If you love your spicy foods – it’s likely you’ve heard of Mr Vikki’s.
Created and owned by Adam Marks, 59, of Penrith, Mr Vikki’s is a brand that has taken the UK’s artisan hot sauce and condiment scene by storm for nearly 20 years.
From scooping over 155 great taste awards to winning the title of world champion at the World Hot Sauce Awards in the USA – Adam’s products have regularly proved a hit with chilli-heads across the globe.
Mr Vikki’s hot sauces, chutneys and other condiments are stocked in over 40 artisan shops in the UK from Glasgow to Brighton and Adam can still be found selling at local markets and hot sauce festivals too.
But before the brand’s rise to popularity – it all started with a love of spicy food and a bland pasty.
Adam said: “I was working as a chef at a top country house hotel in Ullswater and I developed a passion for chilli’s and Indian food while working with Indian friends there.
“After spending all day doing high end food, I would want something a bit different after work, so I used to cook dinner with them and I just got totally hooked on chillis.”
Adam first decided to try his hand at creating a hot sauce after he couldn’t find one that met his heat expectations.
He added: “I went out in Windermere one day and got a pasty and I wanted some hot sauce for it. So I went into a supermarket and at the time there wasn’t much there.
“So I ended up with a chilli garlic sauce and it wasn’t hot enough for me, so I thought I would make some myself. I went home and started on my first chilli sauce.
“I was 40 at the time, so I thought right, I’m going to start up my own business. I got a pair of chilli patterned chef trousers and it all started from there.”
After leaving his chef job, Adam experimented to create his own recipes and sold his very first products on a Christmas market stall in 2005.
He said: “I made a few things to sell like sticky toffee pudding and other things I’d made while working at the hotel and I made a mango chutney and a curry paste, which are some of our Mr Vikki’s stuff now.
“It was a Made in Cumbria market that I went to after becoming a member and the getting health inspectors in and the like. It was a great way to get into selling my own stuff as at the time I had four children to raise.
“But I was really successful at it and I sold everything I had. But the Mr Vikki’s things I’d made had been the most popular, so I made the decision then to really go for it.”
Mr Vikki’s was officially launched in Adam’s home kitchen with help of his former second chef Dan, who now works as his warehouse manager.
He said: “I started from home with one five litre pan and spices that I bought from the spice shop in Carlisle.
“In the beginning I was working from eight in the morning until 11 at night. It’s really difficult when you first start a business, because you don’t really know what’s happening one moment to the next.
“We bought all our first ingredients on credit cards and every weekend for 10 years we were away and promoting stuff at markets across the UK and letting people try it and giving them flyers so they could buy online if they wanted to.
“I remember I gave some stuff to the Cranstons fruit and veg guy and he actually gave it to Mr Cranston himself. He loved it and that was my very first stockist.
“I also did all the designs for the products myself. I wanted something vibrant red and yellow as it felt Indian inspired, but I just did it on a design software.
“We’ve been doing the Keswick market every week since 2006 and people said when we grew we would stop doing it, but we never have.
“There’s a great little network of traders there and it’s been great for us along with the Made in Cumbria markets”
Adam is still the only person who makes all the products – but he now works from a larger unit in Myers Lane Business Park, in Penrith, in line with the increase in demand for his products.
He said: “We’re in a good size unit now, but we would love to have a forever home base in Penrith. It’s just hard to find anything here as things keep getting snatched up.
“Me and Dan are mainly a two man band and we’ve got more and more efficient over the years. So while we are getting more and more busy, we adapt and make everything more streamlined.
“My wife also comes in a few days a week to help and we’ve got a lady who does our accounts and makes sure we’re all behaving ourselves.”
Adam now sells over 30 different products, and for every one of them, he has never used a recipe book.
He said: “We started off with four or five products and over the years we’ve expanded. From day one I’ve also never used a recipe book, I’ve just used my background as a chef.
“But it has taken a long time. We’ve just got everything how we like it and its taken a while to engineer the products.
“We don’t just chuck everything in a pan, every product is put together in a different way and the curry sauce has a three day turn around, but it’s really satisfying to get it in the jar.”
The products that prove most popular with customers are the King Naga chutney, Banana Habanero chutney and chilli jam.
Adam said: “We sell tons of chilli jam every week and a lot goes to restaurants, cafes and burger vans. They love it, so that’s number one at the moment.
“Banana Habanero is number two and King Naga, which won the World Hot Sauce Awards is also another big hitter.
“Nearly every single online order has a curry sauce in it. I think it’s because it has that takeaway but handmade taste and people want that at the moment, especially in cost of living crisis, there’s a big market for that.”
“There’s a wing shop in Newcastle and they come exclusively for their menu and they cover their wings in all our stuff, which is great.
“There’s also a London chicken shop that use our XXX Chilli Jam, which is ridiculously hot, but they get through loads of it.”
What makes a hot sauce perfect?
For Adam – a perfect hot sauce is all down to high chilli content.
The Queen Naga chutney is the hottest product on the menu at Mr Vikki’s and is made up of 70 per cent of Naga Morrich chillis.
He said: “A lot of people will mix in things like strawberries, beer and chocolate to get a hot sauce right, but I just like to let the chillis do the talking.
“They’ve each got a very unique taste and personality and I’ll work with everything, but I don’t like all these chilli’s that are the world’s hottest hottest coming out, because I don’t see the point.
“Most people also don’t use 100 per cent of chilli in the sauce anyway, so a Naga can be hotter than a Reaper if it has more chilli content in there.
“But when they’re genetically engineered for heat they lose flavour. We’ve had chilli-heads say Mr Vikki’s is chilli royalty, because it’s all refined heat.”
Adam said that some of his biggest highlights running Mr Vikki’s include scooping his first three star Great Taste award.
He said: “In 2013 we got our first three star Great Taste award and we’ve got 155 now. But to have that first three was unbelievable.
“Chilli products for a lot of people are like the antichrist, with a chocolate brownie everyone likes it, but with the chilli it’s a bit more niche for some people.
“We also got a Golden Fork Award in 2013 for the best company in the North of England and we got another in 2023, so it was unbelievable to have lightning strike twice like that.
“I also met Prince William and Kate at the Keswick market and she asked me if I like chilli sauce on everything and she said I was just like William, who has it on everything.
“So I gave him a King Naga and I gave her a Banana Habanero.”
While Adam has had offers from big supermarket chains to stock his products – he doesn’t see Mr Vikki’s operating at a factory level.
He said: “We’ve had supermarkets and big stores saying they can get us in there, but I’ve always said I’m not interested.
“People say ‘oh you don’t realise what you’re turning down’ and it’s that Dragon’s Den thing of wanting to be a millionaire, well that’s not me. It doesn’t interest me.
“I just like really good quality stuff. We’ve got our freedom and a good little business and that’s all we want.
“Some people say sell it and go sit by the beach, but my ultimate goal is to have something there for my family and to keep it going. I don’t want to sell out to a big company.
“I’m turning 60 this year, time really flies, but my grandma god bless her she worked until 91. they say find a job you love you’ll never work again and i think there’s some truth in that.”
