Merfs Condiments Keeps Quarantine Spicy with “Pandemic Series”

Every industry worldwide saw an immediate impact due to the COVID-19 quarantine, however the food and beverage industry was hit especially hard. With so much changing so quickly and restaurants and bars being forced into to-go and delivery orders only, the business model of dining was flipped on its side. This unfortunately meant that queer-owned local condiment company Merfs Condiments lost 90 percent of their revenue overnight and forced them into survival strategy mode.

Quickly adjusting to a business model of grocery and online retail, Merfs chose to embrace the changes and lean into levity. After just releasing their latest addition of the hot sauces to their product line, the “Pandemic Series” highlights some of the most recent feels we are all experiencing. The four-pack features sauces by the names Stir Crazy Strawberry with habanero, Social Distance serrano with blackberry, Pandemic Peach sriracha, and Bubonic Blueberry with chipotle. In addition to this series, the company released Queen Atticus Special Reserve, a new hot sauce collaboration combining guajillo and rye whiskey with The Family Jones, the Denver spirit house. 

All of these sauces are gorgeously packaged and incredibly tasty; from sweet and spicy to tongue-numbing fire, Merfs has found a new stride in making the best out of a global crisis. Highly recommended is the Queen Atticus collab, this limited edition hot sauce delivers an expertly balanced smokiness and spice that will aliven your taste buds. Aging their popular sauce Dancing Queen for six months in whiskey barrels provided by The Family Jones, Merfs has outdone themselves with this incredible union of flavors. 

Founder Kelly Schexnaildre recently took some time to discuss with OUT FRONT the genesis of Merfs Condiments, the current state of the company, how embracing the spirit of innovation is the saving grace of COVID-19.

How have you and the company been doing since the coronavirus pandemic hit Denver?
We lost 90 percent of our revenue overnight, and it’s not coming back, so all the work I have done over the last six years was for nothing. It really is more of how can we survive this transition? I’m fortunate to be in a business where I have access to multiple revenue channels, and so when the restaurants went away, we pivoted. Failure for me has never been an option, success was the only way out.

How long has Merfs Condiments been in business?
I started it in January 2014, so we’re in the middle of our seventh year, which is hard to believe.

Why did you decide to start a condiment company?
I was 26, I didn’t want to go to graduate school and I didn’t want to wait tables for the rest of my life. I was born and raised in Louisiana and I came to Denver in May of 2010 and I’ve always really liked school but I thought maybe that wasn’t my path. I just love food; I started cooking when I was really tiny and at the time I was thinking about starting a company. I was recreationally making a lot of condiments, a lot of relish and tomato sauce, and I started making some hot sauces and ketchup. I love creatively making condiments for whatever reason, it just really spoke to me.

Your title is CEO and president, but you are still very much in the weeds of the daily operations. What does a typical day look like for you?
Pre COVID or post COVID?

That’s a good point! Let’s talk about pre and then how that changed.
Pre COVID I was really focused on sales and growing the brand, but the first three years I was everybody. I was the sales guy, the production manager, the accountant, the dishwasher, I was everybody. In the last couple years I’ve hired a full-time production staff. Then post COVID, we had to significantly reduce our staff, and so now I’m part production manager, part dishwasher, still doing all the accounting. 

Related article: Can Queer Spaces Survive the Coronavirus?
An Industry- Dismanteld 

There’s not really a lot of sales calls to be made, and even though grocery is doing really well, they’re not doing a lot of category review or looking at any new products, they’re still trying to do stuff like keep toilet paper and tomato paste in stock so they don’t really have time to revamp their shelves. 

Since we have greatly reduced staff and we’ve increased volume on the website, this morning, before talking to you I spent an hour and a half putting packages together and I’m gonna sanitize the kettle when I get off the phone with you. I feel like I’m in my or second year all over again, it’s a little depressing to be honest.

To see the progress you’ve made over those six years and then to feel like you’re back to square one, that must be really frustrating.
It is, it’s really frustrating. We had an incredible amount of forward momentum in 2020 and then COVID came crashing down. Restaurants may come back eventually, but they’re not going to come back in any real meaningful way for a while. Nobody wants to share a bottle of hot sauce on a restaurant table and Governor Polis even went as far as to say restaurants need to switch to single use packaging. I would hesitate to say that the last six years have been a waste but I certainly am feeling a little brokenhearted about the fact that I worked so hard and it disappeared overnight.

How did you come up with the idea of the “Pandemic Series?”
We had a couple of quiet days in the warehouse and was like “Oh shit, we got to make some new sauce and keep everybody interested.” We had a bunch of random ingredients laying around from various sauce projects and things we’ve been trying out and I just thought, “Okay, well, this would be good with this, and this would be good with this, and we don’t have one of these.” That’s my favorite part of the business, honestly, is coming up with new recipes.

Merfs is an all-female led team, can you talk about the significance of that in the food and beverage industry?
I very rarely talk to women in positions of power, anywhere. The food and beverage industry is no exception to that; the people that I come into close contact with day in and day out are men between the ages of 30 and 50. It’s been very interesting to be a young woman, especially a young gay woman that owns the company. I do find that people are mostly really kind to me but the men in this industry are always really surprised that my products are as good as I say they are. They just can’t believe it.

In terms of being a woman led team, it’s really just me and my vice president, Katie (Goodleaf). I wanted somebody under me who I could trust and who I felt would never do anything to undermine my authority and would generally respect me and. I don’t know about your experience, but I’ve very rarely run into men that are respectful towards younger women, even men that are younger than me. Not to say not to say I wouldn’t have hired the right guy if I would have found him, but I didn’t find him, you knowI found Katie first.

Finally, I’m curious who Merf is?
I grew up with basset hounds; my parents had one when I was born, and we continued to have them throughout my childhood and teenage years. My parents currently have one named Murphy, and the company name was not actually my idea was my brother’s idea.

Is there anything else you would like to say or want people to know?
I’ve been thinking about the world and the larger community in light of the protests, in light of Pride, and inequality and social justice. I think a lot about self-love and that the foundation of wellness is an eternal spring of self-love. I think that as long as we commit to loving ourselves, so that we can go out and love each other, then things are going to change.

Photos provided by Merfs Condiments.