Smart, focused content strategy helped transform the Hatch chile from a beloved regional favorite into a national obsession.
Most food brands with a great story don’t tell it consistently enough, long enough, or through enough channels to build real market awareness. Melissa’s Produce is an exception, and their marketing of Hatch chiles is the case study I return to time and again as a smart template for any brand.
Fresh Hatch chiles, a beloved ingredient in Southwestern cooking, have a fleeting six-week season. Melissa’s Produce used smart content marketing and live events to take the regional specialty national.
A few years ago, I snagged a wedge of Hatch chile Cheddar at Whole Foods without really thinking about it. On the way home I realized I was on the receiving end of two decades of smart content marketing. My Pavlovian response to that cheese display didn’t happen by accident.
Here’s how Melissa’s turned a regional New Mexico specialty into a national obsession and what food and beverage brands can steal from their playbook.
Start With a Great Story
The Hatch chile hails from the dinky town of Hatch, N.M., and lends Southwestern cuisine its distinctive flair, thanks to rich soil nourished by the Rio Grande and hot sunny days followed by cool nights. If this sounds like the terroir of wine, it is.
The chiles grow to about 6-8 inches and look much like their descendent, the California Anaheim. But they boast a meaty texture and more complex flavor and heat, which ranges from mild to X-hot. It’s the only chile pepper with that kind of heat range.
The Hatch has a fleeting, end-of-summer season from early August to mid-September. It’s kind of like the Beaujolais Nouveau of chiles — if you don’t stock up now, you’ll have to wait until next year’s harvest (or used canned Hatch chiles in the meantime).
All over New Mexico and throughout the Southwest, people buy 10, 20, 30 pounds or more and have them roasted to freeze and use throughout the year.
Joe Hernandez, owner and president of Melissa’s, is one of those folks in the know: He grew up in El Paso, Texas, where Hatch chile season is always a big deal.
The chile’s limited availability enhances its mystique — and offers a story that’s worth telling every year.
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Educating consumers about the Hatch was a key part of Melissa’s strategy. The company put a ton of information on their website, then took to new content platforms as they became available — their push started way back in 2002, long before there was such a thing as social media. Last year, they self-published Melissa’s Hatch Chile Cookbook, with ideas for using the chiles in everything from Bloody Marys to brownies.
They also engage lots of brand ambassadors, from food bloggers and influencers to celebrity chefs. One season, Chef Jet Tila starred in a YouTube video that fuses the Hatch with another food obsession: Sriracha hot sauce.
And they’ve steadily extended the product line beyond fresh chiles to include dried chiles, Hatch chile powder, salsa, snacks, and more. Those kinds of product extensions help keep the story fresh.
Give It Time
Hatch chiles weren’t an overnight sensation — Melissa’s first started distributing them outside the Southwest in 2002. They began doing Southwestern-style roastings a few years later, starting in Southern California. Now they’ve teamed up with chains like Bristol Farms, Wegmans, and Hyvee to host Hatch chile roastings are all over the country.
“It’s the Hatch roastings that really fuse all the marketing of the fresh Hatch season outside the Southwest,” says Robert Schueller, director of public relations at Melissa’s. “We’re getting people who have always been afraid of chiles to eat them for the first time (this is the only chile you can get in mild, medium, hot and X-hot).”
Indeed, it’s an event. Melissa’s sets up giant machine that rotates as the chiles as they roast at screamin’ high heat. It’s reminiscent of a lottery ball machine, only in this case everyone’s a winner. You can smell the smoky aroma of roasting chiles when you pull into the parking lot.
“We get a ton of emails and calls every June and July about our roasts that we conduct nationally in August and September. It’s very much a unique thing that happens in front of the stores every season now.”
And, of course, smart content helps whet that appetite.
What This Means for Your Brand
The Melissa’s playbook isn’t complicated, but many brands don’t follow it:
Start with a story worth telling repeatedly. The Hatch chile’s terroir, its fleeting season, its heat range — these aren’t just product attributes, they’re narrative assets. What does your product have that’s genuinely worth retelling every year?
Invest in content before the market exists. Melissa’s started their content push in 2002, before social media, before food blogging was mainstream. They built the audience before the demand was obvious.
Give it time. The roastings didn’t go national overnight. Brand-level awareness is measured in years, not campaigns.
The Hatch chile has become such an iconic flavor that I recently urged a Southwest-based client to use it in a snack product they were developing, both as a flavor and as a feature to tout on the label. That’s what a two-decade content strategy buys you: an ingredient that’s become a credential.
If you’re a food or beverage brand with a product that has a real story behind it — origin, season, process, the people who grow or make it — that story is a content strategy waiting to happen. The question is whether you’re telling it consistently enough, and with the right recipe and visual content to make it land with home cooks.
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A note on the recipe below: This romesco sauce is a good example of the kind of versatile, technique-forward recipe that gives a product like Hatch chile real content legs. It works as a condiment, a pasta sauce, a pizza base, a dip. One recipe, multiple use occasions, multiple content angles.
How to Handle a Hatch Chile
Even if you don’t have a local chile-roasting event, chances are you’ll still spot fresh Hatch chiles as supermarkets this time of year. Here’s how to prep them at home:
- Place chiles in single layer on a sheet pan and roast them under the broiler for 15 minutes or until their skins blacken, turning them halfway through.
- Transfer the roasted chiles to a bowl, cover it with a plate, and let stand 15 minutes, until cool enough to handle. If you’re using them right away, pull off the roasted skins, remove the stem and seeds, and proceed with your recipe.
- NOTE: A lot of recipes direct you to peel/seed roasted chiles under running water. Melissa’s Chef Tom Fraker advises against doing this as it rinses away all the delicious smoky flavor of roasting.
- If you don’t need to use the chiles right away, cool them completely, skip the peeling step, and pack them into heavy-duty plastic freezer bags. You can freeze them for up to two years. Thaw them in the fridge, then peel, seed, and use ’em.
Hatch Chile Romesco Sauce
Equipment
- 1 baking sheet
- 1 food processor (or blender)
Ingredients
- 6 Hatch chiles
- 2 medium tomatoes
- 1 medium onion, cut into 6 wedges
- 1 slice country bread
- ¼ cup pine nuts, toasted
- 3 cloves garlic
- ¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar)
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Move the oven rack to the top position and preheat the broiler.
- Arrange the chiles, tomatoes, and onion in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with foil. Broil 10-15 minutes or until the skins are blackened, turning halfway through cooking time.
- Meanwhile, toast the bread.
- Transfer the broiled chiles and tomatoes to a large bowl, cover with a plate, and let stand 15 minutes or until cool enough to handle. Peel and seed the chiles and tomatoes.
- Combine the chiles, tomatoes, onion, pine nuts, and garlic in a food processor. Tear up the toasted bread, and add it to the food processor, along with the oil, vinegar and salt. Process until smooth, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Transfer to a clean jar and refrigerate for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 2 months. (Makes about 2 cups.)
Notes