Bezi’s Hot Honey Labneh Showcases Power of…

Hot honey, globally inspired. These are just two ways that Bezi is innovating beyond the jar in the dips and spreads space. Bezi’s Hot Honey Labneh is a thick, tangy and creamy Middle Eastern “yogurt cheese” made by straining whey from yogurt until it reaches a rich, spreadable, cream cheese–like consistency. The bold, unexpected format was named a NEXTY Awards finalist for its fresh take on sweet heat and clean label formulation.

We sat down with Bezi co-founder and CEO Ilay Karateke to talk about what inspired the product, how honey plays a central role in building flavor and functionality, and what this recognition means for the future of honey-forward innovation in the natural and specialty foods space.

Congrats on the NEXTY nomination! This all started with a love for cheese?
I’m a cheese enthusiast, and also a honey enthusiast! I was born and raised in Istanbul and came to New York eight years ago with Columbia Business School. I started off as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, and as a part of the program, if you do great, they sponsor a MBA program with a return offer. That’s how my immigration journey started, and during business school I took those two years to explore something I was really passionate about: cheese. I worked at a farm, milking cows and sheep, learning how to make cheese from scratch. It was so funny, because all my friends are like at Goldman Sachs, and I was at the farm.

Toward the second year of business school, I tried making my own healthy cream cheese, but the whole math of that didn’t necessarily make sense to launch a business so I let the idea go. But then I moved to this scale-up, which was delivering groceries in minutes. I helped them launch their business, and it was a very serendipitous moment, because that’s where I met my co-founder. His family has been exporting their cheese here for about 15 years, and I told him, ‘Oh my God, I love cheese.’

We love a globally inspired product. It’s so unique in a category with some prime competition.
Our first conversation about Bezi was two-and-a-half years ago. I wanted Hot Honey Labneh to be made in a way that’s approachable for everyone in the U.S. My dream in the next 10 years is you will buy Bezi from your usual grocery store as part of your weekly shopping trip. I don’t want this to be an ‘occasion product.’ The category is very new, and oftentimes we’re building it as we go, so we wanted to make Labneh in a conscious way of how we launched.

And that all started in New York City?

Yes, through our own distribution. We still have a truck that goes around every two weeks. We sell out now, and we’re everywhere in New York; go to any grocery store and Bezi will be there. We are very lucky because we have won three awards, and we’re in the finals for NEXTY now. It has been an amazing journey for us to be able to build Bezi. We feel like we’re onto something that is exciting and hot. Honey is a big part of that.

Speaking of, let’s talk honey! What led to the Hot Honey SKU?

It was a super conscious decision to have Hot Honey in our line, and I think it has changed our trajectory. It started with playing with red pepper, and I wanted something that was sweet but still had a savory kick that people get excited about. We tried strawberry; we tried cherry; and one day I bought hot honey from a store and tried it. I love the whole concept; it’s such a beautiful product. It has a lot of spicy smells that people are interested in right now. Merging that with something that is savory and beautifully neutral like labneh was fantastic. Also, I think it puts Bezi onto the map of having something you just get from an ethnic grocery store—it’s a part of the culture. Everything labneh says the same message, but I think Hot Honey nailed it. I’m very proud of this SKU honestly.

Did incorporating honey into the labneh present any challenges?
Shelf life was the easiest one because honey preserves everything, so you don’t have a lot of material movement happening when you put honey in. What we have uniquely in our product is honey mixed with vinegar, which there were a lot of questions about acidity of the product and how that will impact shelf life. As it turns out, it wasn’t that risky!

To incorporate honey into the labneh, we built a custom mixing tank near the production line to infuse the honey, chili and vinegar. The first production hiccup was because of the viscosity of the honey and the chili flakes. It was just like a lateral mix. We don’t add any preservatives or gums in the product, and honey is naturally more fluid than labneh, but we figured it out after the first batch.

Tell us more about Turkish pine honey, the varietal in this product.
So, 95% of the world’s pine honey production comes from Turkey. The other one is Greece, and bees forage the pine trees from May to November. This product has an appellation on it, so it is unique in terms of our world of honey. I think that’s very special that it’s always existed in that part of the world. What is special about the taste profile is that it has a sweetness to it that’s more like a bitter, complex sweetness that comes from the pine trees. I call New York my home, but in terms of my cultural background I wanted to get something unique to us and/or flower and this kind of honey gave us that complexity in the product.

Hot honey is, for a lack of a better word, hot right now.
I think hot honey is one of those flavors that, when you slap it on the package, people would be interested. It’s that hot currently. But we also wanted to make it in a way that when you eat it, you’re excited. Of course, there’s that halo effect of hot honey, but we wanted to even wow the customer more when they taste Bezi.

Want to turn culture into concept with honey? Email [email protected] for inspiration.