Product Brief

Platform

web

The storefront, fundraising site, admin console, and docs are Next.js web apps. The Android/iPad kiosk shells and the macOS/Windows admin apps wrap or extend the same web product; they do not have a design language of their own.

Users

Primary: online shoppers. These are salsa fans ordering jars to be shipped to them. Many met the brand in person at a show, festival, or local store and come back to reorder or send a gift. When a design tradeoff comes up, their buying experience wins.

Secondary audiences (served, but they don't win tradeoffs by default):

• Fundraiser organizers and student sellers. Schools and groups that sell jars through the fundraising site (apps/fundraising) and the portal.
• Wholesale and retail accounts.
• Staff and operators who run orders, events, the in-person POS/kiosk, email marketing, and the QuickBooks-synced back office through the admin console.

Product Purpose

Jose Madrid Salsa is the production commerce, fundraising, and operations platform for a family-owned salsa company in Zanesville, Ohio. It sells jars online, runs group fundraisers, supports in-person sales at shows and events, and runs the business back office. For the shopper, success means finding a flavor they love, checking out without friction, and coming back to reorder.

Positioning

What a neighboring salsa brand cannot truthfully copy:

• Family heritage. The brand is named for José, a cowboy and family patriarch from Clovis, New Mexico. Its New Mexico-style recipes came out of the family's Zak's Restaurant, opened in Zanesville in 1942. The salsa company has been family-owned since 1987.
• Flavor range. It makes 25+ small-batch flavors, from mild to fiery hot.
• Local Ohio presence. Customers often meet the brand in person first, at shows, festivals, and local stores, before they order online.

The fundraising program is a real business line, but it is not part of the brand's core claim.

Operating Context

• Shoppers browse by flavor and heat level (HeatLevel), read recipes and the "Heat Index" editorial blog, use the store locator ("Find Us"), and check out with Stripe, PayPal, or Square. Orders ship through EasyPost.
• In-person sales run through the POS and kiosk apps at shows and events.
• Fundraisers sell at $10 per jar with a 50/50 split. A fundraiser's "goal" and "raised" figures are gross sales, not commission.
• BigCommerce still runs headless behind the site, and its checkout lives on shop.josemadridsalsa.com.

Capabilities and Constraints

• The platform is a Turborepo monorepo. apps/storefront (storefront, accounts, checkout, admin, POS) is the primary app. apps/fundraising, apps/admin, and apps/docs are separate deployments.
• The stack is Next.js 16 / React 19, Tailwind CSS 4, Shadcn/Radix primitives in components/ui, and Prisma/PostgreSQL. Everything deploys on Vercel.
• No fake implementations. Placeholder or mock functionality must never ship as if it were real.
• Every new public URL needs a sitemap entry, a meta title of 30–60 characters, and a meta description of 160 characters or fewer (CLAUDE.md Part 18).

Brand Commitments

• The name is Jose Madrid Salsa. Story copy writes it "José", with the accent.
• The logo is apps/storefront/public/logo.png.
• The heritage story is canonical: José of Clovis, NM; Zak's Restaurant, Zanesville, 1942; family-owned since 1987. Use it as written in app/(public)/about and app/(public)/our-story. Don't embellish it.

Evidence on Hand

• Customer reviews: real reviews are stored in the Review and SiteReview tables. Quote them verbatim and attribute them as stored.
• Awards and press: these are the confirmed awards (owner, 2026-10-12). They are written up in components/store/awards-strip.tsx, which the homepage renders as the "Recognized nationally" band (#awards) directly below the hero. The hero also keeps the AwardSeal badge (components/store/award-seal.tsx), which names the Best Green Salsa award:
  • Spanish Verde Hot / Spanish Verde: Best Green Salsa in the US and Best Tomatillo Salsa, National Salsa Shoot Out, Fort Worth, Texas, 2004.
  • Raspberry Mild: national awards in two countries (the United States and Canada), as part of the fruit salsa line.
  • The brand: national recognition for its fruit salsa line, and recognized as a top gourmet salsa fundraiser in the United States. Fundraising figures confirmed by the owner (2026-10-12): "$3,500+ average raised" per fundraiser, "trusted by 500+ schools, teams, and nonprofits", and "500+ fundraisers". The founding year in copy is 1987 (family-owned since 1987). Use only these. Never invent an award name, a year, or a publication, and never claim "Salsa Capital of the World" (the owner had it removed). Ask before adding press coverage.
• Product photography: real jar and label photos exist in Vercel Blob and on the legacy BigCommerce CDN.
• Not on hand: show/event photography. Do not fabricate or AI-generate photos that present themselves as real events, staff, or customers.

Product Principles

1. The shopper's path to a jar comes first. Every surface should shorten the distance from "which flavor?" to "ordered".
2. Heritage is told, not decorated. The family story is a true account to tell plainly, not a theme to costume the site in.
3. Real over representative. Use real reviews, real product photos, and real numbers. Leave absences visible rather than filling them.
4. Online should continue the in-person experience. A customer who tasted salsa at a festival should recognize the brand and find that flavor fast.

Accessibility & Inclusion

Every surface must meet WCAG 2.2 AA.