Food is something everyone can relate to, mainly because we all need it. Not all food is created equal though. I grew up in a small country town in Michigan. We didn’t have a lot of money, so eating out was a real treat. My parents cooked relatively good food. It wouldn’t wow anyone with the flavor but overall, it was good. Some of my friends weren’t as fortunate. The food some of them had to eat was bland and boring. We didn’t know any better though.

I started becoming curious about making food early in life. Every once and a while I would eat at a restaurant, or someone else’s house, and the food would be outstanding. I wondered why the food we had at home didn’t taste as good. The only problem was we didn’t have the internet, and I never heard of cooking classes so I had no way to learn how to change the food into the delicious creations I would experience. So began my journey of looking for the perfect bite.

Early in my adulthood, I dabbled with cooking. I would follow recipes and came up with some fairly tasty food, but for the most part we ate boring processed food. Eating wrong lead me to gaining a significant amount of weight until I got to 345 pounds. My weight fluctuated for most of my life but, I was around 330 pounds. Eating the wrong foods and too much food kept me overweight for years.

My wife and I enjoyed watching the Biggest Loser. We enjoyed it so much that we purchased their cookbook to see if that would be an option to help me lose weight. The recipes had flavor combinations that I had never tried before. I didn’t like all of them, but it did cause me to dive deeper into flavor combinations. I learned that food didn’t have to be bad for you to have delicious flavor. It was also easier to eat less if you had a lot of flavor. It helped to satisfy me in a different way than just being full. It was also much more satisfying.

As I found more and more flavor combinations, it just increased my passion for food. In my research, I ran across a wonderful condiment called chili oil. It was something I was familiar with because I would enjoy it at Chinese restaurants. I made a batch for myself. The flavor was very intriguing and caused me to dive deeper. I looked into all kinds of recipes. I found several ways to make this wonderful sauce. I decided to make my own version of what I was seeing in videos and online. I wanted to know if I could come up with my own tasty creation. I leaned into some of my past experiences infusing different foods with flavor. Between using my skills and a variety of different recipes, I created something I thought was an extremely unique flavor combination and something that was very versatile to season food with.

I started handing out samples to my friends and family. I was amazed to find that very few of them knew what chili oil or chili crisp was. Almost everyone asked me for more of our chili crisp. We had a range of stories of people eating the whole jar in one sitting to their family and friends asking where they could get more of this magical hot sauce they had just experienced. Because of the overwhelming response, my wife and I decided to take a stab at turning this into a side business. Little did we know what we would be in for.

This dream started 2 years ago. Yes, it took us two years to get to this point. Do you know what it takes to open a food business? Neither did we. Had we known what we needed to do to get where we are, we likely wouldn’t have done this. The amount of knowledge needed for a food business with a shelf stable process is about like any other career, it’s a lot. Good thing we didn’t know that because we likely wouldn’t be where we are. Fortunately for me, my wife was willing to join me on this adventure.

She has been the powerhouse behind getting this business up and running. She doesn’t have a passion for cooking or even spicy food. She does have a passion for her husband though. Between her attention to detail and my business and cooking background, we went to work and started the process of getting licensed to sell our chili crisp.

We spent 9 months formulating our recipe. We would hand out samples to friends and family and keep refining our flavors. Once we found our recipe, we started working with a local university on how to get our product to market. They helped us navigate some of the complexities that come with the food industry. It was very overwhelming for my wonderful wife, but she didn’t let it stop her, and she ultimately got us to where we are today.

Thank you for taking the time to read a little bit of our story. It has been a long journey together, but we did it in an effort to bring you a delicious condiment in your cooking arsenal that will help you take your flavor and spice experience to the next level. We hope that you will try what we worked so hard to create for you. We think it is one of the tastiest and most unique flavor experiences you will find! Please take a moment to look at some of our cooking videos on YouTube to give you some ideas on how you can use this delicious product.

We look forward to hearing from you regarding your ChOil experience!!

Stay hungry!!!