“In the Paradise of Heat – the First Sofia Chilli Fest challenges us with hot flavors and experiences” from lifestyle.bg.
If someone loves spicy food, they probably know who Alexander Kyurkieff is.
Known as Sando (or Sando Max among friends), he is the man behind Chilli Hills.
Before diving into the spicy brand with his partner Boriana, Sando was riding the wave of skateboarding culture and traveling constantly. Ultimately, however, his passion for chilli peppers & sauces and cooking prevailed, leading to a successful business. For the past 10 years, Chilli Hills has been producing chilli products and continues to promote the chilli culture in Bulgaria.
Sando has had an interest in tasty, quality food since childhood. His earliest memories include spicy dishes always present on the family table. Over the years, he became a skilled cook, even while professionally involved in everything related to skateboarding.
His job took him away from home, and for many years, Sando lived abroad. However, during his travels, he explored various cultures and their culinary traditions and flavors. Naturally, he developed a fondness for cuisines that prominently featured spice.
When he returned to Bulgaria, he had one condition: to live outside the city. He decided to buy a large house with land and started to dabble in farming. Of course, chilli peppers were at the top of his list
And the hard work and efforts pay off with a bountiful harvest, leading to the natural emergence of Chilli Hills.
Although niche, the chilli brand is gaining popularity and continues to surprise and attract the interest of chilli lovers with a variety of products—sauces, spicy pastes, salsas, as well as jams and tahinis, even honey mixed with smoked chilli peppers, along with spicy rakia and chilli beer.
To establish the brand, Sando invests a lot of effort and dedication. It is precisely because of this that he manages to overcome the significant challenges of developing a niche product in the long term. Today, Chilli Hills has retail locations in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, and Burgas, and since October of last year, the farm has expanded to a larger area in the village of Dolni Lozen.

From the distance of time, Sando says that the business has certainly undergone changes, but the core philosophy and principles have remained the same. “We still create an original product, 100% pure, produced in Bulgaria from locally grown raw materials. Of course, the scale of our operation is now larger, as well as the team and the markets, but everything else is exactly as it was when we started 10 years ago.”
And more from “In the Paradise of Spice – the first Sofia Chilli Fest challenges us with hot flavors and experiences” from lifestyle.bg, you can continue reading HERE.
Sofia Chilli Fest is on October 12th and 13th at Chilli Hills Farm (Markova Livada Street, Dolni Lozen Village).
Read more about the chilli festval here.