How do you get onto Hot Ones?

Hey Friends,

I get asked "How do you get onto Hot Ones?" a lot. Sometimes from a customer who is just curious and sometimes from a fellow sauce maker who wants to land one of the coveted spots on the massively successful hit YouTube show.

Truth is, I have no easy answer. There are only 18 spots per year and there are a WHOLE LOT of brands that are vying for them. But I do have a lot of insight into the process.

The Lineup

There are 10 hot sauces in the Hot Ones lineup each season. One is Da Bomb - an extract-based sauce that remains on the show because it's entertaining to watch celebrities be miserable. Three sauces are Hot Ones branded - like Last Dab, Los Calientes, Classic and newer ones like Pickle Garlic Sriracha and Tropical Amarillo. That leaves 6 slots open to craft hot sauce producers.

Heatonist

Heatonist is a hot sauce company based in Brooklyn, NY that curates the hot sauces in the lineup. The final decisions lie with the folks at First We Feast (the company that produces Hot Ones), but Heatonist chooses which sauces to present. They've been in the hot sauce biz about as long as we have and we've been working together practically since the beginning. Back in (roughly) 2015, Heatonist founder Noah Chaimberg reached out to me and asked me to send some samples. I remember that I was still working out all of the legal necessities to sell over state lines, but I didn't tell him that. I just fast tracked those priorities so that my ducks were all in a row by the time the first order came in.

We work with the Heatonist on a lot of projects. I love developing flavor concepts with them. I have a unique perspective on flavor (I taste things in my head) and when I first started working with the Heatonist I hadn't met a lot of folks who I could talk flavor with. So those conversations were always refreshing and invigorating (they still are, but now I also have a staff full of folks that I can talk flavor with).

Besides Hot Ones, we also make Keith's Hot Sauces of Try Guys Fame and Hot Ones Nugget Honey for the Heatonist. We have made an anniversary sauce for them and made sauce for lots of subscription box hot sauces (Mellow Vibes Only recently made a sub box appearance). We're one of about 6 sauce companies who have ongoing contracts with the Heatonist.

We've also copacked Hot Ones sauces for other brands when they have a run on Hot Ones - including Spicy Shark, Alchemy Peppers, Queen Majesty and Shaquanda Will Feed You. We have a reputation for being able to turn around large quantities of on-spec, high quality hot sauces very quickly - which is exactly what's needed for a run on Hot Ones.

Choosing the Lineup

Heatonist gets mailed lots, and lots AND LOTS of hot sauce samples. They get buried in samples. Tip #1 if you want to get on the show - don't send your sauce without talking to someone at the Heatonist first. It WILL get lost in the mix. Reach out to their general contact email address.

The sauces in the lineup need to taste good in succession, so sometimes not getting on the show has nothing to do with quality, but instead it just didn't fit in with the rest of the sauces in the lineup (that has happened to us more than a few times).

The decision process on sauces takes a long time and you likely won't even know that you're in the running unless you get the phone call asking if you'd like to have your hot sauce on the show.

Caveats

If you have a sauce on the show, you have to agree to a period of exclusivity. Heatonist will be the sole seller of that hot sauce during the duration of the show. Which means that if you are already selling the sauce, you have to stop selling the sauce until the season is over. Heatonist sells wholesale, so there will be other stores carrying your sauce, but they have to buy it through Heatonist. For that reason, also expect that Heatonist will pay a lower price for your sauce than you're used to getting. You'll negotiate a rate with them that is closer to (or below) distributor pricing. Know your numbers and what you need to get for the sauce. You don't want to accidentally end up losing money (I've seen it happen to brands and it's not good for anyone).

Production

Heatonist places a set of large orders to cover their sales during the duration of the show. How much they order depends on a variety of factors, but it's usually between about 20,000 and 40,000 bottles. And you have about 5 weeks to ship the first set of 12,000. That means that you have to move FAST to get all of your ingredients and packaging in hand and put that production on the calendar.

If you don't have the capacity to produce that many bottles, you'll need to find a copacker who does. Make sure to find the right copacker, because I have heard Hot-Ones-gone-wrong horror stories of landing the wrong copacker which resulted in expensive product failure and recall. There are a lot of good copackers out there, but you've got to find them. Reaching out to Hot Ones alums to find out who they have worked with might be a good strategy for finding a Hot Ones ready producer. And I'll lay a shameless plug for our own Hot Ones copacking ability right here.

The Season

Thursday at 11am the announcement is finally made and you can finally tell everyone about why you've been so busy for the past two months. Getting on Hot Ones is a thrill and a feather in your cap, but pretty meaningless if you don't do anything with the attention. All Hot Ones does is give you a platform. We've approached all three of our seasons on the show pretty differently and had the most success with our Hot House season. We sent out press releases, called media outlets, sent out free samples and made sure that everyone knew about our moment in the spotlight. We couldn't sell any Hot House, but this gave our brand a ton of attention and it meant that Hot House had the strongest post-season sales of any of our Hot Ones sauces

So, how do you get onto Hot Ones?

I have no magic spell to tell you how a sauce gets on Hot Ones except to keep making excellent sauces and persistently keep reminding the Heatonist that your excellent sauces exist. But if it looks like it might happen, be like a Boy Scout and prepare.

And check out this fantastic Cauliflower Wing recipe that I came across from Love & Lemons. Maple Wood Smoked Onion, Hot House and Taco Vibes would all be excellent for it.

❤️ Claire
BBVT CEO and Founder