What exists today
Three people, three working operations, and a body that has not been formed. The European Hot Sauce Awards, the Berlin Chili Fest and Republic of Heat are all real and running. The Council is the thing being built on top of them, and until it is formed the entity behind this site is Austin & Gardner GbR, trading as Republic of Heat. That is what the Impressum says, and it is not the name that will be on anyone’s invoice.
The work has started regardless. In twelve weeks it put €70,000 of press behind 29 independent makers, across 45 outlets in 16 countries. Eleven position papers are published. A working analysis of what PPWR did on 12 August is public and sourced. A draft heat classification standard is open for comment. None of that needed an entity. What comes next does.
Why it has to be two organisations
The obvious structure is one organisation that does everything. European law will not allow it, and finding that out early is the reason the plan looks the way it does.
- A collective mark can only be owned by an association of producers. Article 74 of the EU trade mark regulation. A trading company can never hold one, so the Craft Mark forces an association into existence.
- A certification mark is closed to us permanently. Article 83 bars the owner from supplying the goods it certifies, and we sell hot sauce. Nobody should spend money exploring that route.
- The European funding that matters is open to associations and closed to companies. One promotion programme alone put €130.5m into food promotion last year, and it gates on representing a real share of the sector.
- Some funding is the other way round. Regional industrial funding is open to companies and closed to associations. One organisation would have to pick a side and lose the other.
- Dues have to buy representation, not services. German law treats a trade body differently from a service provider, and an organisation whose membership fee bought storage, freight rates and compliance would simply be a supplier with a newsletter.
The Council says what a craft hot sauce is. The Hub moves the bottles.
The Council may sell things. The dues may not buy them. And nothing the Hub does can ever be a condition of membership, which is the clause the whole structure rests on. A member who never sends a single bottle to the depot loses nothing and gives up nothing.
European Heat Council e.V., the Council
A registered association under German law. It represents, defines and polices, and it sells nothing that any individual member gets the private benefit of. Producers and growers vote. Its income is dues, grants, and a per-bottle levy from the trading company.
The Craft Mark
A collective mark. Under Article 74 of the EU trade mark regulation only an association of producers can own one, which is the single hardest reason this side has to exist.
The standard
What counts as craft hot sauce, and the heat scale. Written by members, published in full, argued about in the open.
The register
A public count of Europe's independent makers, published annually, members and non-members alike.
Representation
Speaking for the category to regulators and governments. Position papers, consultation responses, and the letters nobody currently sends.
Press
Category coverage, the coverage database, and the industry report.
Funding applications
European programmes that are open to associations and closed to companies.
Forming one needs seven founding signatures on a constitution, a German seat with a real address, and at least one board member resident in Germany. It costs a few hundred euros. The reason it has not happened yet is not money, it is that an association of three people representing nobody is not worth registering.
EHC Service, the Hub
A company, because everything it does is a priced commercial service and pretending otherwise would break the association. It carries the trading risk, the depot lease and the compliance obligations.
Storage and fulfilment
One European depot. Members send stock, the hub picks and ships it.
Wholesale
The mixed pallet and the trade catalogue, so a buyer takes one invoice covering thirty makers.
Compliance services
Group packaging registration, the authorised representative work, and product liability cover, bought at a rate no single maker is offered.
Group purchasing
Bottles, caps, labels and chillies at pooled volume.
Freight
Consolidated shipping in and out, at network rates.
How the depot actually works, and what storage costs, is set out on its own page. None of it is included in membership.
The obvious question about that
If the Council owns the Mark and a company run by the same people uses it, who is actually being served? It is a fair question and it gets asked in the first meeting every time.
Four answers, and they are structural rather than reassuring noises.
- The Mark is licensed, and the licence can be withdrawn. The company uses the Mark on the Council’s terms and can never alter the standard behind it. It complies with the standard like everybody else, or it loses the use of it.
- Dues never fund the trading side. Membership money pays for representation, the Mark, the standard and the register. It does not subsidise a depot, and the two sets of books do not meet.
- Members are never obliged to use any of it. The moment membership requires buying a service, the dues stop being dues. A member who never sends a bottle to the depot keeps the Mark, the vote and everything else.
- Pricing between the two is set at arm’s length and minuted, with anyone sitting on both sides standing out of the decision.
Republic of Heat is a retailer co-founded by two of the Council’s founders. It is disclosed on every page where it is relevant, including the membership form, rather than mentioned once in a footnote.
What the Council is actually for
One goal sequences everything else: to represent half of Europe’s independent craft hot sauce makers. Not a headcount, a share. A share is what European funding gates on, what makes the Mark mean something on a shelf, and what makes this an authority rather than a club.
Which runs straight into the problem the whole thing started with. Nobody is counting us. We do not know how many independent hot sauce producers Europe has, how many people they employ, what they sell, or whether the sector is growing or shrinking. A share of an unknown number is not a claim anyone can check.
So the first real act of the Council is to count, and to publish the count. That register is the denominator that makes fifty per cent checkable, the evidence any funder asks for, and the recruitment list all at once. The Syndicat du Piment d’Espelette has published its producers, hectares and tonnage as open data every year since 2000, which is precisely why it is the authority on its category rather than a marketing committee.
It is also the cheapest thing on this page. It costs research time and nothing else, and it is the most defensible thing the Council can own on day one.
Who is doing this
Neil Numb
Chilifest.eu · European Hot Sauce Awards
Runs the Berlin Chili Fest and the Awards. Brings the judging panel, the entrant base and twenty years of the European chilli scene.
Nathan Austin
Republic of Heat
Builds and runs the technical and logistics side: the platform, the fulfilment operation and the trading systems the hub is modelled on.
Simon Gardner
Republic of Heat
Runs the press operation, the regulatory work and the member programme. Wrote the position papers and the PPWR analysis on this site.
Three people cannot argue for a category. That is the entire point of asking. The Council can only say it represents the European hot sauce industry once the industry is standing behind it, and a board of three is not a structure anyone should hand a standard to. Founding members shape the constitution, the standard and who sits on the board.
Where it stands
- Neither entity is formed. The association forms once there are enough members to make it worth representing.
- Nothing is invoiced until it exists. Membership is €150 a year, the same price for everyone, and the bill does not arrive until there is a Council to send it.
- The standard is a draft and is meant to be argued with before it is fixed.
- The depot does not exist. It cannot be sized, quoted or leased until there are real numbers from real members.
We need you in the room.
One maker joining does not solve packaging law, or lower Europe’s shipping rates, or make a regulator understand craft hot sauce. But enough of us standing together changes what we are. A sector can be counted, can negotiate, can set standards, and can expect to be in the room when decisions are made about its future.