The battle over chili crunch is a David vs. Goliath story. But it’s also a Goliath vs. Goliath story. David Chang’s Momofuku Goods, which has created controversy this week after sending cease-and-desist letters to other companies that call their product “chili crunch” or “chile crunch,” is a growing business that generated $50 million in sales and secured a $17.5 million Series A round of funding in 2023. (Yes, in this case, if you want to get technical, David is Goliath.)
But Momofuku is up against formidable contenders like Jen Liao and Caleb Wang’s MìLà (formerly known as XCJ), which closed a $22.5 million Series A round of funding and tapped actor Simu Liu as its chief content officer last year. There’s also, of course, popular mala-over-everything chili crisp brand Fly By Jing, which got its $12 million Series B funding in 2023. (Fly By Jing founder Jing Gao founder is an investor in Homiah, which makes Southeast Asian products like sambal chili crunch and is one of the small businesses targeted by Momofuku.)
You can now buy various brands of new-school chili sauce, or chili oil, or chili crisp, or chili crunch, or whatever you want to call it (the semantics didn’t seem to matter much until recently) at major stores like Target and Whole Foods. (And consumers are putting the spicy sauce over everything from eggs and pizza to barbecue and ice cream.)
Other products, like Momofuku noodles and MìLà soup dumplings, from these on-the-rise Asian-food companies are also readily available nationwide. The market opportunity is obviously huge, and Chang and others in this space know that getting to $100 million in annual sales means you have a chance to go full unicorn.
Momofuku Goods was already halfway there in terms of sales last year, and prominent venture-capital firms and celebrities are betting that there’s room in this arena for multiple players to get all the way there. So could there be a new Asian-food brand that turns into something like Rao’s pasta sauce? (Last year, Campbell Soup acquired Rao’s sauce maker Sovos Brands for $2.7 billion. And, of course, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi have also entered this space with their Carbone Fine Food sauce.) That’s the Asian-American dream right now.
Bling Empire’s Kelly Mi Li has also joined the Asian chili condiment game with her Hot Jiang. Max Boonthanakit, who runs the kitchen at LA’s Michelin-starred Camphor with co-chef Lijo George, sells his beloved Boon Sauce. You can purchase chili crisp with CBD and THC. There’s more than enough heat to go around.
The battle over chili crunch could get feistier and fierier from here. Goliath has run head-on into a superhero. Shang-Chi star Liu publicly challenged Momofuku on X: “As Chief Content Officer of MiLà, I propose a blind taste test of both our ‘chili crunch’ sauces. Winner keeps the name, loser (it'll be you) backs off.”