Las Vegas-based Hamsa Brand spices up the world of gourmet foods

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Wade Vandervort

Michael Vakneen and Joanna Bensimon, behind an upstart food company called Hamsa Brand, pose for a photo Monday, Oct. 24, 2022.

Mon, Nov 21, 2022 (2 a.m.)

Though its vibrant dining scene has earned a reputation as one of this country’s best, Las Vegas hasn’t traditionally been recognized as a place where unique flavors are born, where popular products and brands are created for national or global consumption.

Joanna Bensimon and Michael Vakneen are attempting to change that with Hamsa Brand, a local company launched two years ago behind the first-ever squeezable harissa-based hot sauce and marinade.

Harissa is a chili pepper paste ubiquitous across Mediterranean and North African tables, an especially popular condiment in countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Israel. The Las Vegas couple focus on it as their initial product in order to share their Moroccan heritage and make the flavor more accessible to U.S. consumers.

“We’re both first-generation Americans, and we really wanted to share something from our history, culture and roots,” Vakneen says. “It was Joanna’s idea. She was having falafel one night and said, ‘I would love to dip this into a sauce that lends itself to this flavor profile.’ She took the harissa from the metallic tube it usually comes in and mixed it with ketchup, and that was the first light-bulb moment.”

Vakneen got his start in the food industry more than 10 years ago, when he opened Pop Up Pizza at the Plaza Downtown. He and Bensimon drew heavily on that restaurant experience when they took their homemade test recipes and began processing big batches in 55-gallon drums at a North Las Vegas commissary.

“Mike is the culinary guy and was the one behind the scenes making the product. I was the one with the vision,” Bensimon says. “It was important to make it very easy and versatile, especially for the millennial market, because they’re the ones driving the hot sauce market and looking for exotic flavor profiles.”

Research group Fortune Business Insights reports the global hot sauce market is expected to grow from $2.89 billion in 2022 to $4.72 billion by 2029, rebounding from a nearly 5% decline during the pandemic.

Hamsa’s harissa sauce is capitalizing on the growth trend by being more than a spicy addition to dishes.

“If you look at what’s trending now, Indian spices are blowing up, but harissa is there as well,” Bensimon says. “A lot of people are becoming familiar with harissa but don’t know how to use it, because it comes as paste in a jar, and not in a sauce-like consistency. You need to dilute it.”

Bensimon’s creation is neatly packaged in a squeezable bottle, reminiscent of the classic ketchup that inspired it, with a bright Hamsa label adorning the deep red sauce. It requires no dilution or preparation, so it’s ready to eat right out of the bottle on burgers, sandwiches, pizza, pasta, steaks and a multitude of other non-Mediterranean foods.

Although Hamsa had some pandemic-related growing pains while scaling up production, Vakneen says, his restaurant experience and local connections helped the company turn those speed bumps into efficiencies.

The sauce is now available at Las Vegas restaurants including Forte Tapas, Echo & Rig Steakhouse and PublicUs, along with trendy LA-area markets like Erewhon.

“Erewhon Markets has seven locations, and it’s … tough to get into,” Vakneen says. “To have the first Las Vegas-based product there, and for that to be the first grocery store [for Hamsa], that’s a milestone moment for us. Just months before, we went from making stuff in the house to the commissary kitchen, and now [it’s in] one of the premier grocery stores in the country.”

Las Vegas chefs and restaurateurs were some of the earliest supporters of Hamsa Brand, and many use it or are planning to use it soon on their menu during pop-up events. Chef James Trees has used it on a merguez sausage pizza at Esther’s Kitchen, and Sonia El-Nawal puts it in the shakshuka at her new Bodega Bagel restaurant in Henderson. James Beard Award nominee Gina Marinelli will experiment with the specialty ingredient during a Hamsa takeover at her Summerlin restaurant La Strega in December, marrying Sicilian and North African flavors, Vakneen says.

The company continues to expand beyond Las Vegas, too, developing partnerships including one with a cheesemaker in Vermont that was once owned by President Calvin Coolidge and was chosen as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things. “We’ve been testing out a harissa cheddar that’s so delicious and so beautiful when you cut it, it looks like marble,” Bensimon says.

Hamsa will expand its product line in the new year with other sauces and different food products, possibly including an acclaimed olive oil imported from Morocco.

“Now that we can sustain the demand, we’ll be out there doing more, trying new things in different ways and doing some fun collaborations while preserving our heritage,” Bensimon says.

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