“Flavor trends start here” is the sign one could post in front of the sauces, marinades and salad dressing market. This market has traditionally served as a petri dish for new flavor and meal ideas, and 2012 was an especially keen year for cooking sauce innovation.That is a good thing, because the market for sauces and marinades—which includes sectors such as wet cooking sauces, table sauces, condiment sauces and even dry cooking sauces—stumbled on the new product front in 2012. Datamonitor’s Product Launch Analytics database of new products logged a 24% decline in new sauces and marinades in 2012. The news was not quite as bleak in salad dressings, which nevertheless posted a 7% decline in new items in 2012.
However, anyone focused on sectors like cooking and simmer sauces may have missed the overall category slide. Big guns from the soup market decided to make this niche their playground in 2012, and the growth prospects for 2013 could be outstanding as a result. The highest profile 2012 launch came from Campbell Soup Company with Campbell’s Skillet Sauces. Heavy on ethnic flavors and somewhat light on volume, since each stand-up pouch serves two, the line is geared toward the elusive Millennial consumer.
“Dinner for two…(and then some)” is the description on the Thai Green Curry with Lemongrass & Basil, and Creamy Chipotle with Roasted Corn and Black Beans flavors of Campbell’s Skillet Sauces. The line is intended to provide consumers with quick-and-healthy meal ideas. Consumers were already moving in this direction, as the “Shopping for Health 2012” survey (sponsored by Prevention magazine and the Food Marketing Institute) found 57% of shoppers said they have tried a new healthy recipe in the last year, up five points from 2009.
Another top soup brand focusing on the cooking sauce concept was from General Mills under its Progresso label. In 2012, the firm debuted Progresso Recipe Starters Cooking Sauce, a canned cooking sauce line in such flavors as Creamy Portabella Mushroom, Creamy Three Cheese and Fire Roasted Tomato.
A slightly more decadent twist on this concept came from Robert Rothschild Farm, with its Meal Starter Sauce in flavors like Pub Style Beer & Onion and Tangy Chipotle Barbecue. Even more unusual is the Pepper Fig Hazelnut flavor of Sacla Sauce, a line of cooking sauces introduced in Belgium toward the year’s end.
Banking on Bacon
Across other sauce categories, the theme in 2012 was capitalizing on flavor trends, including the consumer love affair with bacon. Though sauces and condiments are not the first things that come to mind when thinking of bacon, that did not stop innovations like Prego Bacon & Provolone Italian Sauce from Campbell Soup. Smoked bacon also found its way into mustard, courtesy of Inglehoffer Applewood Smoked Bacon Mustard.
It will be interesting to see if this love of meat carries over into game meats, which are just finding their way into sauce products in some markets outside of the U.S. In the UK, David Oliver Fine Foods launched a line of Slow Brazed Sauces featuring rabbit and venison, among other meats.
The sweet-and-tart balsamic flavor is closely associated with salad dressings and vinegars, but it proved a lively addition to condiments, such as mustard and ketchup. Hartford Reserve Balsamic Fig & Date Premium Canadian Mustard offers a sweet-and-tart take on mustard. Ketchup is a condiment that tends to be resistant to flavor innovation, but 2012 saw Heinz introduce Balsamic Vinegar Tomato Ketchup as a limited-edition flavor, a bullish sign for ketchup flavor creativity.
Although it was just outside of the top 10 sauce flavors for 2012, balsamic was one of a handful of popular flavors that showed strong upward momentum. Datamonitor’s Product Launch Analytics noted that 2.3% of 2012’s sauce launches featured the balsamic flavor, up from 1.1% in 2011. Mushroom was another flavor on the rise, with 2.7% of new sauces featuring this flavor, up from 1.4% of launches in 2011.
Looking at marinade trends, sweet-hot or tangy-hot flavors were all the rage in 2012. Orange Chipotle, one of four flavors in the Chef LaLa Homemade Marinade line, fits this description, as does the Chipotle Honey with Tomato + Garlic flavor (for shrimp and fish) of Frontera Marinades. In addition, a “tangy sweet blend of pomegranates, orange peel and sage” highlights Williams-Sonoma Pomegranate Citrus Roasting Glaze.
