Digital Transformation Team adds heat to Villain Sauce Co.’s website
Brantford, Ontario native Chris decided to try his hand at making his own naturally crafted hot sauces in 2019. With the use of real peppers and no artificial extracts, Villain Sauce Co. has then grown to be acknowledged as makers of award-winning sauces that are hot and full of flavour. His hot sauces quickly gained traction from restaurants and hot sauce connoisseurs alike through culinary events, fairs, and impressed customers.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario-wide closure of restaurants, stores, and gatherings has been an ongoing occurrence within the recent year. Brand owner Chris aimed to find ways to continue to showcase the authentic and natural taste of Villain Sauce Co. to customers and for his brand to gain further recognition as a worthy competitor in the culinary market.
Inspired to elevate the dark and eerie hot sauce brand, Chris worked with Digital Main Street’s Future Proof team for a 4-week engagement to transform Villain Sauce Co.’s existing website into a user-friendly, visually appealing site. The new website – which is hosted by the e-commerce platform Square – allows hot sauce lovers from all over Ontario to be able to pick the hot sauce of their choice to be delivered right to their door.
The team also went ahead and made improvements to the Facebook and Instagram business pages of the Brantford-based hot sauce brand, and further provided Chris with insightful suggestions and creative ideas for future social media content. “The way the team explained the changes, how to do them and even answered all of my questions was all very helpful and well put together. I can imagine that this program has been very helpful to probably other business owners as well”, says Chris.
In efforts to continue to assist Chris upon the conclusion of the engagement, the transformation team has made sure to send a guidebook and tutorials specially curated towards the maintenance of Villain Sauce Co.’s new and improved digital business model. “You’re going to have different clients with different technological proficiencies – and I’m very intermediate when it comes to tech-y stuff… but the team’s step-by-step instructions seem very user-friendly to control my platforms all by myself,” says Chris. With the exhilarating digital changes to Villain Sauce Co., Chris can’t wait to get started on expanding his brand further, and making exciting changes on his own.
Our Digital Main Street Future Proof innovation partner in Brant County, City of Hamilton & Haldimand-Norfolk Regions is Innovation Factory.
Written by Monique Badiola
Digital Main Street was created by the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas (TABIA) with direct support from the City of Toronto. DMS is also supported by a group of strategic business partners, including Google, Mastercard, Shopify, Meta, Intuit QuickBooks, Square, Lightspeed, Ebay and Canada Post.
A $42.5-million investment from FedDev Ontario brought together the Toronto Association of Business Improvement Areas, Communitech, Invest Ottawa and the Ontario Business Improvement Area Association to expand the Digital Main Street Platform in order to support more businesses going digital as a response to the impacts of COVID-19 in Southern Ontario.
