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Add a little spice to your life—and save someone else’s.
Imagine all the flavors of your fave episode of Hot Ones—sans the spicy questions and sub in sauce on a mission.
Drenching Raleigh with purpose—and soul-satisfying spicy sauce—is Cole Fungaroli, founder of East Coast Sauces. The Raleigh-based brand’s collection of four hot sauces has major pepper power, and while the spice is nice, it’s the company’s true holy grail that takes the heat.
Bottle by bottle, the not-so-cool bone broth-based condiments contribute to the fight to end human trafficking at both local and national levels. “I can bring people together through flavor,” says the founder of his saucy passion—“but I wanted it to be for something.”
After learning about the prevalence of human trafficking, Fungaroli stood on the belief that even a small company can make a dent in this critical issue, and decided East Coast Sauces wouldn’t confine its goals to just the flavoring of food.
“I felt like I’ve been blind my whole life—not noticing human trafficking is not what you see in the movies,” emphasizes Fungaroli. “It’s actually a lot smaller and a lot harder to detect.” Detecting and protecting are 10% of each spicy sauce sold, benefiting local and national organizations fighting human trafficking—with $2K+ to agencies like Shield North Carolina in 2024 alone.
And if the name hasn’t clued you in, the four sauces bear the East Coast area codes behind the inspiring locales. See: the 919 Killer Mambo sauce, a North-meets-South mashup of flavors Fungaroli sees reflected in Oak City culture.
Tapping in for the “a little dab will do” mentality, Fungaroli purposely pulled back the heat in his sauces, designing for generous use without tummy troubles and hoping spice connoisseurs will use them to the max. Don’t mind if we do! eastcoastsauces.com
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