December 23, 2025
Provided Image/Hank Sauce
Former Eagles center Jason Kelce, left, is now an investor in Sea Isle City hot sauce company Hank Sauce. The brand, founded in 2011, is co-owned, from left to right, by Matt Pittaluga, Hank Ruxton and Josh Jaspan.
Former Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce is throwing his support behind a Sea Isle City hot sauce brand, hoping to ramp up distribution and bring a taste of the Jersey Shore to restaurants nationwide.
Kelce's private investment firm, Winnie Capital, announced Monday it will take a strategic equity stake in Hank Sauce. The company, founded in 2011, is led by a trio of former college roommates who grew up surfing together. Kelce owns a home in the shore community and is a frequent patron of the Hank Sauce restaurant known for its fish tacos on Landis Avenue.
"We knew he was a fan of the sauce," Hank Sauce co-owner Matt Pittaluga said. "They were using it up at the Eagles' NovaCare Complex for the kitchen. We figured, 'What the hell?' Let's throw it out there as a Hail Mary.'"
Kelce, who retired after the 2023 season, has become as much a force in the world of media and branding as he was on the field. He's starred in a gauntlet of commercials, works as an NFL analyst on ESPN and co-hosts the award-winning "New Heights" podcast with his brother Travis. The duo teamed up last year to invest in Ohio's Garage Beer, becoming a major part of the company's marketing strategy. Jason also created the Underdog Apparel company, a brand inspired by the team's Super Bowl run in 2018, and is among a group of celebrities and athletes to invest in the vintage apparel brand Homage.
Kelce called the new partnership with Hank Sauce a natural fit.
"I’ve gotten to know the people who built the brand and see the awesomeness that exudes from behind and within its bottles,” Kelce said in a statement. “When an opportunity arose to be a part of this thing, and help let folks know what makes this brand and product so fantastic for any of your culinary or flavor-adding endeavors, I couldn’t jump on board fast enough."
Pittaluga and his business partners, Hank Ruxton and Josh Jaspan, attended Flagler University together in Florida in the mid-2000s. Ruxton, a cook who had worked at a number of Sea Isle City restaurants, concocted hot sauce flavors for fun and made meals for his roommates in exchange for beer.
"The really ironic part is that Josh and I always hated hot sauce," Pittaluga said. "Hank would make this stuff, and we'd be like, 'Dude, that's really good.' Back then, craft hot sauce wasn't really a thing and hadn't exploded like it is now, replicating what the beer scene did for a while."
Pittaluga, who studied graphic design and created Hank Sauce's whale-shaped logo, encouraged Ruxton to make him some hot sauce for a class project. The response was so overwhelming that the trio decided to seize the moment and start a business.
"We had nothing to lose," Pittaluga said. "Thankfully, we got in before that bubble and were able to carve out a really cool path with a nice following just through grassroots efforts."
Hank Sauce is best-known for its "core four" flavors: Herb Infused, Cilanktro, Camouflage and Hank's Heat. At the outset, the trio made their hot sauce in a garage and took their bottles to fish markets and liquor stores to test the market. Pittaluga, who once worked at Sea Isle City staple Uncle Oogie's, used to slip samples into the restaurant's to-go orders.
"It sold really well in those early years, when there was really nowhere to find it, and it just became a word of mouth thing," he said.
Hank Sauce is sold in a variety of flavors and spice levels.
The Hank Sauce restaurant opened in 2012, becoming a built-in focus group to try out new flavors — including spicier specialty blends that rotate seasonally. The brand also opened an online shop and started distributing in supermarkets like ShopRite, Acme, Whole Foods, Giant and Publix in the South. They now have a production facility in Millville.
"We went from hustling the little farmers markets to trying to really target grocery," Pittaluga said.
Hank Sauce got another major boost from a partnership with Ace Hardware, which now stocks the hot sauce at stores in all 50 states. Despite being a well-established brand already, Hank Sauce has ambitions to gain an even bigger footprint with Kelce's help. Hot sauce has grown into a $2.9 billion industry that fits in the broader category of seasonings, sauces and condiments.
"We haven't really touched in food service, so we expect that will grow," Pittaluga said. "We want to get more visibility on tabletops at establishments that may be willing to bring in a quality brand and take a shot instead of using some of your generic brands. It's really about brand awareness. This is going to be the thing that might get enough people to nudge to buy it."
Hank Sauce also envisions Kelce helping drive online sales with new promotional content that feels genuine to his long relationship with the brand. The company made an Under Dawgs hot sauce after the Eagles' first Super Bowl victory and broke it out as a good luck charm before the team claimed its second title in February. The landing page of the Hank Sauce website now features Kelce holding a bottle of the top seller, the Herb Infused mild blend.
"He was a fan first. It's not like he's just hopping on board because it's a ripe financial opportunity," Pittaluga said.
Kelce is a regular in Sea Isle City during the summertime when he and his family head to the shore from their home in Delaware County. He bartends during his annual fundraisers at the Ocean Drive to benefit the Eagles Autism Foundation, sometimes chugging beer for the cause.
"It's hard to miss the guy in South Jersey," Pittaluga said.
