While Anthony Bourdain once famously wrote that salt is what makes restaurant food taste different from anything you cook at home, it often also comes down to sauce — while a classic brigade-style kitchen at three-star restaurants will have its own saucier making béarnaise and hollandaise, many fast food sauces have their own cult following.
On the rare instances that McDonald's (MCD) brings back the elusive Szechuan Sauce launched in 1998 as a tie-in for the Disney (DIS) movie Mulan, many restaurants see crowds and fights while small sachets of the stuff also start popping up for hundreds of dollars online.
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In the spring of 2023, a number of sauces popular at chains and restaurants have started popping up in bottled form at retail stores.
Walmart to Sell Fast Food Dressings
While the Georgia-based fried chicken chain first started selling its signature orange sauce in bottled form in 2020, privately-held Chick-fil-A just announced that it will now also start bottling its salad dressings.
These include Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing, Garden Herb Ranch Dressing, Creamy Salsa Dressing and Zesty Apple Cider Vinaigrette Dressing — each of those were initially developed to pair with one of the chain's salads but will, in the coming weeks, be sold in bottled forms at Walmart (WMT) and other participating grocery stores across the country.
The big-box retailer has been snagging up deals and partnerships for products with unique or popular flavors — in March, Walmart started selling a ranch-flavored ice cream that was developed exclusively for it by New York-based ice cream company Van Leeuwen. A year ago, the mac-and-cheese ice cream from Van Leeuwen went viral.
Chick-fil-A had been quietly testing these sauces in select markets across Ohio and Tennessee earlier this year and saw sales strong enough for a nationwide rollout.
"Customers loved the ability to enjoy their favorite Chick-fil-A salad dressings at home and the test in Nashville and Cincinnati performed really well," Michael Garrison, senior director of innovation and new ventures at Chick-fil-A, told Southern Living.
Cholula
Beloved Hot Sauce Brand Is Expanding
While developed independently based on a 100-year-old Mexican family recipe, Cholula hot sauce is a common sight on the table at popular many diners and Tex-Mex chains — earlier this week, the McCormick (MKC)-owned hot sauce maker announced that it is expanding between its classic bottled hot sauce with three new salsas and three seasoning blends.
The salsa will come in original, salsa verde and chipotle flavors while the seasoning blends are original, smoky chipotle and original garlic.
As with the regular Cholula hot sauce, the new products will be available for purchase online or at grocery stores across the country.
With a number of new bottle sauce options hitting the market from both giant chains and small businesses in the last few years, the global bottled sauce market is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5.55% an be worth over $84.56 billion by the end of 2030.
"We're excited to expand beyond the sauce category and into the mainstream Mexican aisle to deliver that delicious flavor and balanced heat to passionate Cholula fans in new and exciting ways," Valda Coryat, who heads marketing for McCormick, said in a statement.
