As we await the arrival of our own bottles of Naga Concentrate from Mark, we thought it would be cool to bring you some cool information about the man behind both the Chileman website and the newest Naga sauce making its way to the shores of the U.S.A. even as we write. Besides knowing quite a bit about chiles and making a reportedly wicked hot Naga Sauce, we also know Mark to be a pretty decent fellow. Here’s a little about him….

Tell us a little bit about yourself & your background, and your evolution to become “The Chileman.”

I’m a 33 year old Stockbroker and Chilli fanatic hailing from Darlington, in the North East of England. I started ‘thechileman website‘ for a bit of fun about 18 months ago when I approached a web designed friend to see if he would be interested in putting together a chile pepper information site to help new growers. I’d collected loads of information of peppers and thought it might be interesting to new growers.

Initially we started off with a chile database containing information on 100 or so common varieties and kept adding to it. We also decided to add some guides on how to grow your own peppers, provide information on the types of peppers available etc. We launched the site on 1st March 2006 (i.e 15 months ago) and it has developed a fantastic following.

I definitely think we have created a monster and can honestly say it is now probably the most comprehensive site for chile pepper information anywhere in the world with detailed information on nearly 4000 varieties together with countless growing guides and other fantastic features such as our growing maps. People seem to like it as we now get literally get hundreds of thousands of ‘hits’ a month for all over the world. In fact we have already had visits from 92 different countrys in the first 14 days of May. I never knew chiles were so popular. Amazing!! Its a shame the hosting costs kill me!

Going from a casual grower to a sauce-maker seems to be a linear progression for some people. What has that been like for you?

Going from casual grower to sauce maker has been a lot of fun and a bit of a nightmare at the same time. I never knew how much was involved in bring a sauce to market and I have many many late nights. I just wanted to see my own sauce on 1 shop shelf for a laugh. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect things to explode as they have.

Perfecting a recipe is the easy part. The logistics of finding a reliable bottle supplier, finding out the rules & regulations, designing labels and finding a good co-packer has taken at least 200 hours of my time over the last few months - and thats on top of my day job!!

Where you live (UK) is not exactly known as a mecca for chile peppers. Do people think you’re crazy due to your obsession with peppers, and why?

My home town, Darlington is famous for one thing and one thing only - the birth place of the worlds railways. The first train ‘the Rocket’ ran from Darlington to Stockton almost 2 centuries ago. We have crap weather an no connections to chiles whatsoever - well that was before the chileman came along. Do people thing I’m crazy? The probably do. The local press absolutely love the story of ‘thechileman though and Darlington making its mark on the pepper world’. They have put various pieces in the local press & on TV. I was walking the dog through our local park the other day when a guy came up to me and asked if I was ‘thechileman’. I just looked very embarrased before he sheepishly asked me if he could buy some bottles of my sauce. I even managed to get a free three course Indian meal in my local restaurant when one of the chefs recognised me off the TV and wanted to create a house special ‘Snakebite curry’ I just find it all hilareous!

Whose success in sauce-making would you like to emulate and/or who’s commercially-made hot sauces are your favorite?

I like the way Kato Productions have quietly gone about things which is in direct contrast to Blair and his range of mega death sauces or whatever they are called. I think its great that small ‘Davids’ of this world can give the big ‘Golliaths’ a run for they money.

I made the snakebite sauces for a bit of fun, not to make a million or create a hot sauce to rule the world. I love the story about kato there former Habanero eating dog and the history behind their sauces. They just go to prove that you don’t need to have a massive marketing budget to get yourself known in the sauce world. If you have a fantastic sauce, you don’t need to shout about it as word soon gets around.

You wouldn’t be surprised to know that Katos Island and Meaner Greener sauces are amongst my favorites. I also love the Jamaican Red Hot Jam produced by a small UK company - chillis galore as well as ChilliPepperpetes ‘Hellish Relish’. Im also looking forward to my friends Allen Boatmans new sauce Jailhouse rock which is made by the prisoners at the jail where he works.

With its withering and undeniable heat, who is your target demographic for your sauces, and how have you used them best?

To be honest I don’t really have a ‘target market’. Having a day job, I just haven’t had the time to develop a marketing plan to make me a million, I just wanted to get a sauce on the market for my friends to try. Its completely different to the 1000’s already out their as the fruity flavour of the Naga is unique, not to mention the searing heat. However you don’t need to be a hot sauce fanatic to enjoy this sauce (but it helps). Many of my friends use just a tiny amount to add to a bland curry to turn a mild korma into something more interesting I also find that the sauce gets better with age as the flavours mature as the sauce slowly ferments.

Will these Naga sauces be the habanero sauces of the new millenium, or do you see another pepper supplanting the Naga as the hottest pepper and then sauces of that pepper to follow?

The Naga is here to stay, indeed it has already been around for centuries. However it won’t kill off the habanero as they are total different peppers. It’s like saying the launch of Coca Cola spelled the death knell for orange juice. The worlds hottest thing just makes me laugh. There seems to be so much commercialism and dollars been invested into staking ones claim as to theirs is the worlds hottest peppers - who cares!! I don’t think you need an entry in the Guinness book of Records to sell a product. Unfortunately there are always people who just see the $$$. and its only a matter of time before a large commercial sauce company with more $ and time than I bring out a rival product although they don’t have my secret recipe ;-).

I find it amazing that most of the chile world had never heard of the Naga before thechileman website brought it to everyones attention in 2006. Prior to that, the pepper worlds biggest secret was only know to thechileman and about 100 million bangladeshis!

Lastly, do you have a plan of what you’ll do if these sauces are a huge commercial success?

Give up the day job, treat myself to a bigger greenhouse and make some more sauces!!

If you think you might like some of these products for your very own consumption, enjoyment, or even pain, visit www.thechileman.org to purchase the full range of Naga Snakebite Sauces. You won’t be disappointed!

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI