How Mike’s Hot Honey built a $40 million a year business

Mike Kurtz doesn’t like to travel without his briefcase. 

The crimson Franzen case is the same model as the iconic briefcase from Quentin Tarantino’s film “Pulp Fiction”. But unlike in the 1994 film, everyone knows exactly what’s inside. 

That’s because Kurtz is eager to show off how he had the suitcase wired to light up just like in the movie, with the built-in bulbs illuminating the amber hue of bottles of hot honey that bear his name. 

Indeed, the reason Kurtz brings the suitcase with him while he travels is so that he can spread the gospel of Mike’s Hot Honey, the spicy honey that has taken pizzerias by storm.

He loads the briefcase up with five 12-ounce bottles before every trip. Kurtz likes to give a bottle to the taxi driver who takes him to the airport, and then hands out a few to the check-in agents who handle his bags. By the time he gets to the security line, his briefcase is empty. 

Kurtz likes to give out bottles of honey from his “Pulp Fiction” inspired briefcase.

Raffi Paul, Mickey Todiwala | CNBC Make It

“I think there’s something about briefcases. You don’t see them around too often,” Kurtz says of his favorite marketing prop. “So whenever you do, there’s this subliminal message sent out to the people around you that whatever’s in the briefcase is of value. It’s gotta be important if you’re carrying it in a briefcase, right?”

Even now, nearly 20 years after he first started experimenting with making hot honey in his college apartment, Kurtz has an obvious passion for the product. And it’s his enthusiasm that inadvertently spawned a business that has captured a 2.5% share of the $1 billion U.S. honey market.

Here’s how Kurtz built up Mike’s Hot Honey from just a hobby into a company poised to bring in more than $40 million over the next year.

‘You know what? This might be the life for me’

A college-aged Kurtz in Brazil, where he found the inspiration for Mike’s Hot Honey.

Mike’s Hot Honey

From an early age, Kurtz had a desire to be a “condiment man.” He had a chance run-in with Larry Raymond, co-creator of the popular Sweet Baby Ray’s barbeque sauce, during his freshman year of college. The interaction, he says, left him feeling inspired. 

“I realized that condiments truly elevate food,” Kurtz tells CNBC

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How Green for Life’s CEO built a garbage empire

If Patrick Dovigi, one of Canada’s wealthiest people, cowered in the face of risk, his life would be far different.

He would not have ventured far from his hometown of Sault Ste. Marie at age 14 to chase a professional hockey career, or left a job in investment banking at just 27 to start a garbage-pickup enterprise. And he certainly would not have bought out an astronomical 220 companies en route to building Green For Life Environmental, now ranked by some measures as the fourth-largest waste management operation in North America.

The 43-year-old’s life has been punctuated by a series of big-time gambles that would make even the hardest of poker players wince; perhaps the largest of all was taking on more than $9 billion in debt to run a company responsible for much of Canada’s garbage and environmental services. But where the less-assured see the prospect of failure, Dovigi sees the potential for success.

On the balance sheets of Dovigi’s Toronto-based behemoth company, which operates in all 10 provinces and 26 states, that upside is a market capitalization of approximately $17 billion.

It’s also an estimated personal net worth of more than $1 billion, a private island in Muskoka near lake Joseph that he accesses via seaplane, and, until it was recently sold, a 75-metre yacht called Lady Jorgia that was named after his youngest of five children and was valued at approximately $90 million.

In 15 years of business, focusing on growth instead of balking at risk has clearly worked for GFL’s CEO and president.

Today he focuses more on what he’s chasing — recently, an aggressive foray into recycling technologies — rather than what might be chasing him: company debt levels that are more than double the industry average at a time when rates are as high as they have been in GFL’s lifetime. And yet the looming threat of a recession does not appear to faze GFL’s leader.

“I don’t have fear, generally,” said Dovigi, sitting in his home in Florida, where four of his children have been attending school since the pandemic. “If you decide wrong, you learn. And that’s better than standing still and not making a decision at all — my parents instilled that in me.”

Dovigi, the son of Italian immigrants, credits his fearlessness to long hours spent blocking pucks hurled at him by his father, Fred, on the family outdoor rink

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How Luxury Department Store Harrods Built A Booming Restaurant Business

Dining is not the first thing that comes to mind when consumers think of Harrods—despite its retail Food Halls being internationally famous. As one of the world’s top destinations for luxury, showcasing over 3,000 brands, the department store in Knightsbridge, London maintains a high-fashion image based on exclusivity and tailored service.

Even the retailer’s website is shy about the 26-strong restaurant and bar offer—you have to hunt around at the bottom to find the details. Yet eating and drinking in-store has blossomed to the extent that towards the end of last year it was trading 44% higher than it was pre-Covid, and transaction values were also 47% up on 2019. More widely, Harrods turned a profit again in the last financial year for which figures are available.

The latest addition to the roster of dining venues—which features fêted names like Jason Atherton, Vineet Bhatia, Tom Kerridge, Angelo Musa, Gordon Ramsay, and Em Sherif—arrived at the end of 2022. Studio Frantzén, brought another Michelin-starred chef to the store, this time from Sweden.

Björn Frantzén’s à la carte restaurant, with a signature Asian-influenced take on Nordic cuisine, is literally the pinnacle of Harrod’s dining experiences because it is found at the very top of the department store’s building on two floors, plus an outdoor terrace. The latter is claimed to be the only rooftop terrace in Knightsbridge and Mayfair, two of London’s most desirable districts. As well as being a choice for foodies, the 150-seat Studio Frantzén is open late and has a buzzy vibe with two bars, one of which offers sweeping views.

Data-led gains

So what is the attraction of having so many eating and drinking spots in the store? I had the chance to catch up with Harrods’ director of restaurants and kitchens, Ashley Saxton, to find out how food and beverage (F&B) is fast becoming a revenue driver and a cornerstone of the business.

“Our research has found that when customers engage with our restaurants they also engage more often with the store. They spend twice as long in the building and spend twice as much money,” he said.

That insight alone has given Saxton quite a bit of freedom

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