Spiceology Shakes Up The D2C Status Quo

It’s said that variety is the spice of life. At Spiceology, they want spices to have variety. The seven-year-old D2C hybrid brand has just received $4.7 million in funding and is on a mission to get chefs and consumers to experiment with flavor, as home cooking is in vogue and restaurants are starting to come back from the pandemic.

“We’ve all been that person who, when asked to go pick up some cumin or chili powder or something simple, goes to the supermarket spice aisle and feels like they’re never getting out alive,” CEO Chip Overstreet told PYMNTS. “There’s either too many spices to choose from, or not enough of a selection to really experiment. Spiceology aims to fix both problems.”

Overstreet’s Spiceology journey has been a bit more immersive. In 2017, he met chef Pete Taylor and food blogger Heather Scholten, who had already started Spiceology. They were both frustrated with several things about their craft in general and spices in particular. First, they felt that consumers were undereducated on the science and proper usage of spices. In fact, one of Spiceology’s most exemplary pieces of collateral is a periodic table of spices, which adds some fun and novelty to the simple salt-and-pepper routine. Their second frustration was that spice blends were either too hard to find or impossible to create at any kind of scale.

“Here’s an example: Once Pete cooked a meal in his restaurant with a habanero honey spice rub,” said Overstreet. “Everyone in the restaurant who ate it loved it. Some even asked how they could make it at home. Pete knew he couldn’t very well show people how to make spice out of honey, but he knew how to do it: You take some smoked paprika, a little bit of jalapeno and some honey granules.”

As Overstreet noted, it’s easier served than done. When the pair wanted to start a company, Overstreet wrote the first check, joined the board and eventually helped attract $4.7 million in funding. To provide perspective on how difficult it is to scale a spice supply company, Spiceology employees (all based in the U.S. to guarantee freshness) will pack about 500,000 packages during the month of October. Some of the money raised by Overstreet and his team will be used to automate that process. The problem for Spiceology has been simply too much demand – and the funding will help it scale without losing any of the quality of the spices.

One of the missions under “experiment with flavor” is to educate the consumer about how spices are farmed, harvested and blended.

“The bigger companies are all about finding the lowest possible cost for grinding spices in countries like Vietnam or Sri Lanka,” said Overstreet. “And they’re starting with lower quality spices if they’re grinding them overseas. With all that lag time, the difference in quality is pretty remarkable. With our products, there is a focus on quality that you just don’t get from bigger companies. The opportunity lies in bringing quality to market at scale. There are about 10,000 little spice companies in America, and none of them have a problem with finding and packaging quality spices – but doing it at scale is unique.”

What also makes Spiceology unique are the blends. Because of the founder’s expertise and innovative spirit, the company’s products are all different, from the packaging right down to the names. Instead of a generic three-ounce cylinder that’s found in the local spice aisle, Spiceology comes in two versions. The first is a play on the periodic table concept. For example, Smoky Honey Habanero comes in a glass jar with the chemical-like symbol Hb. The Cherry Chipotle Ale Rub comes in a black beer can with red letters marked Cc.

Spiceology has two audiences: chefs and consumers. Both demanded different marketing approaches as the pandemic hit. To reach chefs, the company had marketed to the foodservice business and restaurants. But after March and early April, when the pandemic proved to be a disabling factor to the restaurant business, the company pulled back on that segment and instead asked its partners to help launch a charity site called HelpChefs.com to provide funding and advice for out-of-work or furloughed foodservice professionals. The consumer side of the company’s D2C business has “blown up,” according to Overstreet.

Consumer marketing has stayed on the track of working with celebrity chefs such as Isaac Toups, DJ BBQ and Christie Vanover. But not everything is on the “big food and BBQ” agenda. The company has just started to enter the wellness space, partnering with the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) to create salt-free spices and salt-free recipes. Overstreet also noted that the company is currently working with the NKF to assemble the recipes into an eBook, and they are also available on the Spiceology site.

“We’re able to connect with a pretty sizable grocery consumer audience, just by virtue of the fact that we’ve focused on chefs as the new rock stars,” Overstreet said. “They’re the new pro athletes. These days, kids grow up watching the Food Network, Bravo, Netflix and Top Chef, and they want to be chefs when they grow up.”