About

From Startup Burnout to Snack Revolution

In 2017, Robbie Madfis was deep in startup culture and completely burned out. Looking for something to do with his hands, he wandered into the kitchen and started experimenting. California Medjool dates, stuffed with spicy sunflower butter, dunked in 75% dark chocolate. Not exactly a business plan. Just a guy who needed to make something real.

Friends kept asking for more. Then strangers. Then retailers. He launched Hot Date Kitchen in 2020 out of Somerville, Massachusetts, not from a PowerPoint deck or a venture pitch, but from a home kitchen and an obsession with doing food the right way. Today every pouch is made by hand in Rhode Island.

No BS, By Design

Every pouch of Hot Dates starts with the same four ingredients: Non-GMO California Medjool dates from Coachella's Best, single-origin 75% dark chocolate from Republic del Cacao (B-Corp certified), Non-GMO sunflower butter from SunButter (made in North Dakota from U.S.-grown sunflowers), and directly sourced spices from Burlap & Barrel, a Public Benefit Corporation that works with smallholder farmers worldwide.

That's it. No palm oil. No sugar substitutes. No "natural flavors" that aren't natural. No fillers. No shortcuts.

The result: a snack with over 18 bioactive compounds and micronutrients, including 9 minerals, 6 vitamins, and 2 bioactives. Low glycemic. Two grams of added sugar. Vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free. The kind of thing your trainer, therapist, and taste buds would all approve of.

Still Handmade in Rhode Island

Hot Date Kitchen is still made in small batches, by hand, in Rhode Island. Every date is individually stuffed and hand-dipped. That's intentional. It's slower, yes. It's also better. You can taste the difference when someone actually cares what goes into the food.

Robbie and the team have built something that punches well above its weight: featured in Edible Boston, The Boston Globe, Yahoo Finance, and Thrillist, winner of the New England Made Best New Product contest, and stocked by wholesale partners across the Northeast and beyond.

Food With a Point of View

Hot Date Kitchen donates 10% of profits to causes working to reduce global poverty and mitigate climate change. The company is Carbon Neutral certified. They partner with smaller nonprofits for donation campaigns three to four times a year.

This isn't impact-washing. It's a small company run by someone who got into food because he wanted to make something he could actually be proud of. If you're eating a Hot Date, you're voting for the kind of snack food industry you want to exist.

Come find us at a store near you, or order directly.

Our Story

In 2017, I was one year out of college and working long, stressful weeks in a start up job. When overwhelmed, I would often find solace in the kitchen, experimenting with novel (and sometimes strange) combinations. These moments of refuge soon turned into a recipe blog called Just Recipes where I shared my creations.

In 2018 I quit my start up job and started working in kitchens full time, first in South America, and then in Cambridge and Boston. All the while, I kept sharing new inspirations through Just Recipes. It was through this passion project that I began to glimpse the magic that is food. Food is more than just sustenance. It is how we show care, how we nurture. Food is a deep expression of love for ourselves, for those we share it with and for the environment that produces it.

When a good friend of mine asked me to make a dessert recipe that was gluten-free, nut-free, and vegan, I fell back on simplicity: dried fruit, chocolate, seed butter, spice, and salt. The result was something magical and much greater than the sum of its parts. That recipe eventually grew into Hot Dates. My hope is to share that magic with as many people as possible, to provide people with something they can use to express love towards themselves and others, to support farms and other food producers, and to give back to our community. We are small and young company and we hope that you'll share in this adventure, provide feedback, tell us how we can be better, and help us spread the love.

-Robbie Madfis, Founder