Tasty Tuesday: Bent Mountain Salsa turns humble beginning to great local success

ROANOKE, Va. – There aren’t many things that go better together than chips and dip. In just three years, Bent Mountain Salsa has taken advantage of that iconic duo and produced locally-sourced, fresh salsa.

Chris Graham’s military background is a big part of their early success, reciting, “Integrity first, excellence in all you do and service before self.”

With the mindset, determination and taste for greatness, it’s no surprise that this Roanoke Valley company started out humbly.

Graham tells us, “We started the company in July of 2017 off of six dollars.”

Now, their salsa is on the shelves of nearly a dozen local Krogers. They’ve listed those locations and others in the Facebook post below.

It doesn’t start and end at grocery stores. You can find their salsa at Parkway Brewing and at both Farmburguesa locations.

The freshness is a big selling point for those who’ve come to love the salsa.

“Being a fresh salsa, it goes from our refrigerator to the refrigerator section at Kroger to the refrigerator section at your house.”

While you keep it cool, they dial up the heat with four different kinds of salsa. Graham says it all has to do with what pepper they use.

“Your mild, we use jalapenos. The medium is the number 1 seller. It’s got serranos. The hot is my favorite. We use habaneros in that one, so it’s got that smoky flavor. And then our fire was a combination of jalapenos, habaneros but the pepper that packs the punch is the scorpion pepper.”

We worked our way up the scale, but noticed that while the heat went up the unique flavor was never lost. Graham says you can find them every Saturday at the Salem Farmer’s Market, and you can order off their Facebook and Instagram pages.