LAS CRUCES – Nate Cotanch talks about green chile like someone who has New Mexico running through his veins. It’s not a crop; it’s not an ingredient; and it most certainly isn’t a product. When Cotanch talks about chile, there is something reverent about it, something nearly metaphysical. That’s something most New Mexicans can understand.
While life has taken the 31-year-old Colorado native with deep New Mexico roots away from the Southwest, it has done nothing to diminish his flair for fiery foods. Quite the opposite, in fact.
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“My story also isn’t that unique,” he told the Sun-News in an interview earlier this month. “It’s the same as so many others out there around the nation who moved away to areas where Hatch chile just doesn’t exist. When that happens — as you can imagine — it’s not just a piece of your diet that you lose; it really makes you feel like you’ve lost a piece of home and your soul.”
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In 2014, Cotanch founded Zia Hatch Chile Company. What began as a small stand at a Brooklyn street market has now evolved into a company with nationwide distribution, a product available in all 50 states, and is garnering attention from Forbes Magazine, The New York Times and celebrity chef Rachel Ray. Now in its seventh year, the company supplies over 2,000 retailers and hundreds of restaurants across the country.
Deep roots
When speaking to Cotanch — who was raised in Colorado Springs — about his love of chile, the conversation always turns to his mother and his maternal grandparents, who were from northern New Mexico. His familial roots in the Land of Enchantment go back generations.
“My mom is one of 17 children, and her family is from Española,” he said. “My mom instilled in me, from my childhood, a huge love for Hatch chile; and it really rooted in my heart and soul.”
Feeling the loss
Toward the end of Cotanch’s high school years, his family moved to North Carolina. There, he soon came to realize that the chile of his childhood was nowhere to be found. The New Mexican food that had nourished him was now out of reach.
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“And it hits you pretty hard, because it just doesn’t exist,” Cotanch said. “Ever since I moved to the East Coast, the feeling of Hatch chile not being around — it’s always with you, right? Especially when Hatch chile season comes around, and you can’t spend the weekend roasting it. And you can’t just go and get the food that you love — it’s tough.”
After graduating high school, he went to college at Syracuse University. Needless to say, the same problem existed in Central New York. While at Syracuse, Cotanch studied entrepreneurship — a skill set that would later come to serve him well.
A chance encounter
After college, Cotanch moved to New York City where he began a career in finance, in the venture-capital industry.
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“I was interfacing with a ton of other entrepreneurs across a bunch of different sectors, learning about their businesses and, ultimately, helping them get investment to help them grow their company, too,” he explained. But it was a chance encounter while looking for a place to live in the city that would begin to change everything.
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He found an apartment on Craigslist and moved in with a couple who was looking for a roommate.
“The husband had originally worked on Wall Street, and then he quit that to go on a world tour with an Indian pop boy band that he had, called The Bamboo Shoots,” Cotanch said. “They got signed to Epic Records and had a really successful career — but not quite to the level that they became a total ‘breakout.’ So he moved back to New York about the same time that I was moving to New York, and I moved in with him.”
Around the same time, the roommate — now a successful restaurateur in Manhattan’s Flatiron District — was starting one of the original companies at Brooklyn’s new Smorgasburg food market. Smorgasburg, a portmanteau of “Smörgåsbord” and “Williamsburg,” the Brooklyn neighborhood it calls home, was started in 2011. The food-centered market quickly became a weekend destination for New Yorkers in search of tends to be small-batch and innovative foods.
“His mom was from Bombay. He was doing these vegan and vegetarian Indian-style sandwiches that were inspired by the ingredients and cuisine that he’d grown up with,” Cotanch said. “It gave him the opportunity not only to get that out to the public, but to start a company in a bootstrap fashion and gain market validation without having to put up a ton of capital.”
Hatched in Brooklyn
Cotanch would work in finance during the week and help his roommate on the weekends. Soon, though, he had an idea of his own.
“I’d been thinking about trying to go and do New Mexican cuisine at this market for so long — why not just try to do it? So we did, and people just came out of the woodwork — transplants who’d been without it, like ourselves; chefs who had been wanting to use it but the logistics of trying to get it was really hard.”
The Zia Hatch Chile Company was born.
“We started roasting (Hatch chile) in New York at the Smorgasburg market, and people just come out of the woodwork,” he said. They have since roasted up and down the East Coast and have seen similar results.
“We’ve roasted in New York pretty much every year since we started; for the past few years, we’ve done a big roast in Charleston, South Carolina, with a pitmaster partner of ours, John Lewis of Lewis Barbecue,” Cotanch said. “For that roast, people come down all the way from D.C. just to be able to stock up. It’s pretty cool, just to have all these people having such a meaningful experience — and come from so far away just to have that part of a community and a piece of home again.”
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The Smorgasburg market gave Cotanch the perfect platform to grow the company. All of the chile is sourced directly from the Hatch Valley, and the company’s manufacturing arm — which jars its fresh roasted chile and Hatch chile salsa — is in Las Cruces.
“We can trace every jar back to the fields that they come from,” he explained. “Our Hatch chile and Hatch chile salsas are completely natural, and we’ve added no outside ingredients to change that authentic flavor.”
Turning heads
Cotanch said he originally started Zia Hatch Chile Company to provide access to authentic, New Mexico Hatch chile and New Mexico food in New York City. They’re still able to do that, to some degree.
“This past year in particular, we literally drove almost 2,000 pounds directly from our growers in Hatch to New York, over the span of three days,” he said. “It’s straight from the field, as fresh as can possibly be. We went through a ton of effort, and we really pride ourselves on doing that so that other transplants can stock up and have their stash of fresh-roasted, too.”
But the company has grown significantly. Over the past few years, they have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker and more. In 2015, Cotanch — then 25 — appeared on Forbes’ “10 Innovators Under 30 Shaking Up The New York Food Scene” list.
This month, Cotanch was named among Forbes’ “Next 1,000” — a list of “upstart entrepreneurs redefining the American dream.”
“It’s a great win,” Cotanch said of the company’s recognition. “It feels awesome to be recognized for our hard work and sacrifice over the years — and especially to succeed and grow during this era of COVID. But, more than that, I’m mostly happy because it gives us the ability to continue pushing our vision of elevating that flavor and culture of New Mexico’s Hatch Valley — from its regional standing to a national staple.”
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Zia Hatch Chile Company products are available at Whole Foods Market, and a number of other retailers nationwide. In Las Cruces, they are available at the Elephant Ranch Market, 3995 W. Picacho Ave. More information can be found online at https://ziahatchchileco.com/ and on Instagram at @ziahatchchileco.
“Overall, we just really, really celebrate the state of New Mexico and its Hatch Valley,” he said. “It just means the world to us.”
Damien Willis is a Lead Reporter for the Las Cruces Sun-News. He can be reached at 575-541-5443, [email protected] or @DamienWillis on Twitter.
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