About Us

Yeah, we’re a bakery that makes hot sauce.

We’re just fancy that way. 

 

Butterfly Bakery of Vermont started in 2003 as a small natural foods bakery in a rented coffee shop in the middle of the night. Owner, Claire Georges, worked her day job at a bread bakery, then switched aprons to make cookies and granola overnight. She would drop off the goodies to be delivered to stores, catch a couple hours of shut eye before getting back up to work the dough. 

Even after moving to her own space and dropping the day job, BBVT was a mostly one person gig until the birth of Claire’s oldest daughter. To achieve a better work-life balance, Claire hired her first baker in 2014. This not only allowed her to focus on her new family, but also allowed her to spend more time working *on* her business, rather than *in* her business. And that’s how a little natural foods bakery started making hot sauce.

When a friend had a spare 800 lbs of chili peppers (as friends sometimes do) and Claire realized that her little side gig of making hot sauce at the farmers market might have what it takes to do well in stores. Hot sauces were an instant hit. Partnerships with local breweries, like The Alchemist, helped set BBVT apart from other hot sauce brands. And partnerships with local farms quickly turned BBVT into the largest user of Vermont grown chili peppers in the world. 

BBVT hot sauces are now sold around the world, still utilizing the same locally grown peppers, balanced flavors and care for detail that made them a hit at those first farmers markets. 

BBVT is committed to slow, sustainable growth using local ingredients because we want to be the kind of company that we would want to work for and buy from. All of the maple syrup and chili peppers used in BBVT products are grown within 200 miles of our Barre, Vermont cannery. And we firmly believe that if we can’t pay livable wages that I should leave the employing to someone who can. 

Claire Georges with Keith Habersberger of the Try Guys at Dutchess Farm while working on Keith's Chicken Sauce.

 

Claire Georges with Ryan Miller of Guster, while working on Gustard Mustard.