Many consumers in the U.S. are on the lookout for new flavor innovations to infuse holiday homecooked meals with excitement. One of the solutions, table sauces. Who doesn’t want to spice up their holiday meal with a flavor? Table sauces add excitement and unique taste to almost every meal. They allow your tastebuds to explore new flavors, all while utilizing the same “dipper” such as a chip or veggie. Or they allow you to switch up a traditional gravy sauce that accompanies that roasted ham or turkey at your family feast.
Table sauces are well-positioned to capitalize on the heightened interest in quick-fix and affordable flavor hacks. In the U.S., innovative table sauce flavors are arriving to help consumers bring a new and more gourmet twist to home-cooked holiday meals. According to a recent Mintel survey, 56% of adults in the U.S. say they like to try new dip and sauce flavors. And manufacturers are not recreating the wheel. Many are just adding a new spin on traditional sauce flavors or creating mash-up flavors of different ones to intrigue consumers whilst not being too unfamiliar to deter them. Well-known sauce brand, Sweet Baby Rays, introduced an entirely new subline of Ray’s Chicken Sauce, combining traditional flavors of honey mustard and barbecue sauce into something new. Some other examples are Heinz-Kraft’s “Buffaranch Sauce” – a mash-up of Mayoracha, Mayocue, and Sweet Ketchili, and This Little Goat by Chef Stephanie “Izard Went to Tokyo Sweet & Salty Everything Sauce”.
Manufacturers are also responding to consumer interest in gut-friendly foods with pickled sauces and/or condiments. In the U.S., 57% of adults say they try to eat foods that encourage a healthy gut microbiome (Mintel GNPD). This general re-appreciation of gut-friendly and fermented foods has presented an opportunity for pickled condiment brands. They are now innovating around natural fermentation and probiotics. You see this in products such as Cleveland Kimchi’s “Classic Kimchi with Garlic, Greens & Red Pepper” which contains live and raw probiotics, and is described as crunchy, healthy, and delicious.
If you are looking to create a new sauce or reformulate one, we can help you source the ingredients you need. Get in touch with an IFPC representative today!
