About Screaming Chimp Chilli Sauces
“All Aboard The Chimp Train to Heatsville”
Serendipity is a wonderful thing.
Hello Chimpion's of the world. This is the story of how we came to be.
Making Screaming Chimp Chilli sauces is my 43rd job since leaving school in 1990. I’ve done everything from silk screen printing to cooking, running pubs, to rave dancing in the 1990’s. I’ve bottled wine and been a window cleaner, done warehouse work, stage lighting and marquee erecting.
In 2015 when I wanted to take my own life due to suffering from depression, I needed help. My friend Paul kindly gave me some of his chilli seedlings and said, "Grow them mate, they may take your mind off things!"
A couple of months later my sister, Emily, asked me to make a "Man Vs Food" challenge sauce for a chicken wing eating competition she wanted to do at university for charity, so I made a sauce that was 40% chilli and called it "Mouth Fucka" (as that's what it had just done to me!) I also thought that would be a great pull for the "Man Vs Food" challenge, with all the bravado at uni. A scaled back version of this is now the "Original Hot sauce".
In October 2015, the 'Screaming Chimp' name was born when some friends Kelly and Keith asked us to visit them in Nerja, Spain and said "bring some of that sauce you've been talking about". After tasting it, they said; "This is wicked! This is what you should do with your life - make sauce! But you can’t call it that mate.”
I LOVED the idea, but I could not think of what to call it and as Mrs Chimp is short and I am curly, I briefly imagined the two of us on the label with it called "Short and Curly's Hot Sauce", but lets face it...no one is wanting short and curlys on their dinner ha ha ha.
However, that serendipitous moment came along when I was teaching Kelly and Keith's children how to blow on a blade of grass between two thumbs to make that strange noise, we all know! I shouted, "That sounds like a screaming chimp!" That was when I knew SCREAMING CHIMP would be the name for my chilli sauce.
That afternoon, we went to a Brazilian restaurant in Nerja where I came up with the Pineapple sauce, to appear after Mrs Chimp told me that pineapple aids digestion and makes a great marinade as it has enzymes which break down protein in it, plus the Malaga area is world renowned for growing mango, papaya, bell peppers, so the Mango and Papaya sauce was my ode to the day we cam up with the Screaming Chimp name.
We bought the domain name's sat there at the dinner table, then trademarked "Screaming Chimp" on our return to England, only to receive the certificate on my Birthday in February 2016.
We launched in June 2016 and became a limited company a month later in July 2016.
In 2017 we gained two Great taste awards from the Guild of fine food, shipped to our first Chimpions in Australia and U.S.A, we listed on the Slimming World database of products and were stocked in Fenwick food hall, which is the Harrods of the Northeast of England.
In 2018 we won 25% of the U.K. Chilli Sauce Awards. We also attended our 1st trade show, where we were picked up by Kew Gardens. 2018 also saw us on the curriculum for Newcastle College as the advertising module of their media course.
Three of the students also made a short documentary on Screaming Chimp, which they got a distinction for.
Our story has been told by myself in prisons to help with the stigma that either society, or we ourselves attach and let people know they aren’t on their own when it comes to depression and the struggles of starting a new business once either leaving prison or the prison of your own mind.
2018 also saw us making a bespoke sauce for an award winning music producer Zed Bias for his album release in that year.
In 2019 at The Speciality Fine Food Fayre, our Chimpotle sauce was used in the making of Bloody Mary cocktails by the Mixology Group at the bar which got lots of interest in our products. We also supplied Dough and Brew in Warwick, whom were voted as England’s best pizza restaurant.
Sauces have been posted across the planet with many happy Chimpions from here to Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A., Hong Kong, Canada and all across Europe.
After making and selling over 40,000 bottles in our first 4 years all from our kitchen at home from a 20 litre pan I bought from Costco, which wrecked my neck, back and shoulders, 2019 saw us outsource my original 7 recipes to another U.K. company. We used to purchase most of our chillies from these guys and we wanted to grow, plus we were trying for a child and realised we couldn't have pepper spray in the house with a new born baby, so that seemed like a natural progression for us. They had more of an infrastructure to deal with larger orders than we could at that time.
However this also gave me space to be more creative coming up with new and previously untried ideas, so I still make 15 of our products and all new inventions and product development come from my head as usual.
So now we have 22 food products....some of which are interjected at different points in the year as limited edition products, also when foods are naturally in season.
We also have t-shirts, hoodies, aprons, keyrings, hot sauces holsters and mugs and I'm sure there'll be more as time goes on.
2020 was a strange time for everyone. The vast majority of our events were cancelled due to lockdowns or bad weather. This pushed our sales online and we would like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who bought from the website and supported us. Without our Chimpion's we would not have survived the lockdowns.
We were featured in the March 2020 edition of the BBC Good Food Magazine. We also picked up stockists in Belgium, Netherlands and Australia, and are looking to export to other countries to further the growth of the company.
July 2020 saw Baby Chimp being born which has been the most amazing experience and steep learning curve being new parents. However he did take our focus away from Screaming Chimp temporarily (as expected), although we were quickly back on track.
2021 saw a couple of great new stockists coming aboard the Chimp Train to Heatsville and talking with overseas companies about exporting, plus a couple of new limited edition products being launched. We also gained a Great Taste Award from the Guild of Fine Food for our Chimpotle Sauce.
2022, We now put 50% more sauce in a new 150ml bottle and in August we gained another Great Taste Award from The Guild Of Fine food. This time it was for our "Chimpion Chilli Oil".
We won "Best Condiment Brand" of the North Of England with the Prestige Series Awards for 2022/23.
Also in 2022 we had our first foray into supplying a multiple with sending the first 1000 units to Jones The Grocer in the U.A.E. and we gained our first stockist in America.
2023 Saw us being stocked in the first store in Paris, France.
We won "Condiment Brand Of The Year" For the North of England for the second year running with the Prestige Series Awards for 2024.
In March of 2024, we were amongst the first cohort of producers from County Durham to be invited to the Houses of Parliament in Parliamentary history to showcase just some of what County Durham has to offer the world in terms of food. The event was called "A Canny Taste Of County Durham".
April 2024 we got the confirmation of our U.S.A trademark, as we would love our Chimpions across the pond to be able to walk into a shop and purchase, so watch this space.
October 2024 We are stocked back in Fenwick Food Hall after a 5 year hiatus which we are so proud of, as we class Fenwick as the Harrods of the Northeast.
We've also started sending out news letters with discounts inside, so keep your eyes peeled and if you've not signed up yet, please do so you benefit from those discounts within the news letter.
We’d love our Troop of Chimp's to swing on as many branches as they can the world over, so are now looking to expand our supply of Natural, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegan and vegetarian friendly Screaming Chimp Chilli Sauces into different markets.
Just remember to Keep on Chimpin' and Scream If You Wanna Go Hotter
#Keeponchimpin and #Screamifyouwannagohotter
p.s. I will say this though.
If it wasn’t for the support of Mrs Chimp, I’d not be here and neither would Chimp, so you all have Vicky to thank for unleashing Mr Chimp on the world hahahaha!
Serendipity is a wonderful thing.
Hello Chimpion's of the world. This is the story of how we came to be.
Making Screaming Chimp Chilli sauces is my 43rd job since leaving school in 1990. I’ve done everything from silk screen printing to cooking, running pubs, to rave dancing in the 1990’s. I’ve bottled wine and been a window cleaner, done warehouse work, stage lighting and marquee erecting.
In 2015 when I wanted to take my own life due to suffering from depression, I needed help. My friend Paul kindly gave me some of his chilli seedlings and said, "Grow them mate, they may take your mind off things!"
A couple of months later my sister, Emily, asked me to make a "Man Vs Food" challenge sauce for a chicken wing eating competition she wanted to do at university for charity, so I made a sauce that was 40% chilli and called it "Mouth Fucka" (as that's what it had just done to me!) I also thought that would be a great pull for the "Man Vs Food" challenge, with all the bravado at uni. A scaled back version of this is now the "Original Hot sauce".
In October 2015, the 'Screaming Chimp' name was born when some friends Kelly and Keith asked us to visit them in Nerja, Spain and said "bring some of that sauce you've been talking about". After tasting it, they said; "This is wicked! This is what you should do with your life - make sauce! But you can’t call it that mate.”
I LOVED the idea, but I could not think of what to call it and as Mrs Chimp is short and I am curly, I briefly imagined the two of us on the label with it called "Short and Curly's Hot Sauce", but lets face it...no one is wanting short and curlys on their dinner ha ha ha.
However, that serendipitous moment came along when I was teaching Kelly and Keith's children how to blow on a blade of grass between two thumbs to make that strange noise, we all know! I shouted, "That sounds like a screaming chimp!" That was when I knew SCREAMING CHIMP would be the name for my chilli sauce.
That afternoon, we went to a Brazilian restaurant in Nerja where I came up with the Pineapple sauce, to appear after Mrs Chimp told me that pineapple aids digestion and makes a great marinade as it has enzymes which break down protein in it, plus the Malaga area is world renowned for growing mango, papaya, bell peppers, so the Mango and Papaya sauce was my ode to the day we cam up with the Screaming Chimp name.
We bought the domain name's sat there at the dinner table, then trademarked "Screaming Chimp" on our return to England, only to receive the certificate on my Birthday in February 2016.
We launched in June 2016 and became a limited company a month later in July 2016.
In 2017 we gained two Great taste awards from the Guild of fine food, shipped to our first Chimpions in Australia and U.S.A, we listed on the Slimming World database of products and were stocked in Fenwick food hall, which is the Harrods of the Northeast of England.
In 2018 we won 25% of the U.K. Chilli Sauce Awards. We also attended our 1st trade show, where we were picked up by Kew Gardens. 2018 also saw us on the curriculum for Newcastle College as the advertising module of their media course.
Three of the students also made a short documentary on Screaming Chimp, which they got a distinction for.
Our story has been told by myself in prisons to help with the stigma that either society, or we ourselves attach and let people know they aren’t on their own when it comes to depression and the struggles of starting a new business once either leaving prison or the prison of your own mind.
2018 also saw us making a bespoke sauce for an award winning music producer Zed Bias for his album release in that year.
In 2019 at The Speciality Fine Food Fayre, our Chimpotle sauce was used in the making of Bloody Mary cocktails by the Mixology Group at the bar which got lots of interest in our products. We also supplied Dough and Brew in Warwick, whom were voted as England’s best pizza restaurant.
Sauces have been posted across the planet with many happy Chimpions from here to Australia, New Zealand, U.S.A., Hong Kong, Canada and all across Europe.
After making and selling over 40,000 bottles in our first 4 years all from our kitchen at home from a 20 litre pan I bought from Costco, which wrecked my neck, back and shoulders, 2019 saw us outsource my original 7 recipes to another U.K. company. We used to purchase most of our chillies from these guys and we wanted to grow, plus we were trying for a child and realised we couldn't have pepper spray in the house with a new born baby, so that seemed like a natural progression for us. They had more of an infrastructure to deal with larger orders than we could at that time.
However this also gave me space to be more creative coming up with new and previously untried ideas, so I still make 15 of our products and all new inventions and product development come from my head as usual.
So now we have 22 food products....some of which are interjected at different points in the year as limited edition products, also when foods are naturally in season.
We also have t-shirts, hoodies, aprons, keyrings, hot sauces holsters and mugs and I'm sure there'll be more as time goes on.
2020 was a strange time for everyone. The vast majority of our events were cancelled due to lockdowns or bad weather. This pushed our sales online and we would like to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone who bought from the website and supported us. Without our Chimpion's we would not have survived the lockdowns.
We were featured in the March 2020 edition of the BBC Good Food Magazine. We also picked up stockists in Belgium, Netherlands and Australia, and are looking to export to other countries to further the growth of the company.
July 2020 saw Baby Chimp being born which has been the most amazing experience and steep learning curve being new parents. However he did take our focus away from Screaming Chimp temporarily (as expected), although we were quickly back on track.
2021 saw a couple of great new stockists coming aboard the Chimp Train to Heatsville and talking with overseas companies about exporting, plus a couple of new limited edition products being launched. We also gained a Great Taste Award from the Guild of Fine Food for our Chimpotle Sauce.
2022, We now put 50% more sauce in a new 150ml bottle and in August we gained another Great Taste Award from The Guild Of Fine food. This time it was for our "Chimpion Chilli Oil".
We won "Best Condiment Brand" of the North Of England with the Prestige Series Awards for 2022/23.
Also in 2022 we had our first foray into supplying a multiple with sending the first 1000 units to Jones The Grocer in the U.A.E. and we gained our first stockist in America.
2023 Saw us being stocked in the first store in Paris, France.
We won "Condiment Brand Of The Year" For the North of England for the second year running with the Prestige Series Awards for 2024.
In March of 2024, we were amongst the first cohort of producers from County Durham to be invited to the Houses of Parliament in Parliamentary history to showcase just some of what County Durham has to offer the world in terms of food. The event was called "A Canny Taste Of County Durham".
April 2024 we got the confirmation of our U.S.A trademark, as we would love our Chimpions across the pond to be able to walk into a shop and purchase, so watch this space.
October 2024 We are stocked back in Fenwick Food Hall after a 5 year hiatus which we are so proud of, as we class Fenwick as the Harrods of the Northeast.
We've also started sending out news letters with discounts inside, so keep your eyes peeled and if you've not signed up yet, please do so you benefit from those discounts within the news letter.
We’d love our Troop of Chimp's to swing on as many branches as they can the world over, so are now looking to expand our supply of Natural, Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Vegan and vegetarian friendly Screaming Chimp Chilli Sauces into different markets.
Just remember to Keep on Chimpin' and Scream If You Wanna Go Hotter
#Keeponchimpin and #Screamifyouwannagohotter
p.s. I will say this though.
If it wasn’t for the support of Mrs Chimp, I’d not be here and neither would Chimp, so you all have Vicky to thank for unleashing Mr Chimp on the world hahahaha!
