Offering craveable flavor is key for fostering customer loyalty. But making sauces from scratch can be time-consuming and cumbersome. To streamline the process and cut the labor involved with making signature sauces, operators can combine sauces that are already in the kitchen—sauces that are likely given away for free—and combine them to create delicious new signature flavors that can upscale a menu item and offer more profit on a dish.
A new online resource from Texas Pete takes restaurants one step closer to changing their game. The brand’s signature sauce calculator, at TexasPeteFoodservice.com/calculator, helps operators determine just how much offering a signature sauce can benefit their restaurants.
“Spicy signature sauces can serve as a powerful differentiator for a restaurant’s brand,” explains Nikki Green, national accounts manager for Garner Foods, the makers of Texas Pete®. “A signature sauce can help restaurants generate guest loyalty while also giving consumers a chance to customize dishes to suit their own flavor and heat preferences.”
“A signature sauce can help a restaurant increase revenue by improving the perceived value of a sandwich, wrap or salad. Placed in plastic ramekins with a lid, an operator can charge for that same sauce as a dipping sauce or simply more of the good stuff for adding to the menu item they’ve ordered,” explains Green.
Texas Pete’s calculator also offers inspiration for 16 signature sauce recipes that can be prepared in minutes and dispensed into squeeze bottles or ramekins in seconds, making back-of-house prep a snap .
A Datassential survey revealed the consumer appeal of signature sauces—nearly half of consumers say that they look forward to a signature sauce at a restaurant, and 91% say that they would like to buy their favorite restaurant’s signature sauce at a supermarket. Among the fastest growing signature sauces are flavored aiolis, including sriracha aioli, with menu mentions growing by 140% since 2016. One of the new Texas Pete® signature sauce recipes is a sriracha aioli made with mayo, CHA! by Texas Pete® Sriracha Sauce and honey.
“Let’s say you operate a 20-unit chain, and you add just two signature sauces,” Green says. “You sell 100 servings of each sauce a day in every one of your 20 restaurants at a price of 35 cents each. That can generate more than $500,000 in new revenue each year. Offer three signature sauces using the same criteria and that number goes to more than $750,000 a year in additional income.”
“Hot sauce is one of the most versatile ingredients in an operator’s kitchen, and it’s one of the best-loved flavors.. The opportunity to leverage a unique signature sauce is a powerful idea. Charging extra for condiments that you typically giveaway is a game-changer.”
For more information on Texas Pete® Signature Sauces, contact Nikki Green. And to view the complete line of Texas Pete® products, visit TexasPeteFoodservice.com.
This post is sponsored by Texas Pete