Why Craft Is Better
This is a topic which is really close to mine and James’ (and the rest of our teams’) hearts. I thought it was a good time to sit down and write about why we do what we do.
The “craft food” movement has exploded over the last 5-10 years, largely led by the craft beer industry, which saw small breweries collectively taking on the big boys while paving the way for a new wave of challenger brands throughout food and drink. In my previous job as a food innovation manager, I was talking about it all the time. We were constantly trying to understand how we (as a large food manufacturer supplying major retailers) could tap into the trend. And we weren’t alone, many big food companies and grocers try to replicate small brands, using an “independent” look and feel, even creating fictional brand stories to create a hook and protect themselves from the smaller “upstarts” threatening to steal their shelf space.
And this practice is not confined to big brands. Although led by small breweries doing everything themselves, the food start-up scene has shifted towards creating food brands but getting someone else to make the product. I am not against the use of co-packers and we did outsource production of our sauces for a short time to allow us to build our manufacturing site. But there is a uniqueness that can’t be achieved by using a third-party manufacturer. Recipes are often generic, ingredients strictly rationalised and processes inflexible. Doing things in-house gives us much more freedom to craft the products that we (and you) will love.
Sauce Shop was started in our home kitchen alongside our food industry jobs. We’d often be cooking sauce into the early hours and building pallets on our drive before work, hoping they would have been collected by the haulier by the time we got home! Since cooking, bottling and labelling those first batches, we’ve never lost our ethos – to make the best tasting sauces using real ingredients (the inspiration for #realsauce). We want to do everything we can to produce fresh, clean tasting sauces that really enhance food.
The biggest difference in our recipes compared to other sauce brands, is that we don’t add water. Meaning we don’t need to use thickeners, such as corn starch, which can often give an overly smooth, almost gelatinous texture. Because we don’t add water, the flavour of our sauces is intense and fresh. Have you ever smelt powdered onion or garlic? I’ve always hated the smell and we never wanted them in our sauces, so we use pureed onion and garlic. Our sauces are cooked in small batches, in open pans by our team of cooks. Because we don’t add thickeners, our cook times are longer, but this means flavours develop, fruit and vegetables break down to create a smooth texture and spices mellow to give a more rounded flavour. All our chillies are fermented for months, carefully watched over by our team. We believe this gives the sauces an extra savoury note and complexity that can’t be achieved any other way.
Why does this matter? Can you taste the extra hours spent stirring and watching the pan? Can you taste the onions and garlic are puree and not powdered? Does not using thickeners really mean our sauces taste fresher and more flavoursome? The answer is YES! Each of our recipes has been developed by our co-founder James (and some by his right-hand man Nathan) who, aside from being a food scientist, has many years’ experience in the food industry and loves to cook. If we wouldn’t eat it on our food at home, we don’t sell it.
It pays to buy from a truly craft business if you want real quality. Why spend hours cooking at home, or pay for good quality restaurant food only to smother it in watered down, flavourless sauce? Your food is made with real ingredients, so shouldn’t your sauce be? There is a better way. It’s time to choose better condiments!
Pam
Co-founder, Sauce Shop
