The Beginning!
Green Belly started when Juan shared his mother’s traditional Guatemalan hot sauce. Maria del Carmen’s home-made hot sauces instantly became a hit with Juan’s friends. They were blown away by the unique cilantro, garlic and habanero blend.
The sauce is so fresh and tasty that Juan was bombarded with requests. Eventually his friends convinced him to start selling at the local farmer’s markets. So he opened up a tent at the market, people loved it and his business has been growing ever since! During that time, he recruited his cousin Charlie to help him with the fledgling business. Charlie’s minor from CU’s Leeds School of Business and his experience with a wine startup came in very handy.
When Juan opened the first tent in 2015, they were so new to large scale production that they could hardly keep up with demand. Both cousins had other full-time jobs to juggle, family and kids, but the constant demand for Green Belly showed us them they were onto something special.
Family and Community!
Friends and family are the driving force behind this business. Spending time with family creating a sustainable business has been a great way to connect. We are able to spend quality time overcoming challenges that abound in startup life. This is also an amazing opportunity to work with friends and connect with them in new ways. Through these interactions we have been able to grow our relationships and continue to transform our communities.
Now it’s all about the love for what we are creating. We want to connect you to our delicious products, and create such a spectacular experience, that you love sharing it with friends and family of your own. We encourage you to dive in, and fill up your heart with what we offer!
We Keep Growing!!
The craving for Green Belly has been overwhelming! People come up to us at farmers markets and tell us they can’t get enough of it. We receive orders online from all over the country and have even shipped to Europe! People from all walks of life have shared their stories about how our sauces have changed their diet and brought new explosion of flavor into their daily meals.
It’s been lots of hard work and constant determination to keep this growing. The most important contributions we’ve received have been the continuous love and support from our customers who crave our sauces. We would like to thank everyone who has helped us along the way!
Some highlights from our journey include: learning to farm habaneros, building relationships with local farmers, and creating another unique sauce from cobanero peppers, that we personally source from Mayan Q’eqchi’ farmers in Guatemala.
Our Guatemalan connection is especially rewarding because we directly contribute to developing economies, and facilitate entrepreneurial growth in neglected parts of the world. We are bringing business directly to hard working people that are propelling their families out of poverty.
Sustainability is important for everyone, especially food producers. We are conscious about where our ingredients come from, and look to find producers who take full ecosystems into account. We look for products that are better than organic. Organic certification takes great steps to motivate the production of healthy food. However, this certification has holes, which is why we create relationships with the producers themselves, so that we can be sure we are providing you the freshest and healthiest foods.