Sriracha subscription business is hot
Chandler Tanner and Brady Mower pose for a portrait on Thursday, May 21, 2015. The two are the co-founders of the Sriracha Box, a monthly subscription box of Sriracha products. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Chandler Tanner and Brady Mower pose for a portrait on Thursday, May 21, 2015. The two are the co-founders of the Sriracha Box, a monthly subscription box of Sriracha products. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Chandler Tanner and Brady Mower pose for a portrait on Thursday, May 21, 2015. The two are the co-founders of the Sriracha Box, a monthly subscription box of Sriracha products. SAMMY JO HESTER, The Daily Herald
Sriracha has caught mouths on fire lately, and tongues are wagging about it.
It’s officially pronounced “See-Rah-Cha,” though most people say it “Ser-Ah-Cha.” Either way, sriracha is a spicy hot sauce primarily found only in Vietnamese and Thai restaurants until just a few years ago. Now the original sauce, manufactured by Huy Fong Foods, is available on most grocery store shelves, and has a bit of its own cult following.
Local Utah Valley entrepreneurs Chandler Tanner and Brady Mower are sriracha lovers, and recently started a unique subscription sriracha supply company to reach sriracha fans around the U.S. Their business, Sriracha Box, curates and supplies sriracha buffs with a monthly shipment of sriracha goodness.
“There are so many sriracha-related items out there, but you have to go to specialty stores all over here and there to get them. We’ve put it all in one place,” Mower said.
Their first box will be shipped to subscribers around the U.S. in early June and will include the original Huy Fong Foods sauce, known by fans as “Rooster Sauce,” because of the large rooster emblazoned on every bottle. Subscribers will also get a bottle of sriracha mayo by Kikkoman, some sriracha beef jerky by Country Archer, and two rooster stickers.
Sriracha Box plans to get subscribers their monthly sriracha fix for $19.95 each month. Every monthly box will include some sauce varieties and sriracha-related novelty items.
Before opening the business, Tanner and Mower spent months researching the many different sriracha food products and novelty items people mentioned on their Twitter and Facebook pages. In addition to the original sauce, they found other flavored sauce varieties, condiments and food items spiced with sriracha, t-shirts, stickers, and even keychain bottles.
“The keychain bottles are so they won’t ever be without their sriracha no matter where they are,” Tanner said with a laugh. “We even found a sriracha flavored donut. We can’t ship that, but if we can find an option like it, we will.”
Tanner and Mower have primarily done their marketing for their business through social media. They connect with people via Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, joining the conversation whenever people are talking about sriracha. Which apparently, is a lot.
“The cool thing about sriracha people is they are fanatical about it. They’re really passionate about it, and they talk about it,” Mower said. “One guy tweets regularly about all the foods he puts sriracha on.”
Inspired by the 2013 documentary film on David Tran, the man behind the Huy Fong Foods sauce, they also reached out sriracha manufacturers and cookbook authors. They hope to develop into a distributor for many individuals offering sriracha products.
“We can get their product in front of the consumers who want it,” Mower said. “We could be a really good channel for them to reach their customers.”
Tanner and Mower met almost a decade ago as business school students at Brigham Young University. The friends went through the business program together, bouncing business ideas of each other. After graduation, though, they went their separate ways — Mower to a business startup abroad, and Tanner to New York City. When they both ended up back in Utah in 2014, they reconnected, and decided to go into business together.
“Our passion is using business to solve problems,” Tanner said.
“We both have a desire to create and build businesses,” Mower said. “It’s fun to build things and give consumers the best thing we can.”
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