Published January 2002

Salsa maker finds
niche in hot market

Snohomish County Business Journal/KIMBERLY HILDEN “Everywhere I go, I have a sack of chips,” said Robert Carter, whose Senor Roberto & Madam Renee’s Gourmet Salsa has found its way into grocery stores across Western Washington.

By Kimberly Hilden
SCBJ Assistant Editor

When Robert Carter would bring in some of his homemade salsa for colleagues at the Everett post office, he wasn’t thinking about profits or marketing or distribution. It was just something he did.

But when it came time for him to retire in 1999, a co-worker’s words made him realize his salsa wasn’t just a hot recipe, but also a hot commodity, the Granite Falls resident said.

“Everybody wanted to know how they were going to get their salsa once I retired,” said Carter, who had been bringing it in to work for 15 years. “... One of them said, ‘If you put it in a jar and sell it, we’ll buy it.’ So that’s what I did.”

That year, Carter, with the help of fellow postal retiree Renee Parsons, began manufacturing Senor Roberto & Madam Renee’s Gourmet Salsa — a salsa now found in a number of grocery stores across Western Washington, including Albertson’s, QFC and Red Apple Markets.

At first, the salsa was made in a kitchen and packing facility in Gold Bar, where the two put in long hours working alongside seven others on staff at the packing plant, Carter said.

“It got to the point where it would take all day (to make the cases we needed),” Carter said, time that could have been spent talking to product buyers or setting up demonstrations at grocery stores.

He figured there had to be a better way to more efficiently make the salsa while remaining true to the product’s quality — no preservatives and plenty of tomatoes, herbs and spices at its base.

So Carter decided to approach Beaverton Foods of Beaverton, Ore., a maker of gourmet mustards, cocktail sauces and other condiments, about manufacturing his salsa recipes.

The company agreed, and, in August 2000, began making Senor Roberto & Madam Renee’s Gourmet Salsa for Carter’s company, Senor Carter’s Enterprises Inc.

The workload didn’t let up, however; it just changed.

“The first couple of years, we were going from daylight till dark, (doing demonstrations), distributing, having things done to the car,” Carter said, referring to his “Salsa Cruiser,” a purple PT Cruiser decked out with the product logo — a sombrero hanging from the Eiffel Tower — which symbolizes the salsa’s tagline: “Mexican with a touch of French.”

The “touch of French” doesn’t refer to the ingredients, Carter said, but to Parsons, whose maiden name was LaLiberte.

Since the company’s inception, the salsa has shown up at the Bite of Seattle, Northwest Women’s Show and Seattle Cooks’ Show, as well as in grocery store demonstrations across the region.

“Everywhere I go, I have a sack of chips,” Carter said, noting that in his line of business, it’s a requirement. “You just can’t offer salsa without the chips; it’s like offering someone a cigarette without the lighter,” he said with a laugh.

Along with marketing the salsa with the help of Parsons, Carter has been busy expanding his company’s product line, which now includes Mild, Medium, Hot, and Black Bean & Corn salsas. A bloody-Mary mix is in the works, as is a barbecue sauce.

“I’m still experimenting,” he said with a smile.

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