Taylor family’s spicy sauces hitting stores across state
Taylor-based Ancira Salsa has sealed a very spicy deal with Texas’ favorite grocery chain.
The multigenerational, family-run business not long ago received notification that over 130 H-E-B stores will carry Ancira Salsa, bringing a product that started in a household kitchen to store shelves across the Lone Star State.
While the company also has other distribution contracts, including United Supermarkets in West Texas and Brookshire Brothers grocery stores in East Texas, H-E-B is the largest deal to date.
The agreement means Ancira’s production is increasing tenfold.
Chief Operating Officer Trey Ancira said the experience has proven interesting.
“We call it the ‘large production hump’ that brands face when they enter these marquee accounts such as H-E-B, Costco or Walmart.
It’s great and awesome that you get this big account, but that means you also have to fill it,” Ancira said.
Ancira expects the company to ramp up to a “smoother production cadence” by the new year.
For a business that began as his grandparents’ hobby, Ancira said it has gone further than anyone thought possible.
Jesse Sr. and his wife Josie
Photo courtesy of Ancira Salsa worked at IBM many years ago.
“They were breakfast- taco people,” Trey Ancira said of his grandparents.
They made tacos in the morning and eventually began bringing jars of salsa to work.
“Coworkers started requesting their salsa and then it blossomed into selling the salsa at farmers markets, county fairs and other local markets,” Ancira said.
His father, Jesse Ancira II, had a similar experience while working for years at the State Capitol, including as chief of staff for former state House Speaker Joe Straus.
The elder Ancira — who also is a former Taylor mayor — would give salsa gift baskets to the senators and representatives.
“It became an annual thing, people started expecting (their baskets) and putting in requests,” Trey Ancira said.
The lawmakers his father saw on a daily basis in Austin hailed from far and wide across the state, and many could be called salsa connoisseurs.
“They’re from Dallas, San Antonio, the Valley. These people know what salsa, good salsa, tastes like,” the son said. “Their consensus really gave us the consumer confidence that we should keep going.”
Ancira credits his father as the person with the vision to bring the Ancira Salsa brand to fruition.
“He said, ‘This is exceptional, not kind or good or just decent but exceptional.’ He made the executive decision to commercialize and form a limited liability company and the demand was just there,” Ancira said.
The company uses the five original recipes created by Jesse Sr. and Josie including pineapple habanero salsa, the newest addition to the Ancira lineup.
“People need to try it. They’re going to love it,” Ancira said.
He also noted that if family or friends do not have Ancira Salsa at their local H-E-B, they can ask the store manager to stock it.
Ancira added the H-E-B deal is a win not just for his grandparents, honoring their legacy, his father or the Ancira family, but for all of Taylor.
“If you look at our labels, every jar says ‘Taylor, Texas’ on the side and we’re going to keep that forever,” Ancira said.
Salsa and swag can still be purchased online at ancirasalsa.com.
Ancira Salsa TV commercials will be rolling out early in 2026 on CBS Austin/KEYE.
“
Coworkers started requesting their salsa and then it blossomed.”
— Trey Ancira, Ancira Salsa
