The archive · Small Business & Money · Product decision · 2010–2023
Mike's Hot Honey: a pizza-drizzle side hustle becomes a $40M condiment brand
A Brooklyn pizza apprentice sells chili-infused honey by the oven; by 2023 it is in 30,000+ stores with $40M projected revenue.
Mike's Hot Honey
What it had to solve
A college student loves honey-and-chili on pizza but has no brand, no shop and no money; a condiment only survives if people actually taste it.
How it works
In 2004 Mike Kurtz tasted honey jars with chili peppers on the tables of a Brazilian pizzeria and spent his senior year of college trying to recreate the idea at home. He settled on a hotter, chili-forward recipe, named it Mike's Hot Honey, and gave jars away as holiday gifts.
In August 2010, while apprenticing at Paulie Gee's pizzeria in Brooklyn, Kurtz brought a bottle to the owner; it became the drizzle on the Hellboy pie, and customers began asking to buy bottles. By November he was selling pints for cash from behind the pizza oven, then bottling at night and delivering around New York City himself.
Word of mouth carried the condiment into restaurants and specialty shops. Whole Foods picked it up in 2014, CEO Matt Beaton came on in 2015, and the company raised $12M over three rounds. By 2023 it was in more than 30,000 US retailers and restaurants, with roughly 2.5% of the $1 billion US honey market and revenue projected above $40 million.
Why it lands
- The launch venue was the marketing: every pizza slice was a free tasting and every customer was a potential buyer.
- Instead of a lineup of flavors, the company scaled use cases — bottles, packets, dip cups and chef's jugs — off a single recipe.
- Chefs, not ad campaigns, made it a national condiment: fried chicken, cocktails and ice cream came from other kitchens using the product.
- Getting the first supermarket (Whole Foods, 2014) gave the brand a credibility anchor that specialty retailers then amplified.
What it did
Sold in 30,000+ US retailers and restaurants, about 2.5% of the $1B US honey market; revenue grew from ~$100K (2015) to $600K in one year, with $40M+ projected for 2023–2024.
What you can take
Don't chase the next flavor: keep one idea simple, put it in front of people already in love with the category, and let chefs and word of mouth do the distribution.
Since then
The hot honey category it started became a national trend with many imitators, while Mike's Hot Honey stayed focused on one product and its formats. The company added an Extra Hot version in 2020, opened a fried-chicken counter inside Madison Square Garden, and ran collaborations with Utz, Austin Eastciders, Ewing Athletics and Marco's Pizza. By 2023 it was projected to pass $40 million in annual revenue with a single squeeze bottle as its core product.
Sources
- How Mike's Hot Honey built a $40 million a year business with a single product
- About — Mike's Hot Honey
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card