer were the days of scouring shelves to find something magical, we had something all our own. Ira’s Salsa stayed a special occasion creation until May of 2019. 

Our daughter Emma’s Softball team was planning on competing at the Jenny Finch World Series in Sulfur, LA.  As the moms were deciding the best route to raise funds to offset the cost for the families that would travel. One of the fundraising ideas was a bake sale. The group of moms approached Ira about selling her salsa. After finally breaking down and saying yes, Ira decided to make around 30 jars and said she didn’t think it would sell. 

Boy we’re we in for a wild ride. One month and 1,600 jars later most of the team had their expenses paid for. That’s when we decided that maybe we had something. Starting at a farmers market in Angelina County we began selling salsa which quickly became a popular item. As with popularity some problems arose, working through those problems we began an adventure in the world of co-packing. 

Filing for licenses, creating an actual business became our nightly ritual. Recreating Ira’s salsa on our stove top to mirror the fresh taste that everyone loved. From there with a basic idea of what we needed and how we recreated the process we began working with our co-packer. From there we created a fine blend of some of the best salsa we have ever tasted and in our opinion some of the best we hoped would be a grocery store shelf some day. We got our big break with a small mom and pop feed store in Joaquin, TX called Worsham’s Grocery and Feed. We delivered 2 cases of our regular salsa shook hands and posted on our Facebook page. The next thing we know Salsa is flying off the shelves, people were driving 50 miles one way to get it. 

 

Over the next couple of months we continually began to pickup other vendors in and around our hometown. As of right now we are located in around 170 stores in 6 states (AL, AR, LA, MS, TX and TN) As our story continues to we hope to share something that has been near and dear to us with the rest of the nation. Ira laughs when I say one day we will have a Super Bowl commercial with the big guys. 

 

We both have full time careers so as the salsa gig slowly approached being a full time as well we decided we would do this as a family. During the course of our business our 10 year old daughter has been involved every step of the way. The three of us handle all aspects of the company. She has learned to count appropriate change, wrap and package salsa, stock store shelves and is one of our best marketers. Salsa has been a way for us to grow as a family and teach our daughter life lessons that will last a lifetime.