The Sweet and Spicy Success Story of Mike's Hot Honey

In the world of pizza toppings, a new contender has emerged in recent years: hot honey.

Departing from the traditional choices of pepperoni, sausage, peppers, olives, anchovies, and pineapple, hot honey has become a mainstay at pizza parlors across the nation, mainly due to the efforts of Mike's Hot Honey .

The unique kick you get on the back of your palate from Mike's Hot Honey sets it apart.

What started as a personal passion for the unique combination of honey and chili peppers on pizza turned into a booming business.

Introduced to customers in 2010, Mike's Hot Honey found a sweet spot in the $2.5 billion US honey market.

From Pizzeria to Pantry: The Origin Story

In the early stages, Mike's Hot Honey was produced in small batches, one gallon at a time, in the back of a pizzeria.

Mike spent his Mondays, when the restaurant was closed, making batches of hot honey and bottling it.

The company began selling bottles off the bar in November 2010, initially pricing them at $6 each.

However, as demand grew, orders began coming in from other restaurants and specialty retailers around the city and beyond.

Turning Up the Heat: Business Expansion

As the business expanded, Mike started delivering bottles of his hot honey around New York City.

In 2014, Whole Foods Market expressed interest in stocking Mike's product, bringing a fresh offering to a honey aisle that had yet to see innovation in decades.

Later that year, Mike reconnected with his college friend Matt Beaton , who had recently moved to the East Coast.

Recognizing their complementary skill sets, Mike brought Matt on board as CEO after Matt offered assistance with writing a business plan and setting up QuickBooks.

Sweetening the Deal: Brand Growth and Collaborations

By 2017, it became apparent that outside investment was needed to scale the business and meet the demand of larger customers.

Despite initial rejections, Mike and Matt persisted and have since successfully raised around $12 million through three rounds of funding.

Mike's Hot Honey has also expanded through brand collaborations, launching a potato chip with Utz Brands, Inc. , mustard with French Dijon company Maille, and a frozen pizza with California Pizza Kitchen .

The company also provides neon signs of its logo for restaurant partners to hang in-store, contributing to brand awareness.

This strategy has helped Mike's Hot Honey become widely recognized and sought after, with the product now available in over 30,000 retail and food service locations nationwide.

On Amazon, Mike's Hot Honey is often the number one selling hot sauce.

Despite this success, they believe there's still a lot of room for growth.

On our product, there's less than 1% household penetration right now, so we have a lot of consumers in this country that we still need to reach, Mike shares.

As sales have grown, so has the size of Mike's Hot Honey team.

Once we were able to secure capital, we were able to start to build a team around us. Our sales team has done a terrific job to make Mike's Hot Honey broadly available across the country, across retail, across restaurants, says Matt.

Spicing Things Up: Product Diversification

The company sells Mike's Hot Honey in various sizes to cater to different usage occasions: squeeze packs and dip cups, 1.5oz mini jars, 12-ounce squeeze bottles, 24-ounce chef's bottles, and one-gallon jugs.

In July 2020, ten years after Mike started selling his hot honey, the company released another product - an extra hot version of the hot honey.

There's a lot of temptation to grow brands through flavor innovation and new flavor profiles, but what we realized is that Mike's Hot Honey was a very novel product that many people had never tasted, and we realized that there was a lot of room for growth just on that core product, says Matt.

Instead of extending into other flavor profiles, they grew the brand by price and pack innovation.

That doesn't mean, though, that in the future there won't be other things under our brand halo that come to market. But for now, our focus continues to be on that core product because we know the ceiling is still really high, he adds.

Creating a Category

The success of Mike's Hot Honey is not just about creating a product; it's about creating a category.

It's used on everything from pizza to fried chicken to cocktails to charcuterie and cheese boards to salads, barbecue," Mike says.

The versatility of Mike's Hot Honey has been instrumental in its widespread popularity, reaching a diverse consumer base and catering to various usage occasions.

It brings an innovative flavor profile — sweet and spicy — to consumers nationwide.

Mike's Hot Honey stands as a powerful example of the impact of a robust core product, a strategic brand focus, and a steadfast commitment to delivering high-quality products to consumers.

From a personal hobby into a business generating $40 million annually.

As we wrap up the year, stay tuned for more stories of inspiration, determination, and success in next week's edition.

Until then, keep dreaming, striving, and remembering — the true art of 'making it' lies in the journey, not just the destination.

Happy New Year's Eve,

Evan Morales