There is a story that people close to Starr Edwards still tell. A friend came to visit and found her behind a closed door, sleeping infant on the bed next to her, laptop open, trying to teach herself QuickBooks. Nobody had asked her to learn accounting. She just needed to know it, so she figured it out.
Bitchin’ Sauce started in San Diego in 2010. Starr and her husband Luke were selling their original almond-based dip at local markets, the kind of early-days grind that does not come with a safety net or promises of a strategic exit.
The Bitchin’ Sauce founder was back at on Quickbooks the day after giving birth to their next child. There was no investor check waiting. Just the product, and the next market day.
What almost ended it
By 2015, Starr was facing something few entrepreneurs talk about publicly: the real possibility of losing everything. A business separation with all financial liability in her name. Not just the manufacturing facility lease, inventory, and operating expenses.
Starr had also been the sole lessee on the family house where Bitchin’ Sauce began, guarantor on loans for siblings’ vehicles, guarantor on multiple rental leases for immediate family, and continued to act as the authorized farmers market party for family members’ new ventures even after they had moved on. The brand was staring at potential bankruptcy.
She did not walk away. The product stayed the same. She kept sourcing ingredients herself and showing up at production to make sure nothing slipped.
The dip that had started at weekday farmers market tables, before she ever landed a weekend spot, was going to end up in Costco, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, and Kroger, and Starbucks eventually. That part she probably did not expect. But 2015 had to come first.
The company she built for parents
When Starr eventually had the resources to build a team, she built the workplace she wished she had when her kids were small. Bitchin’ Kids started as free on-site childcare at the Bitchin’ Sauce facility, a loving and educational environment where parents could step away from a meeting, walk down the hall, and actually spend time with their kids during the work day.
The program created something most companies do not get intentionally: community. Parents became friends. Kids grew up alongside each other. The workplace started to feel like a neighborhood.
As the company shifted to a remote workforce, Bitchin’ Kids shifted with it. The program became an annual, non-taxable childcare reimbursement: $7,500 per employee per year. Since 2019, the program has offered more than $1.6M to employees. The belief underneath all of it has not changed: no parent should have to choose between providing for their child and raising them.
Total benefits at Bitchin’ Sauce average $41,909 per employee annually, which is 30% above industry average according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Voluntary turnover is at 16.4%. The industry average sits closer to 28%, and about 40% of the Bitchin’ Sauce team has been there four or more years. Average tenure sits at four years.
What $56M starting from a farmers market actually looks like
By 2024, the brand was pushing $56M, retail presence now spans 15,000+ locations, with international distribution channels in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, China, Mexico, and Canada, and more markets coming.
The 2026 expansion added Bitchin’ Chips, Salsacados™, a couple of refrigerated bean dip flavors, and several cross category collabs with brand friends in the grocery space.
Through all of it, the original base recipe has stayed exactly what it was when Starr was hunched over a laptop with a sleeping baby next to her. Almonds, lemon juice, garlic, nutritional yeast, oil. Nothing that did not belong there. The company got a lot bigger, but the dip did not get any more complicated.
About Bitchin’ Sauce
Bitchin’ Sauce is a family-owned, Carlsbad, California-based brand founded in 2010 by Starr and Luke Edwards. The company pioneered the almond-based dip category and has grown from local farmers markets to national distribution in 15,000+ retail locations including Costco, Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, and Kroger. Committed to clean-label manufacturing and industry-leading employee benefits, Bitchin’ Sauce remains a plant-based, better-for-you leader in the snacking category. Learn more at bitchinsauce.com.