Kensington hot sauce maker bringing the FAIYA with flavors ranging from mild to painfully wild
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Inside a maker's studio kitchen in Kensington, Radhi Fernandez is handcrafting hot sauce he calls FAIYA, a play on the word fire.
Right now he has nine flavors and absolutely everything is done by hand with no added sugars, no additives, and no preservatives.
He gets nearly all of his peppers from local farmers.
The salsa verde, with jalapeños , tomatillos and cilantro is his mildest hot sauce.
There's a medium-heat Purple Flame made with Jersey fresh blueberries.
But if you're looking for painfully hot, that distinction goes to his 2022 harvest sauce.
Its an end of the season mix of every pepper he has in his kitchen.
This year's batch has reapers, ghost peppers, chocolate reapers, yellow seven pot peppers and habaneros.
It's a limited edition that sells out quickly.
Before he became a hot sauce maker, Fernandez worked in the records management department of Johnson & Johnson.
When the pandemic hit, he was on paternity leave after the birth of his second daughter and says he and his wife struck a deal: he could quit his job and take three years to develop a business he could call his own.
He started FAIYA in May of 2020.
Last year, Fernandez produced 15,000 bottles of his FAIYA hot sauce, and he's shipping to customers all over the globe.
He hopes FAIYA continues to spread like wildfire and dreams of it becoming a staple sauce on every table
