Mike's Hot Honey

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Mike's Hot Honey
IndustryHoney
Founded2010; 14 years ago (2010)
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
FounderMike Kurtz
HeadquartersBrooklyn, New York, U.S.
Key people
Matt Beaton (CEO)
Revenue$40 million (2023)
Websitemikeshothoney.com

Mike's Hot Honey is an American food company that specializes in honey infused with chili peppers. The company was founded in 2010 by Mike Kurtz in Brooklyn, New York. The leading brand of hot honey in the United States, Mike's Hot Honey has been described as a "cult favorite".[1][2]

History

Mike Kurtz was first inspired to pursue hot

chili peppers; as Kurtz recounted, "It was so delicious that I realized I wanted to try to make it for myself."[3] While in college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Kurtz began making his own hot honey from his apartment.[3][4] After experimenting with several different types of peppers and honey, Kurtz landed on the recipe for Mike's Hot Honey, which he says is "a lot hotter, more chili forward and has a much stronger kick than what I tasted in Brazil".[3]

Initially, Kurtz made hot honey for his own personal consumption, offering some to his family and friends as gifts.[3] Upon moving to Brooklyn after graduating college, he began working at Paulie Gee's pizzeria in Greenpoint in 2010.[3][4] After Kurtz introduced Paulie Gee to his hot honey, Gee was immediately hooked, and the pizzeria began offering "The Hellboy", a soppressata pizza drizzled with Mike's Hot Honey, which has remained a best-seller at Paulie Gee's ever since its introduction.[3][5]

Kurtz launched a distribution center in 2011 and landed Mike's Hot Honey in

Whole Foods, the first grocery store to carry the product, in 2014.[3] After hiring Matt Beaton as CEO in 2015, the company raised three rounds of funding totaling $12 million.[3] As of 2024, Mike's Hot Honey was carried in over 3,000 restaurants and 30,000 retail establishments in the United States, with an estimated annual revenue of $40 million.[4]

Marketing

In April 2023, Mike's Hot Honey collaborated with shoe brand Ewing Athletics, the signature brand of former basketball player Patrick Ewing, to release a line of Mike's Hot Honey–branded cross-training high-top sneakers, which are sold alongside jars of hot honey.[1][6]

In 2023 and 2024, Mike's Hot Honey partnered with several restaurant chains to offer various hot honey dishes, including hot honey

frozen pizza with hot honey.[2][11]

In 2024, Mike's Hot Honey created a pizza-themed arcade game called Slice Hunter, which is available on the iOS App Store and as a one-off physical arcade cabinet at Scarr's Pizza in Manhattan.[12][13] Kurtz said, "The idea behind Slice Hunter was to connect people back to memories of playing classic arcade games in their childhood pizzerias."[13]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Li, Nicolaus (12 April 2023). "Ewing Athletics and Mike's Hot Honey Collide for Sport Lite Release". Hypebeast. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  2. ^ a b Rickman, Catherine (14 March 2023). "California Pizza Kitchen & Mike's Hot Honey Team Up For New Frozen Pizzas". Tasting Table. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Vega, Nicolas; Paul, Raffi (6 November 2023). "How Mike's Hot Honey built a $40 million a year business with a single product". CNBC. Archived from the original on 14 March 2024. Retrieved 16 April 2024.
  4. ^ a b c Steinberg, Neil (4 April 2024). "Can hot honey pizza save Chicago?". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 18 April 2024. Retrieved 18 April 2024.
  5. ^ Odell, Kat (9 October 2014). "Paulie Gee's Sopressata Honey Hellboy Is the Crack Pie of Pizza". Eater. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  6. ^ Phoon, Mickey (18 April 2023). "Hot Honey-Inspired Sneakers". TrendHunter. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  7. ^ Izzo, Christina (17 August 2023). "Dough, Utz and Mike's Hot Honey collab on a 'sweet heat' doughnut". Time Out. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  8. NBC Chicago. 5 April 2024. Archived
    from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  9. ^ Straughn, Sarah (26 January 2024). "Slideshow: New menu items from Cold Stone, Baskin-Robbins and Hardee's". Food Business News. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  10. ^ Amick, Brian (9 April 2024). "Insomnia Cookies bakes up special collection for 4/20 | Bake Magazine". Bake. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  11. ^ O'Hara, Katy (14 April 2024). "DiGiorno Just Introduced a New First-Of-Its-Kind Pizza". Yahoo!. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  12. ^ "Mike's Hot Honey Launches 80's Inspired Pizza-Themed Arcade Game". Nosh. 18 March 2024. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  13. ^ a b Wiklund, Jordan (1 April 2024). "The Endless Promise of Pizza". The Food Institute. Archived from the original on 21 April 2024. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
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