Riverview-Made Dunn Right Buffalo Sauce Spicing Up the Market
RIVERVIEW –Erica Dunn first made her own version of buffalo sauce when she was 22 years old.
Now at age 40, Dunn has her sauce bottled up for sale as Dunn Right Buffalo Sauce and it’s is being sold in many market stands and grocery stores, including Foodland, Briggs Maples in Riverview, Wines with a Twist in Fort Erie, O.N., Moncton Fish Market, Old Fashion Meat Market and Starving Artist Cafe in Moncton.
Dunn grew up in Fort Erie, ON, just 10 minutes away from the border of Buffalo, New York, where buffalo chicken wing was invented. Dunn loved cooking and creating and learning new recipes. She was familiar with the taste of the state’s famous wing sauce, so the first time she made buffalo sauce, she tried to copy the original.
“It didn’t even come close. I ended up adding a whole bunch of different spices and came up with what I have today,” she says.
For years, Dunn has been making the sauce for her personal use and sometimes for social gatherings. But when she moved to New Brunswick in 2012, she starting to think about making it a business.
“I was at a party, and some people told me ‘you really have something here’ so that’s when I decided to try [to sell it],” says Dunn.
She started making a little bit to sell from home, the Moncton Fish Market and online through Facebook. Dunn says the feedback was overwhelmingly good.
“Everyone who tried it loved it,” she says.
In July 2016, while she was showcasing Dunn Right Buffalo Sauce at the Trending Expo in Springhill, N.S., Dunn was approached by the manager of the local Foodland.
“So we played phone tag for maybe a week or two. Then we finally got everything settled. They were the first store [to have the product],” says Dunn.
She says Dunn Right Buffalo Sauce is different than other kinds of buffalo sauce because it isn’t mass produced. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Dunn spends all day in the kitchen making the sauce. Dunn produces approximately 50 cases per week.
“I rent a class five kitchen at the Coverdale Community Centre in Riverview NB. I do everything myself,” says Dunn.
The sauce is made of cayenne peppers, vinegar, water, a special blend of spices and butter. Dunn Right Buffalo Sauce offers three different heat levels: Mild Buffalo, The Original, and XXX Buffalo, which is the hottest.
Dunn says she’s in the process of making Dunn Right Buffalo sauce available in big grocery store chains across Canada. Because of that, she is looking to hire people to increase the level of productivity in response to the higher demand.
Despite some hurdles to get her license to supply to larger grocery chains, Dunn says her business journey in New Brunswick has been great.
“Starting a business in New Brunswick is not difficult at all. There’s so much help for small businesses,” says Dunn. “Everybody that I’ve dealt with, like in Riverview, they are all very much about supporting local and helping the local business owners.”
“I love making my sauce and being able to see them on the shelves of the stores and seeing that is totally something that I made,” says Dunn.