ANN ARBOR, MI - It started out as your average Taco Tuesday night: Four college students at the University of Michigan, living in a house together, making dinner and discussing the essential condiment of any great Mexican meal - the hot sauce.
One thing led to another, and BAM, Bombanana was created.
That was more a little more than a year ago. And it took months of research to create a business. But that’s basically how the banana-based hot sauce Bombanana came into being.
“It’s college, and everyone eats a lot of hot sauce because it’s cheap, and it can improve flavor,” said Bombanana CEO and co-founder Jared Schacter, a Manhattan, New York native who at the time was writing his senior thesis on the history of fine dining.
“But it really bothered me because I felt there wasn’t a big hot sauce that spoke to the values and flavors that I wanted, especially in the depth of flavor.”
To him, a lot of mass produced hot sauces, and even some of the craft ones, actually masked flavors and detracted from your dining experience.
It didn’t “enhance your meal,” he said.
That’s when he decided to experiment.
He was a fan of “The Flavor Matrix,” a book about using artificial intelligence to combine flavor pairings. In the book it talked about capsaicin, which gives hot peppers their kick, and mixing it with bananas.
“I also knew the processed sugar element of hot sauce, and how much processed sugar was in hot sauces, and that was kind of my Eureka moment,” said Schacter, who with his friends graduated in the Spring of 2020.
The science on Bombanana makes sense, said Jenn Fillenworth, a registered dietitian, executive chef and adjunct nutrition instructor at the Secchia Institute for Culinary Education in Grand Rapids.
“Using bananas as a sweetener is brilliant,” she said in a recent interview with MLive.
“We’ve seen it before as a replacement in baking, but introducing bananas to savory applications brings it to the next level. Bananas have an excellent natural sweetness, but also a slight acidity to help round out spice from the chilies. I can’t help but think how well-balanced the flavor profile will be.”
She added: “This hot sauce will also be excellent for those looking to avoid refined sugars, which can be common in many other hot sauce options.”
In their research, Schacter said they did not find many hot sauces on the national market using bananas the way they envisioned it. The ones they found used banana base for flavoring.
“We use banana base because of the properties of bananas, and how we are able to manipulate those properties in the culinary process to make a more depth of flavor, to make something with no processed sugars, to make something that really combines sweetness with heat,” Schacter said.
“Our sauces don’t taste like someone just peeled a banana,” he added.
Currently Bombanana is in four states: Michigan, Illinois, New York and New Jersey, and in more than 30 select grocers, Schacter said.
The sauces include:
Original flavor, which combines assorted chilis, bananas and other spices “into a delicious fusion of sweet and heat,” Schacter said.
And Muy Muy, which he said is “a spicy and robust sauce with more emphasis on chilis for those seeking extra heat.”
A new verde sauce is in the works, too.
Each retail for $7.99.
Bombanana is a banana-based hot sauce started by four recent University of Michigan graduates.Victor Isaac Alvarez/Provided by Bombana with permission
As for those friends, they’re all involved in Bombanana, which makes sense since they formed such a tight bond living on Greenwood Avenue.
Schacter said Grant Dukus (electrical engineer from Trenton, Michigan), Jonny Moss (business major/data insights from Chicago) and Kevin Bhattacharyya (business/financial skills from New Jersey) were more than just roommates splitting rent. They never put names on who owned what in the refrigerator.
They shared a passion for food, flavors and spice, and each took turns cooking at the house. Eventually they combined their backgrounds in hospitality, engineering and business to launch Bombanana.
Hot sauce made sense, Schacter said, especially since they couldn’t open their own fine dining restaurant like the ones he was writing about for his thesis.
“You have all this energy, and you have all this passion and knowledge, and you are able to produce a product,” said Schacter, who tested it among friends on campus and family members.
The feedback?
“The sauce is legit, the sauce is delicious. Everyone really loves the sauce. At that point it was, ‘Ok, let’s make a business out of this and scale it up,” Schacter said.
How did he do on his thesis?
“High honors,” he said.
Order the hot sauce online and learn more at seekthespice.com.
Bombanana is bottled strictly in glass and not plastic, and is shipped using 100 percent post-consumer recycled materials.
You can find it at these Michigan stores:
Alan D Liquor/Bistro, Rochester Hills
Diamond Dot Party Store, Clinton Township
Eatori Market, Detroit
Ferndale Foods, Ferndale
Fresh Approach, Royal Oak
Kutchey Family Market, Warren
Michaels Liquor Store, Clawson
Pairs Food Store, Oak Park
The Produce Station, Ann Arbor
Vineyard Market, Shelby Charter Township
Bombanana is a banana-based hot sauce started by four recent University of Michigan graduates.Victor Isaac Alvarez/Provided by Bombana with permission
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