Mike's Hot Honey Uses Menu Data to Unlock Pizzeria White Space

First Bite’s pre-loaded operator database, outbound campaign tools and nationwide menu intelligence give Mike’s Hot Honey a scalable way to grow foodservice sales. 

About Mike's Hot Honey: Born in a Brooklyn pizzeria, Mike’s Hot Honey is the original hot honey brand that transformed from a pizza condiment into a menu staple across independent restaurants and national chains.

The Foodservice Prospecting Problem

Foodservice prospecting has never been easy. For Mike’s Hot Honey, it was the single biggest thing standing between the team and its next phase of growth. Identifying the right restaurants, finding the right contact at each one, and getting samples into their hands had always been a painfully manual process.

The team built a national footprint through regional distributors like Ace Endico and DOT Foods to make the product available across the country. But scaling prospecting to match that distribution footprint was a different problem entirely. 

They needed a way to stop hunting for contacts one Google search at a time and start running outreach at the scale the brand had already earned. Enter, First Bite.

“When we learned about First Bite and the fact that there was a database of restaurants already available for us to search and filter, that was already enticing. But then the fact that First Bite also does the work to find contacts for you — that was what convinced my sales team that this was a tool we were all going to benefit from.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

Finding Foodservice White Space with Menu Data

In a country of more than a million restaurants, finding the operators who don’t already have Mike’s on the menu was nearly impossible to do by hand. By using First Bite’s menu data, that white space was no longer invisible. 

Because Mike’s Hot Honey is often branded on menu, the team uses First Bite to see exactly where the product is showing up in the US, and where it isn’t.

The team builds white space opportunity lists by using First Bite’s filtering tools to uncover operators who already feature Mike’s Hot Honey by name and those carrying any other version of hot honey. What's left is a clean list of qualified prospects they haven’t reached yet.

“A lot of these are people that aren’t necessarily going to the food shows. They’re operators that we weren’t likely to hit through many of our other tactics. So it’s really allowed us to reach more people and a different audience.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

A Targeted Pizza Campaign That Closed an 87-Location Chain

With white space unlocked, Mike’s Hot Honey could further filter then run campaigns to segments of different sizes, locations and fits. 

One campaign targeted chain pizzerias with 25–499 locations. The campaign produced an open and response rate above 30% — well beyond typical cold outreach benchmarks of 2-3%. From there, their team fulfilled samples, ran product through R&D, and pursued menu placement or LTOs.

“We confirmed a couple of placements in different pizzeria chains. And one of them was an 87 location pizza chain that we'd been trying to reach for years and finally came on board. So for us, it was a big win. And we still see results continuing to trickle in from that campaign.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

By pairing First Bite's menu data with a tightly defined target and a strong hook, Mike's Hot Honey now has a repeatable playbook for cracking pizza accounts that had previously felt elusive. 

Quarterly Reporting on Menu Penetration

First Bite’s monthly data refresh and tagging system have also given Mike’s Hot Honey something the team has never had before: a reliable, quarter-over-quarter view of actual menu penetration across the country. 

Each quarter, the team runs the “Mike’s Hot Honey on menu” filter, tags the operators that appear, and compares against the previous quarter to see who’s been added and who has fallen off.

“Distributors are not particularly transparent with their data. This has really opened our eyes to identifying our customers, identifying our true penetration into pizzerias and restaurants. It’s been hugely beneficial to the team to be able to track our growth in a way that we couldn’t before.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

For a brand whose sales flow predominantly through distributors, that single capability has collapsed a massive blind spot and gives the sales team a shared source of truth for growth conversations internally.

From Foodservice Prospecting Tool to Growth Management Platform

Mike’s Hot Honey originally signed up with First Bite to run campaigns and scale sample requests. But as adoption deepened, the team is discovering a bigger opportunity to use First Bite as the system of record for every operator relationship the brand touches.

“Where I think in the long term we’re going to find even more value from First Bite is in customer relationship management — using it as a CRM. Mike’s Hot Honey is trying to build and penetrate and be an active part of the pizzeria community. It’s not just making a sale, it’s staying in touch with that operator, supporting them with signage and marketing materials, and continuing to upsell and build those relationships. I’m really excited — I think there’s a whole new world of outreach ahead.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

Mike’s Hot Honey is already thinking about how First Bite fits into the next stage of the business, using the platform for tradeshow follow up and campaign tagging to power ongoing nurture programs for operators well beyond the initial sample request.

“So many things First Bite offers are just so intuitive. For years, I think we’ve all been wondering, ‘Why can’t this be easier?’ First Bite’s awesome and has given us a lot of great solutions.” — Michelle Lane, VP of Foodservice Sales & Customer Marketing, Mike’s Hot Honey

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