Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 18, 1994 TAG: 9409200042
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-16 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By SALLY HARRIS Special to the Roanoke Times & World-News
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Long
She was a Southern California girl with Mexican grandparents. He was a country boy whose family name, McPeak, is synonymous in Southwest Virginia with bluegrass and country music.
Together, Debbie and Koli McPeak formed Mexibilly Salsa Products, one of only two Virginia companies making the Mexican product. "She's the Mexican; I'm the hillbilly," said Koli McPeak.
She taught him about Mexican foods. He taught her about gardening. Together, they make and market Koli's Mexibilly Salsa.
The woman who thought all food came from supermarkets now has a garden in Pulaski with 300 pepper plants in it. The man who grew up eating Southern cooking now grows cayennes, red chilies, serannos and habaneros.
"The hardest time is picking season," Debbie McPeak said.
"We dry some, freeze some, pickle some," Koli McPeak said. "Different ways of storing them."
Koli McPeak met Debbie Rodriquez when he was a Marine stationed in California. He also met hot Mexican foods.
"I thought chickens laid hot eggs," Debbie McPeak said. "Huevos rancheros. Cherizo and eggs."
"If you stay out there long enough, you get acquainted with all the hot foods," Koli McPeak said. "Each place has certain flavors. There are so many kinds of salsas - as many as there are people making it."
Back in Virginia, they found Americanized versions of their favorite Mexican foods. Their salsa venture started with their desire for the authentic stuff they'd found in Southern California. They made their first batch in a 2-gallon kettle, and family members had to have some.
At the time, Debbie McPeak was making dough crafts, like Christmas ornaments; and the couple took them to the Newbern Fall Festival. "We watched everyone around us selling the same things," Koli McPeak said. "We thought, 'Why not try salsa?'"
The first time they took salsa to a crafts fair, they sold out.
Debbie McPeak decided to quit her job at Cougar Xpress to do crafts shows. The day of the first show, Koli McPeak, who worked the midnight shift at the Radford arsenal, got laid off.
"We busted out and went to Steppin' Out," he said. That was two years ago. Salsa has been their business ever since.
Koli McPeak went to New River Community College to get a degree in business management and marketing to help with the business, where he won an award as Outstanding Student in Small Business Management. Debbie started work at Bell Atlantic. But they still made salsa.
The salsa, which contains only natural ingredients, comes in four flavors: extra mild, mild, hot and extra hot. It's sold in pint jars with tan labels bearing red peppers, green cacti and, of course, a man in overalls.
The couple has moved from 2-gallon pots in their tiny kitchen to 6-gallon pots in the spacious kitchen of the Old Jefferson Elementary School in Pulaski. They have a 7-foot spice rack, and plenty of room.
But they still make the salsa the same - they chop, dice and stir by hand. They watch the temperature to be sure it gets high enough to kill micro-organisms, but not so high that it scorches the salsa.
"One jar at a time," Koli McPeak said. "No automation."
They would like eventually to get a steam kettle, which would cut down on the cooking time. It now takes four hours to make six gallons, using processing advice from Virginia Tech and a second kettle. That's half the time it used to take.
Virginia Tech analyzed the salsa for pH content important in shelf life, and the product satisfied the Department of Agriculture.
The McPeaks are taking things a step at a time, preferring to pay for changes out of their pockets instead of taking on a big loan. They also get information from the Small Business Development Center in Blacksburg.
"Our goal this year is to make 100 gallons a month," Koli McPeak said.
Sons Jayson, 14, and Kyle, 10, help with the garden and with setting up the booth for shows. The booth has a Mexican look, decorated with blankets. If the weather isn't too hot, Debbie wears Mexican clothing and Koli dons bibbed overalls.
The booth displays the "Virginia's Finest Product" label.
The McPeaks are marketing their salsa as a gourmet specialty food and are not trying to compete with "the big guys."
The salsa is carried locally for $3.49 a pint by independent dealers such as Cougar Xpress in Pulaski and the Wade's stores.
"Small, independent stores believe in the little guy making it," Koli McPeak said.
Greg Wade, buyer for Wade's, agreed. "It's a locally owned independent," he said, "and we try to support each other."
Wade said they put the product through the taste test first. "It seemed like a good product with a good flavor to it," he said.
Melissa Tanner, manager of Cougar Xpress, said the salsa sells well. "It goes in spurts," she said, "but it goes - at least 12 every two weeks. I need to move [the display case] closer to the chips, but it sells as well as the rest."
Sales are going well "for just starting out," Koli McPeak said. "We're still in the learning stages."
They've just become incorporated, and the next step is to get a bar code. "We can only go as fast as our pockets will allow," he said.
Meanwhile, the salsa is catching on. "We used to have to beg to get into shows," Koli McPeak said. "Now they want us."
by CNB