Mel Gancsos, creator of Mel’s Hellish Relish, dies at 79

Mel Gancsos, a machinist who parlayed a kitchen hobby into the award-winning Fairfield-based condiment company Mel”™s Hellish Relish, passed away at the age of 79.

Gancsos graduated from Fairfield”™s Andrew Warde High School and went to work as a tool and die maker at Park City Manufacturing, a company owned by his father. Later in his career, he worked as an inspector at Avco Lycoming and a specialty machinist at Sikorsky Aircraft, retiring from the latter company in 2007. During his years at Sikorsky, Gancsos would bring his co-workers homemade relish made with hot and sweet peppers, onions and spices. His colleagues encouraged him to enter his recipe in the Scovie Awards, a competition for fiery foods, and he won second prize in the amateur competition.

Gancsos launched his company Mel”™s Hellish Relish in 2003 from his home, using a photo of himself in a Halloween devil”™s costume on the product”™s label. He kept Mel’s Hellish Relish as a side-business until he was confident that it could generate a revenue stream to financially support him.

“There are tens of thousands of independent food companies trying to make it in the specialty food business,” he said in a 2006 interview with ILoveFC.com. “For every success story there are probably twenty or thirty companies that didn”™t make it. I tell people that until they”™re making a profit, don”™t give up their day job.”

Gancsos would win additional Scovie Awards as his product line expanded to accommodate mild, medium and hot levels of relish plus a line of bottled pickles. Gancsos”™ products became a staple in Connecticut”™s specialty food retail stores and was sold at the Connecticut pavilion at the Big E in Massachusetts and county fairs around the state. The company rated mention in “The Food Lovers Guide to Connecticut” with Gancsos being cited for his “incendiary business” while the Chowhound blog happily warned its readers “This is not something for the timid ”“ it’s hot.”

“Anybody can make anything hot,” Gancsos said in a 2008 interview with the Hartford Courant. “The thing I’ve always tried to do is make something that people enjoy.”