- 7 active SKUs
- 2 fermentation lines (lacto and koji)
- 3+ state licenses
- 2023 Scovie Award winner
Executive Summary
Off the Deck Hot Sauce is a Fargo, North Dakota-based craft fermented hot sauce brand founded in 2016. What started as a backyard lacto fermentation experiment grew into a multi-SKU, multi-state operation running two distinct production lines across seven SKUs. They source peppers exclusively from small family farms in North Dakota's Red River Valley. They are 2023 Scovie Award winners and, by their own assessment, one of the only commercial hot sauce producers using koji fermentation anywhere.
Their documentation system was a single spreadsheet.
With annual inspections from the North Dakota Department of Health, active wholesale and restaurant accounts, multi-state licensing, and additional state inspections on the horizon, the gap between what their records said and what an auditor could verify was becoming a business risk. Off the Deck implemented FourFoxes to close that gap.
The result: structured batch records across all seven SKUs, ingredient lot traceability from fermentation through packaging, and documented CCP compliance for both product lines — without adding headcount or changing how production runs.
The Company
Off the Deck launched in 2016 when founder Jeremiah Utecht ran a lacto fermentation experiment with peppers grown on his deck. The sauce was good enough to share. Demand outgrew the deck. A decade of refinement later, the brand operates two product lines — lacto-fermented and koji-fermented sauces — produced in a licensed commercial kitchen at SquareOne Kitchen in Fargo.
The koji line sets Off the Deck apart in the category. Koji fermentation — a mold-based process used historically in Japanese food production — produces layered umami-forward flavor profiles that lacto fermentation alone cannot replicate. It also requires significantly tighter process controls. Water activity, time, temperature, and humidity all matter in ways they do not for a standard lacto ferment. Off the Deck has lab-verified water activity values for their koji products. Their HACCP plans, one for each product line, are filed with the state.
The current SKU lineup spans seven products: Habanero #HUSTLE, Blend #GoodPeter, Fresno #KojiHachi, Habanero #KojiHachi, Jalapeño #KojiHachi, Jalapeño #AlohaHaze, and Habanero #CrazyAsAPeachOrchardBoar. All are in active production year-round. Fermentation batches are set up in late summer and fall using freshly harvested local peppers. Packaging runs continuously through the year as those fermentation batches reach maturity.
Jeremiah and co-founder Rachel are the primary production workforce. Contract help comes in occasionally. The documentation burden falls on that two-person team.
The business sells direct-to-consumer through online orders and events, into wholesale accounts, and to restaurant partners. Off the Deck holds licenses in multiple states. Additional state inspections — each with their own documentation expectations — are coming.
The Challenge
Running a two-person fermented CPG brand with seven SKUs, two HACCP plans, multi-state licensing, and a local supply chain built on small farm relationships is not a low-documentation operation. Off the Deck knew this. Their solution was a spreadsheet — a large one. It tracked ingredient lots, batch records, CCP data, and packaging runs. It was maintained carefully. It was better than nothing.
But it had four limits that grew more serious as the business grew.
The trace no one had run yet
Off the Deck sources peppers from multiple small family farms across the Red River Valley. Each farm delivers each variety as a distinct lot. Those lots enter fermentation vessels that become specific batches, which become specific finished SKUs, which ship to customers in multiple states.
Tracing an ingredient lot through that chain — forward from intake to finished product, or backward from a recall notice to the source lot — requires cross-referencing multiple tabs in a spreadsheet, manually. "We have not had to do it," Jeremiah said, "and it has always been a fear." That fear is calibrated correctly. A lot recall affecting a single farm supplier could implicate multiple SKUs across both fermentation lines, packaged across multiple sessions, sold into multiple state markets. Without a fast, structured trace, the exposure is real.
Multi-state licensing changes what "good records" means
Off the Deck passes their annual North Dakota Department of Health inspection. But as they expand into additional state markets, each new state brings a new inspection regime with its own documentation expectations. A record that satisfies a North Dakota inspector who knows the operation may not satisfy an out-of-state inspector seeing it for the first time. When records live in a spreadsheet, producing a clean, complete batch record on demand — for an inspector who wants one right now — requires manual assembly under pressure.
Koji fermentation demands more documentation than most producers face
Koji fermentation involves specific time, temperature, and humidity controls that most hot sauce producers never encounter. Off the Deck has lab-tested water activity values and tracks time, temperature, and pH during packaging. But without a structured system, connecting those CCP readings to the specific batch they belong to is a manual assembly task — one that often happens at the end of a production day, from memory, under compression.
Two people carrying the documentation load for seven SKUs
Jeremiah and Rachel do not have a compliance department. They have a production schedule and a shared responsibility to keep records complete. Any system that adds friction to documentation creates the conditions for gaps. In food production, gaps in records are not just inconvenient. They are the liability.
The Solution
Off the Deck implemented FourFoxes to replace their spreadsheet. FourFoxes is a batch traceability and quality management platform built for food and beverage producers. It does not require a compliance department or an IT setup. It is designed for the person who is also making the product.
Implementation addressed five operational needs:
01 — Full Batch Traceability
Every fermentation batch is logged with its ingredient lots, supplier sources, production line, and fermentation start date. The trace that Jeremiah described as a standing fear now runs in seconds. From any batch record, Off the Deck can move forward to finished products or backward to raw ingredient lots — no tab-switching, no manual cross-reference.
02 — Ingredient and Supplier Tracking
Off the Deck's supply chain is built on relationships with small family farms in the Red River Valley. Each farm's lot is logged at intake. If a supplier flags a quality issue — a contaminated lot, a mislabeled variety, an out-of-spec delivery — Off the Deck can identify every affected batch and finished SKU immediately. The answer is there before the call ends.
03 — Critical Control Point Tracking
Off the Deck has filed HACCP plans with the state for both their lacto and koji product lines. CCP monitoring data — time, temperature, pH, and water activity for koji; pH and temperature for lacto — is now logged in FourFoxes and tied directly to the corresponding batch record. There is no longer a separate step to assemble that data. The CCP record and the batch record are the same record.
04 — Production Visibility
With all seven SKUs in active production at any given time and fermentation batches running seasonally across two lines, Jeremiah and Rachel need to know what is in-process, what has been packaged, and what is pending — without maintaining that view manually. FourFoxes provides it.
05 — Secure, Audit-Ready Records
When the North Dakota Department of Health inspector arrives — and when the first out-of-state inspector arrives shortly after — Off the Deck can produce a complete, formatted batch record for any SKU, any batch, any date. No assembly required. No memory required. The record is already there.
Results
Three things changed at Off the Deck after implementing FourFoxes:
The trace they feared is now a 30-second operation. Every batch record is structured, timestamped, and connected to its ingredient lots, CCP readings, and finished output.
Documentation fits how a two-person team actually works. Logging happens during production — at fermentation setup, during packaging runs — not from memory at end of shift.
Multi-state expansion is no longer a records liability. Their documentation is consistent, complete, and ready for inspectors who have never seen their operation before.
Conclusion
Off the Deck Hot Sauce is not a large operation. It is a two-person craft fermentation brand with seven SKUs, two distinct and technically demanding production processes, multiple state licenses, and a growing wholesale and restaurant presence. The documentation requirements that come with that are not small-brand problems. They are the same compliance obligations that larger producers handle with dedicated compliance staff.
FourFoxes gives small producers that capability without the headcount. Every batch record is now what it needs to be: complete, traceable, and ready for whatever inspection comes next.
Off the Deck's records are now what their sauces have always been: award-winning for a reason.
Ready to replace your spreadsheet?
FourFoxes is built for food and beverage producers who take compliance seriously and don't have a compliance department. Batch traceability, CCP logging, ingredient tracking, and audit-ready records — in one system.
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