Hector Saldivar’s dream wasn’t to be a successful business owner or to create a legacy. His dream was to unite people through food and remind them that no matter who you are, we’re all human.
“I believe that food has always had the power to unite,” Saldivar, 42, said firmly in his deep, warm voice. “It doesn’t matter what your point of view, your religion, or your language is. If food is on the table and we’re both hungry, we’re gonna eat.”
Saldivar is the founder of Tia Lupita Hot Sauce, sold in over 800 stores nationwide, with more than 10,000 bottles produced monthly. The Tiburon resident sources his hot-sauce ingredients from Santa Clara County. Just recently, the two-year-old company expanded its product line of three flavors of hot sauce — original, salsa verde, and chipotle — to tortillas and chips made entirely from cactuses that only grow in Mexico.
Tia Lupita isn’t just about hot sauce, but also about family. The hot sauce, which can be found in Whole Foods and other natural grocers, has a distinct bottle. The label art features a drawing of a smiling woman—Saldivar’s mother, Tia Lupita—with an inviting round face and a curler in her hair.
The roots of Saldivar’s dream started in Monterrey, Mexico, where he was born and stayed until his 30s. The son of a doctor and a school teacher who lived in a middle-class home, Saldivar and his family, like many Mexican families, connected through food.
Not a day went by that his family didn’t have lunch together—yes, the entire family. His dad would come home from the hospital, and Saldivar and his two sisters would walk home from school to share a warm meal and talk about their day. Sundays were dedicated entirely to family time too.
“That’s when I started to first notice family recipes being passed on from generation to generation and how treasured they were,” Saldivar said. “Those were our family heirlooms.”
Reflecting its family roots, Tia Lupita Hot Sauce is a third-generation hot-sauce recipe from his great-grandmother. It has only seven ingredients that everyone can pronounce, and that can be found in his mother’s kitchen cabinet.
It wasn’t until after Saldivar moved to the United States in 2005 for a job at a San Francisco startup that manufactures powdered soft drinks for Hispanic customers that his idea for a hot-sauce company started to percolate. He slowly realized that there wasn’t a hot sauce on the market that wasn’t filled with junk — additives, sugar, binders, and artificial flavors. There wasn’t anything like what he was used to at home.
“I like to say my mom built me a bridge to stay connected with her and where I came from. This is me doing the same thing in the U.S.”
“My mom would ship me bottles of hot sauce,” he said. “It was like a care package, but what she was really doing was building an emotional bridge between me and her. It was her way of reminding me of where I came from, my roots, traditional values, and food traditions.”
With a ton of hot-sauce bottles sitting around, Saldivar began sharing it with friends. They couldn’t stop raving about it and begged for more. Saldivar’s wife, Amy Kaufman, co-partner of a recruiting firm in San Francisco, even held a hot-sauce blind taste test with multiple competitors. What they then called “Hector’s mom’s hot sauce” was the clear winner.
But Saldivar’s reason for starting the business was deeper than people liking the taste. It was what Saldivar felt he could do with the business that got him to where he is today. The idea of building bridges, like his mother did, really stuck with him.
“We’re living in this time of profiling and building walls and divisive rhetoric,” Saldivar said. “I like to say my mom built me a bridge to stay connected with her and where I came from. This is me doing the same thing in the U.S.”
It took almost 15 years for Saldivar to build that bridge.
After working in the food industry for nearly a decade at Nestlé and then at Diamond Foods in marketing strategy for Hispanic channels, he was faced with a fork in the road. Diamond Foods had been acquired by a company in North Carolina. He has to choose between moving there, getting another job, or building that bridge. He chose the latter.
Saldivar’s tortillas, made entirely out of Nopales, hit the market last month. A staple in authentic Mexican cuisine, the Nopal cactus is a superfood.
His wife had a huge influence on this decision. At the time, the couple had two children in elementary school. Although they were financially stable, deciding to forfeit half of their income and invest a ton of money in a little ol’ bottle of hot sauce was daunting. But risk aside, Kaufman told her husband, “You should absolutely do it.”’
Kaufman, originally from Tennessee, laughs at how she told her husband to “just give it a few years,” and that if it didn’t work out, they could back out. By the end of a year, the couple had invested so much time and money in the business that ditching it wouldn’t make sense. With a background in accounting and finance, Kaufman handles the financing and hiring for Tia Lupita Hot Sauce.
But regardless of the sacrifice of sleepless nights, travel, and time away from their children, spreading joy and uniting people through food was something both Saldivar and Kaufman wanted to show their children.
“It sets a great example for my children that by following your dreams and passion, you can create something you’re really excited about,” Kaufman said.
Although starting his own business has been filled with challenges and is the hardest thing Saldivar has ever done, the company is a fast-growing success. Saldivar’s tortillas and tortilla chips, made entirely out of Nopales, hit the market last month. A staple in authentic Mexican cuisine, the Nopal cactus is a superfood. Saldivar’s chips are high in fiber, have anti-inflammatory properties, have a low glycemic index, and are low in calories. As a nod to his roots, he sources the cactuses from a small village in his hometown in Mexico.
The company has even gotten a few big investors. Frank Defesche, a friend of Saldivar, believes in the company so much that he invested $100,000 a few months ago.
A hot-sauce lover, Defesche said he used to have an entire shelf in his fridge dedicated to hot sauces. Now, those bottles have crusted over because he only eats one kind. But it’s more than the product that he’s investing in — it’s Saldivar.
Saldivar believed in himself as well. Many people have dreams but don’t follow them. They are often too scared to fail or don’t have the resources. Hector beat these odds. His mission was greater than his fear.
When asked what his advice he could give to other immigrants in America who are facing challenges, he said, “To all immigrants out there, what I would like to say is keep working at what you do best, and be passionate about your work. You will find people who will profile you, and you will find divisiveness and different points of view.”
Saldivar has been racially profiled and experienced other forms of racism. He believes that finding common ground with those who have different beliefs is the best way to deal with it.
“Approach it with humor. Approach it in the most positive way, and if you can, try connecting through food. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Muslim or a Catholic or a Mexican — you can have a conversation. There is a common thread there now.”
