An up and coming small company based in Leelanau County launched their first products just this past month: Quince hot sauce and quince ketchup.
The star ingredient of both the hot sauce and ketchup is of course the quince fruit, which is described as a hybrid between pears and apples. While the fruit itself is known as tasting mildly tart, it takes on a more fragrant and sweet taste when cooked.
Northport resident and Oleans owner Daniel Caudill said he first got the idea to create the unique condiments in 2020 during the COVID pandemic. From the middle of 2020 until the end of 2022, Caudill said he experimented with ingredients, had the hot sauce bottled, and gave some to friends to try. The people who tried the product loved it and asked for more, and that’s when he knew they wanted to develop it further.
“We just got our first order this week and it’s up and running and exciting. I was talking with a really good friend and we were having a conversation about quince fruit. It’s sort of a fruit that’s lost its popularity,” Caudill said. “At that time, it really was just because we were at home and we had all of this abundance around us in Northern Michigan, so we were just experimenting. The product ended up being so great… so that’s when we started to develop the product and the packaging.”
Caudill said there’s a few forgotten quince orchards in Leelanau county, and it became a goal to utilize these fruits that highlighted the nuanced flavors of Northern Michigan. The versatile hot sauce or ketchup can be used on anything savory like meats and eggs.
“I think we’re just excited to develop complex and ingredient inspired products that push the boundaries of what you expect,” he said. “It was about creating something that has a really powerful flavor, but you can also highlight and taste the different elements in it. I think the hot sauce is amazing, but the ketchup is so good, I literally use it on everything… it’s closest to a ketchup, but it’s so much more flavorful and complex than anything on the market.”
“Northport Orchards” on the condiment bottles represents the wide variety and abundance of fresh produce in Northern Michigan. In the lengthy production process leading up to the recent launch, Caudill said he partnered with the commercial kitchen “Food For Thought” in Traverse City to help create and bottle the ketchup and hot sauce.
“I feel so lucky to be able to live here and just literally the abundance of everything around us, it’s kind of amazing,” he said. “They (Food For Thought) tasted what we had made just in our house, then we worked with them and really developed what we were trying to achieve, which was something not really available in the marketplace.”
Currently, the quince products are just sold online at northportorchards.com, but Caudill said they hope to eventually have it sold via wholesale as well. He said they’re in no rush though, adding that they are also working on a new tomato scented candle that will most likely debut in the spring.
“We want to make amazing things and expand into other products,” he said. “I just had a sample of it (the tomato candle) and it’s amazing, so we’re really excited about future products as well… That’s kind of where the name ‘Northport Orchards’ comes from. We’re really inspired by where we live and what this area has to offer and everything that we’ve been doing has been ingredient- forward, so the ingredients really inspire us from the beginning and that’s how products develop.”
