Latest news with #barbecuesauce
Bloomberg
27-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
US Orders Embassies to Halt Student Visa Interviews
Good morning. The US orders embassies to halt student-visa interviews. New restrictions on Chinese solar tools dim the outlook for US clean energy. And one Japanese granny's barbecue sauce is popping up in kitchens across America. Listen to the day's top stories.
Bloomberg
27-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Millions of Americans Are Obsessed With This Japanese Barbecue Sauce
Justin Gill was getting desperate. In his yearslong quest to mass-produce and distribute his grandmother's home-brewed Japanese barbecue sauce without pumping it full of preservatives, he'd borrowed $250,000 from relatives and friends, maxed out his credit cards and turned his Northern California home into a fulfillment center. But he needed more capital in the months following the brand's 2019 release. So the landscaper and father of three resorted to short-term, high-interest loans, where borrowing rates compounded daily. 'Every dollar I could find or borrow, I put into Facebook ads,' says Gill, who prayed that the traffic would translate into sales of the almost $10-a-bottle specialty sauce—which he called Bachan's, after the Japanese word for 'granny'—before one of his creditors seized his house. His desperation turned out to be short-lived. Sales of the umami-forward, savory-sweet condiment exploded, from $35,000 in its first year to $1.5 million in 2020, thanks to Gill's hustling, the brand's healthful sheen and, in no small part, the onset of the pandemic, which dramatically reshaped the way US households shop and cook. Now revenue is on track to exceed $100 million in 2025, says a person familiar with the company who wasn't authorized to speak publicly. (A spokesperson for Bachan's declined to provide specifics on profitability, revenue and other financials.)
