Louisiana businessman Chris White isn’t afraid to change things up.
Since the 2016 Great Flood damaged his Baton Rouge house, for instance, he and his family have lived in five different places, including a recent stint in a former French Quarter church that was converted into a luxury apartment.
That same willingness to embrace the new has helped White grow his business, Louisiana Pepper Exchange, from a side hustle into a global enterprise earning tens of million in annual revenue and, by the entrepreneur’s estimation, closing in on the $100 million mark by the end of the decade.
While not a household name like Tabasco, Crystal or other famous Louisiana-born pepper sauce brands, the 16-year-old company is gaining ground behind the scenes as White has parlayed his patented idea for shipping pepper mash more efficiently into a multifaceted enterprise that sells pepper products to other hot sauce manufacturers, food companies and restaurants…