🏆 Registration – Canada Hot Sauce Awards

This is your chance to showcase your sauce on a national stage 🔥

The Canada Hot Sauce Awards were created to highlight and celebrate the craftsmanship of Canadian hot sauce makers from coast to coast. For this first edition, producers are invited to enter their best hot sauce in a fair, transparent, and professionally structured competition.

🌶️ How the competition works

• The competition is open to all Canadian hot sauce producers.

• A pre-selection process will be conducted from all sauces received.

• To ensure fair provincial representation, up to five sauces per province will be selected, for a total of 50 finalist sauces.

• Finalist sauces will be evaluated by a panel of 20 independent judges.

👉 There is one single category:
Best Hot Sauce in Canada
(No mild, hot, or extreme divisions — overall quality is what matters.)

🏅 Awards, trophies & recognition

Three national trophies will be awarded to the top three hot sauces in Canada:
🥇 Gold • 🥈 Silver • 🥉 Bronze

A provincial ranking will also be established in each of Canada’s 10 provinces, awarding a Top 3 (Gold, Silver, Bronze) per province.

👉 In total, 33 distinctions will be awarded:

• 30 provincial medals (10 provinces × Gold / Silver / Bronze)

• 3 national medals

🎖️ A real marketing advantage

Each winning sauce, at the provincial or national level, will receive an official prestige medal in PDF format, provided by the organization.

These medals may be freely used by winning companies for:

• bottle labels and packaging

• their website

• marketing and social media promotions

A lasting and valuable recognition that helps producers stand out with a trusted, third-party award.

🔍 Judging criteria

Each sauce will be scored on 7 criteria, each rated out of 10 points:

1. Aroma

2. Visual appearance

3. Overall texture

4. Flavor complexity

5. Heat complexity

6. Heat vs. flavor balance

7. Overall appreciation

📦 Entering your sauce

When registering, please select the option corresponding to the number of sauces you wish to submit:

• 1 sauce: $30 CAD

• 3 sauces: $80 CAD

Shipping instructions

• Include complete brand and product information for each sauce (sauce name, ingredients, heat level, etc.) inside the package.

• Please send 3 bottles of each registered sauce to the following address:

Festifeu
1120 Notre-Dame Street
Nicolet, Québec J3T 1A3
Canada

📣 Winners announcement

The winners of the Canadian Hot Sauce Awards will be officially announced on August 28, during Festifeu, in front of the public and event partners.
This official announcement will mark a highlight of the championship and celebrate the excellence of Canadian hot sauce makers.

A truly Canadian championship

To date, nearly 500 hot sauce companies have been identified across Canada. The Canada Hot Sauce Awards aim to provide a credible, representative national platform, recognizing the best Canadian hot sauces for their quality, creativity, and authenticity.

🔥 Enter your sauces and be part of the very first Canada Hot Sauce Awards.
Your sauce could become an official provincial or national reference.