Several weeks ago, I discussed several highlights and lowlights of the then-current food-related Kickstarter campaigns. Now that the campaigns have finished, let’s take another look and see how they did.

We started with Keith, who was restoring a vintage fire engine to advertise his BBQ business. I correctly predicted that the Kickstarter would fail to reach its goal: pledges only reached 11% of the target number. Keith is determined, however. According to the project updates, he’s applied his tax return to the project, and is pushing ahead. Kudos to him for finding an alternate funding source. If determination can make a business succeed, the BBQ Beast will live.

I didn’t make a prediction about Rich’s campaign to get his Smoke Hog food cart rolling, though I did say I thought it deserved to succeed. Unfortunately, it fell well short of success at only 14% of the target. Like Keith, Rich is determined to keep his dream alive. He’s putting together a promo video to show off more of what he can do, and plans to launch a new campaign when that’s ready. Good luck, Rich!

Remember Bobby and his “Bah Bah BBQ sauce”, loaded with antioxidants? I expected Bobby’s campaign to fail, and I was right. Less than a week after the previous blog post he canceled the campaign after accumulating pledges that amounted to only 2% of the target. This is actually the third time he’s launched a Kickstarter campaign for this sauce and the third time he’s canceled it early. Not only does Bobby not understand how the food industry works, but he apparently doesn’t understand how publicity and crowd-funding work either. On the brighter side, each time he’s tried it, he’s gotten more pledges. At the current rate of increase, I estimate he’ll meet his goal on the seventh attempt. Think he’s determined enough to keep trying that long? No? Me either.

Moving on to Genelle and her plan to become the salsa baroness of Oregon, we see that, as expected, her campaign failed. She accumulated pledges totalling 20% of her target. Genelle has rethought her plans and launched a new Kickstarter campaign. This time she’s scaled back her ambitions. Instead of trying to get her salsa into stores “throughout Oregon”, she’s aiming for two local stores, and will expand from there. The new campaign also asks for a third less money. She’s at 19% with almost three weeks to go. I still think she’s going to come up short again, but at least she’s being more realistic this time around.

OK, I lied. Not all of the Kickstarters have closed.

Sosu Sauces’s campaign for their Barrel-Aged Sriracha is the only one of the five that I was sure would succeed. With two days remaining, they’ve accumulated over $82,000 in pledges against their original $20,000 target. The additional funds will allow them to make a larger batch of the Sriracha and introduce three additional products: a barrel-aged hot sauce, a sriracha salt, and a sriracha cumin rub. Not bad. They have one additional stretch goal. If they can raise another $18,000 before the campaign ends, they’ll be able to rent a permanent facility and hire an employee. They’ll be a real company! $18K in the last two days is a real stretch. If you’re a sriracha fan–and I know a couple of you are–you really ought to give them a hand. Let me know how the product turns out.