For Muñoz, her first visit to USC was a detour, on her way home from a business trip to China. At USC, she met with David C. Bohnett Professor of Social Entrepreneurship Adlai Wertman. “Adlai asked me why I wanted to come here [USC] other than for the beautiful LA weather. When I told him about some of the causes moving me and my goals, he said, ‘Perfect, that’s the kind of people we want here. We want people who can make a change.’”
Once in the program, Muñoz worked on her business in every class. Many of her peers helped her by trying and critiquing her sauces and filling out focus group surveys along the way. Following graduation from the MSSE program, Munoz moved to San Clemente, California[FC1] to get to work on Peruana Sauce. To understand Muñoz’s vision better, it’s important to understand the core issues at play. The farmers are the ones who plant, fertilize and harvest the peppers put into the sauce. Typically, Muñoz said, the supply chain has worked such that a farmer might sell one pound of peppers for $1 to a a company, who then sells it for $4 to a distributor who then sells it for $7 to a supermarket which sells it to a consumer for $11 per pound.
“But the farmer is the one doing all of the work and they gain the least in this process,” Muñoz said.
To solve this issue, she first focused on directly purchasing peppers from farmers for a higher price. But while this allowed for greater profits, this didn’t vastly improve farmers’ quality of life. Further research led her to her true solution: irrigation. “I noticed the most expensive thing for farmers is water. They need a lot of water to nourish these kinds of plants, and whichever way they get it—from the city or from a nearby area—is very labor-intensive and expensive.”
Working directly with farmers, Muñoz committed to helping them put in place infrastructure that makes their work sustainable. Later this month, she will be traveling to Peru to help install an irrigation system for a local farm. With her business expanding—she reports ordering nearly twice as much sauce for her most recent shipment from Peru (48K up from 25K)—and a new US distributor, Muñoz plans to add a couple new flavors next year.
“I used to eat very bland,” she said. “But whenever I was cooking, I was adding sauce to everything. I want people to enjoy its flavor, and feel good about the product’s impact and origins. I know that once they try it, this will become their new everything sauce!"”
