
What I Learned From Making Hot Sauce at Scale in China - tortilla
https://medium.com/@jingtheory/what-i-learned-from-making-hot-sauce-at-scale-2cbb8ec709ba
======
kweks
Small note for a anyone on a similar path researching reliable China-based
fulfillment for crowdfunding campaigns or ecommerce..

We have tested and physically inspected literally every major and minor Hong
Kong and China fulfillment provider, and settled upon SPNS (
[https://warehouse.expert](https://warehouse.expert) ).

They are the only provider we found with western-education, that provide
actual service (customer support, optimising routes and delivery companies,
working directly with your end customer to reduce loss, fighting with couriers
to negotiate refunds and insurance etc)

The guy heading up the operation is Victor, and can be contacted via
team@spnslogistics.com

(Full disclosure: I am not associated with the company - but having spent
years finding a decent solution am happy to share it)

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barkingcat
4\. The Human Element of Food Manufacturing

Basically in China human manufacturing rules over all. Many westerners have
misconceptions about automation in factories. Those fancy iPhone XR's?
Assembled by Hand in China (with mechanical assistance) but still, assembled
by Hand by real people.

China has way too high population for automation. If you call to build a
factory, there will be millions of people wanting jobs. These jobs are not
good jobs and are labour intensive, but the desire for jobs outweighs any
other concern.

~~~
kareemm
I was struck by this when I went to visit Shanghai in 2002. I was sitting
beside a recent MBA grad who was originally from China.

We got to talking. At one point in the conversation he asked me a hypothetical
question about how I would design a system to determine traffic conditions. I
responded with an answer laying out cameras at intersections and software to
make sense of the video.

He responded that in China they’d just put a person at every intersection who
would send a text message to a team of humans who would update a webpage. It
drove home the point to me that labour was so abundant and cheap there that
you could often throw more bodies at the problem instead of writinf
software... and probably solve the problem better.

~~~
starky
China is interesting from this respect, there are so many people, and it is in
the government's best interest to keep the citizens employed and happy and
therefore there is a lot of "useless" jobs like the one you mention. The first
time I visited I was shocked at the number of people employed to man the
tollbooths and the number of people working in every restaurant until I
realized why.

~~~
reaperducer
_it is in the government 's best interest to keep the citizens employed and
happy and therefore there is a lot of "useless" jobs like the one you
mention._

What is useless to one man is a lifeline to another.

I saw a documentary on NHK, and one of the points it made is that there are
millions and millions and millions of people in China who need a job — any job
— just to put food on the table. These are people who are so poor and poorly
educated that they don't even know how to write their own names. Signatures
are done with a fingerprint in red ink.

This one guy was so very happy to be employed full-time clearing sidewalks.
With a broom made of twigs during the warm months, and with the same broom
made of twigs to slowly clear deep snow in the cold months. But he was
employed, by an organization that will pay him regularly and won't cheat him
on his wages. So he's grateful to be better off than most of the other people
he knows.

~~~
whatshisface
Those people don't need jobs, they need money. If your system is autocratic
enough to just "create" jobs out of nothing, it could also give everybody a
stipend. That's just not how they want to do it.

~~~
azurezyq
Employment helps social stability but money-only doesn't. While stipend for
low-incomers also exists in China, gov really wants more people earn a living
through working. IMO, the benefits are: 1. It puts people into time schedules,
not floating around. 2. Makes them integrated into a "work community". 3.
These jobs still help, not purely "created". 4. Employer will have some
insurances and coverages.

Over years I agree that many jobs diminished with the introduction of machines
(vacuum trucks, etc.). It would be a tough job for the government to find more
positions in this kind.

~~~
XorNot
This is a worthwhile point really - job scheduling is a good way to pacify a
population, which helps everyone. Having people hanging around bored is one of
the sure-fire ways to get unrest.

~~~
njarboe
Especially when "people" are young, single men.

~~~
gcb0
seems to have helped everyone in this board during yours childhood and teen
years, when you could just play games and learn to code, which became most
people here trade. but yeah, if you missed that by not being born rich, work
until your back break, to build character or some other bs.

~~~
njarboe
If you are playing games and learning to code, you are not bored and
definitely not the type of young men I was talking about.

~~~
gcb0
you probably will not be able to complete that sentence without being called
racist, xenophobic or both.

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barrkel
This is a lovely marketing piece. Great story, and hammers home the drive to
quality, which of course backs up the brand. And it's a story of triumph over
adversity, which makes you root for the little guy (or girl, in this case).

Very smart.

~~~
21
Umami, that umami texture...

~~~
user5994461
Still no clue what that is after reading the article.

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walrus01
> " Chili supplier and blend: I found a supplier who stone-grinds their dried
> chilis the traditional way rather than using a machine, which retains the
> luster, natural oils and bright red color that I needed the sauce to have."

This sounds remarkably similar to the problem faced by people who are into
seriously expensive coffee. Basically, a "conical burr" grinder crushes the
beans together, whereas a cheap spinning blade type grinder chops them apart
into flaky bits. The former is strongly preferred by coffee snobs, and the use
of the latter is seen as barely better than buying preground coffee.

My theory is that the _stone_ part is actually not essential, but it's the
crushing/grinding mechanism that preserves the oil and luster (could be done
equally well with stainless steel), whereas some sort of shredding blade
allows too much of the oils to escape.

~~~
secabeen
At the higher end of coffee, there's a big debate about whether conical or
flat burrs are better. The absolute top of the line grinders (at $2k) have
both options: [https://www.kafatek.com/](https://www.kafatek.com/)

~~~
walrus01
That looks like a piece of laboratory equipment.

~~~
washadjeffmad
When most peoole cook at home, all they're doing is shoddy chemistry with bad
lab equipment.

Getting slightly better equipment is the best way to improve your cooking or
make anything the same way more than once.

Want to remember an exact reduction for a sauce? Use a refractometer and
record the results. Want to scale a recipe easily? Covert it to % soln or
mass/mass (see baker's ratio).

------
jcims
I wonder if/how you would do any kind of continuous testing with food/aromatic
products like this. Have a taste panel on site? Do some basic go/no go tests
for what, pH, viscosity, gas chromatograph (lol?).

Hard to put test points on a jar of sauce.

~~~
stevenwoo
The Sriracha company doesn't try too hard to make each batch identical from
their FAQ - just the variation in chiles alone make that impossible except
within a 55 gallon mix, it sounds like it would not be possible without using
a lot of additional ingredients to smooth out the flavor between batches like
companies do with orange juice.

[https://www.huyfong.com/#pg-54-1](https://www.huyfong.com/#pg-54-1)

PS. if near Los Angeles, they have factory tours and welcome photography of
everything.

~~~
loosetypes
I think I really like that.

I had an interesting conversation the with an oyster farmer about the
variability in taste geographically in the northeast.

And to me, honey is just honey. But apparently some folks can discern by taste
which flower pollens comprise a batch.

But then you drink a Coca Cola, which tastes exactly the same no matter where
or when. It’s like it’s more of a chemistry experiment than a food.

~~~
cm2012
A can of coke is the same everywhere. Fountain cola varies wildly since
restaurants use different levels of carbonation, syrup and freshness.
McDonalds fountain coke is the best.

~~~
Symbiote
Between countries, a can of Coca Cola varies[1], particularly in the amount of
sugar[2], as well as the type (HFCS in the US, cane or beet sugar in most
other places).

[1] [https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/does-coca-cola-produce-
the-s...](https://www.coca-cola.co.uk/faq/does-coca-cola-produce-the-same-
drinks-in-every-country)

[2] [http://www.actiononsugar.org/media/actiononsugar/news-
centre...](http://www.actiononsugar.org/media/actiononsugar/news-
centre/surveys-/2015/International-Drinks-Data.pdf)

------
jacquesm
Making large batches of food homogeneous is super hard. It is hard enough to
do it in small batches, but when you scale up the processes gravity really
becomes your enemy.

For the automated filling I would look at using a spout with a shaker attached
to it that can measure off a very precise amount of granular material without
getting clogged.

Finally, nobody seems to be wearing either latex gloves or masks in any of the
photos, that may be to make the photos nicer but it is not how you run a
proper food packaging chain that has humans in the loop.

~~~
Symbiote
> Finally, nobody seems to be wearing either latex gloves or masks in any of
> the photos

They're sticking labels on sealed jars and putting them in a box, what benefit
would gloves and masks bring?

~~~
Scoundreller
On the gloves end, less wear and tear on the skin (callouses), and better
grip.

~~~
starky
Have you ever tried to handle a label with rubber gloves on? It is damn near
impossible.

~~~
Scoundreller
You need to hold the jar with one hand. Wear a glove on that hand, pick the
label off with the other.

It would be more efficient to have separate labellers and box fillers, but
that's more RSI.

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bdickason
Great post! I’ve seen the hardware side of manufacturing and also been amazed
at how hard packaging / filling is when my ex launched a hair care line... her
conditioner was also too viscous to go through the factory nozzles :/

------
colordrops
Whatever Jenny Gao is doing, she's on point with marketing. I've been seeing
her and her product all over the internet for a month now.

~~~
deanCommie
The writing skill speaks for itself. I followed every single link she
included, and was utterly engaged by every word and entry.

I suppose there is also the aspect that she is engaging different types of
readers (foodies, techies, entrepreneurs, etc), but honestly I was ready to
buy the sauce three paragraphs into my first read.

------
vfulco2
My biggest lesson and cautionary tale after launching a professional services
company in Shanghai, think English resume editing, LinkedIn Profiles creation,
interview coaching and academic entrance services, is to to pick your partners
very carefully. There is an infuriating aspect to contracts here where upon
signature, the real negotiations on terms begins, even for the simplest
points. Be prepared to spend inordinate time on what would be obvious and
elementary in the U.S.

------
csours
> 1\. No one will demand excellence from your product except you.

I agree so much with this. Put more cynically, no one cares more about your
problems than you.

------
ilamont
Congratulations. Curious if there are any concerns about counterfeits showing
up in China - or is this really aimed at the overseas market?

~~~
Scoundreller
Author says: "The good news is, the labels look beautiful and are basically
irreplicable — good luck to anyone who tries to knock off my branding."

But that sounds like a challenge.

~~~
esturk
I think the author just underestimates Chinese ingenuity when it comes to
counterfeit goods. There's more to just spoofing the label. There's also
naming, pricing, etc.

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tnolet
This story is amazing and probably a parable for every hardware based startup.

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Markoff
let's better not tell her to read Poorly made in China if she thinks her
product will have same ingredients/formula after few months of production,
that book perfectly describe daily Chinese reality/mentality if you are
interested, can confirm it as someone who worked there for years. for starters
any contract it's useless piece of paper

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sytelus
If you were non-Chinese, how do you go about finding suppliers, factories,
label designers etc who can manufacture the prototype you have?

~~~
barry-cotter
You find some people in your city who used to work in China, talk to them,
hear how hard sourcing and quality control was and probably give up. Or you
find those people on LinkedIn but this stuff is hard for people who really
understand China. Making the right connections is hard, staying on top of
communications is hard, quality control is comically hard.

------
baybal2
Her backers have had to discover Laoganmna before dishing out money...

