THUNDER BAY — it usually takes a lot of money to buy the kind of global exposure that Thunder Bay's Heartbeat Hot Sauce company received at UFC 257 last weekend.
During the weigh-in for fighters Dustin Poirier and superstar Conor McGregor, Poirier handed his opponent a bottle of Heartbeat's Louisiana-style hot sauce.
McGregor's enthusiastic acceptance of the gift was captured on camera and televised around the world.
In a collaboration with Louisiana-born Poirier, Heartbeat produces Poirier's Louisiana Style Hot Sauce.
Company owner Al Bourbouhakis says the fighter reached out to him about a year ago.
"He's a big food guy, loves cooking, loves hot sauce, a very proud Louisiana native, and hot sauce is a huge part of the culture there," Bourbouhakis said in an interview after the fight, which Poirier won.
"He had hot sauce in mind for a product, and was already a fan of our products...It seemed like a natural fit."
Bourbouhakis said he appreciated from the outset how involved Poirier wanted to be in the project.
"He's just wrapped up the biggest fight of his career, and within hours of the fight we were talking hot sauce while he was on the plane home from Abu Dhabi," he said. "That's the level of commitment that he has to this partnership, which is amazing and makes us want to work with him even more."
The publicity the company received at the event in Abu Dhabi was unexpected and "massive," Bourbouhakis said. "You couldn't ask for a bigger market to show the world what we have done together."
He noted that, during the pre-fight press conference, McGregor abruptly started talking about hot sauce, which led to a subtle promise from Poirier to deliver a sample to his opponent in return for a bottle of McGregor's own Irish Proper Number 12 Irish whiskey.
The exchange happened the next day at the weigh-in.
Bourbouhakis, who was watching on TV, said it took him a moment to register the fact that his product had just been seen by an audience of millions.
"What was amazing was the two of them embracing on the stage as Conor holds the bottle up in the air...I don't know if there's a dollar value you can apply to that scenario. It's been a wild ride, and we're soaking it in."
He said coverage of the incident on social media "blew up," and Heartbeat Hot Sauce has received multiple inquiries from media about the company and its arrangement with Poirier.
"There's an impact on sales. People go online and start searching for it...A lot of attention was brought on us and the product because of this."
