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Flavor Trends in Dressings and Marinades

Asian influences are adding spark to this category, while Mediterranean flavors and traditional dressings with updated recipes give consumers a wider range of options for salads, meats and other dishes.

By Nicole Potenza Denis

The return to the kitchen that occurred during the recession's height has amped up sales in the dressings and marinades category; it has also steered consumers' taste buds toward more flavor-forward varieties. Exotic Pacific Rim flavors feature yuzu, plums, Asian pear, wasabi and ginger. Fresh Mediterranean flavors are zesty and bursting with citrus. Both marinades and dressings are also benefiting from sweet-hot flavors, such as peppadew, and still others add complexity with distinctive alcohols such as sake and whiskey.

These flavorful trends still leave plenty of room for the classics to keep a well-deserved spot on retail shelves. To give customers familiar tastes with modern twists, some companies are showcasing such favorites as Caesar, French or Blue Cheese but distinguishing them by adding fruit, wine or miso for flavor boosts, as well as offering more healthful ingedient alternatives.

Sales are rewarding these innovations. Retail sales of cooking sauces and marinades grew 20 percent between 2005 and 2010, according to an April 2011 study by market researcher Mintel International. Sales are expected to increase another 19 percent by 2015.

Learn which flavors and healthful attributes in the dressings and marinades category are enticing consumers to step up their home-cooking skills.

Well-Traveled Flavors

Pacific Rim ingredients as well as Greek-influenced Mediterranean flavors offer customers international tastes. Black sesame, ginger and wasabi are just some Asian flavors showing up in dressings and marinades.

"Ginger seems to be the fan favorite, especially when married with other fruits and vegetables, like the combination of ginger pineapple or wasabi ginger," says Fortino Godinez, general manager at Hubbell and Hudson Market & Bistro, The Woodlands, Texas. Godinez cites such favorites as TonTon Ginger Dressing and Bittersweet Farms Wasabi Ginger Finishing Sauce. "Customers like these products for their flavor profile and versatility," he says. "They are not just one-and-done applications."

Adding to the trend, Robert Rothschild Farms, Urbana, Ohio, recently introduced a kosher, all-natural Korean Barbecue sauce and marinade with bold flavors of soy, sesame, black pepper and garlic. "Last year we added ten new international sauces to our line, and by far our top sellers are the Asian-inspired ones," says Rob Jelinek, vice president of sales and marketing. Other varieties include Thai Sweet Chili, Thai Plum Garlic and Asian Ginger Teriyaki.

Black sesame and wasabi are emerging as popular flavor profiles as well. Snapdragon Foods, Oakland, Calif., offers a Japanese Black Sesame Vinaigrette made with rice vinegar and kuro goma, Japanese toasted black sesame seeds. Quebec's Mari's Foods Inc. carries a Wasabi Edamame Vinaigrette and marinade that boasts a strong kick of Japanese horseradish combined with sweet edamame.

Some companies are combining popular Asian flavors with local ingredients. The Brooklyn Salsa Company, Brooklyn, N.Y., offers a Tokyo the Sun salsa that doubles as a marinade. "We make this product with local New York State carrots grown in the Hudson Valley," says co-founder and CEO Rob Bowman. "We love having a global flavor that showcases a local ingredient." Tokyo the Sun's ginger notes complement the carrot's subtle sweetness, Bowman notes. As an added bonus, five percent of this product's proceeds go to the Japanese Red Cross to aid earthquake victims.

Equally booming is the Mediterranean flavor profile, which is enjoying renewed interest in lemon-and-herb combinations. In a nod to his Greek heritage, Michael Lampros, executive chef and owner of Gunther's Gourmet, Richmond, Va., created Lemon Oregano Vinaigrette & Marinade. Lampros says customers are craving lighter, fresher flavors that can be used in myriad ways. His versatile marinade works well on salads and for marinating chicken for the Greek favorite, souvlaki.

Cugino's, Crystal Lake, Ill., has added a new line of marinades, including Lemon Mediterranean, to its line of rubs and soups. Dan Hochstatter, president and founder, touts the flavor, made with extra virgin olive oil and real lemons, as one of the most versatile in his line—perfect for a Greek salad or for marinating chicken wings.

Sweet Heat and the Booze Effect

The combination of sweetness with subtle heat—a huge food trend overall right now—has long been popular in marinades. The dueling flavors satisfy an array of tastes and create a balance on the palate. Several new products highlight this combination.

"Sweet and heat is what our customers gravitate toward," says Paula LaBarre, specialty food manager of Grapes & Gourmet, Jamestown, R.I., such as DennyMike's Sweet 'n Spicy sauce and the store's house-made corn-and-bean salsa with apple cider vinegar and sweet-hot peppadews.

Fruit is the ideal counterpart to spicy, hot chilies. In Robert Rothschild's Cherry Pomegranate Habanero Sauce, for example, the sweet-tart ingredients mellow the pepper. "We've been seeing increased interest in the sweet-heat variations of our products," says Rothschild's Jelinek, who praises the multi-layered flavor profile of products like Raspberry Chipotle and Roasted
Pineapple Habanero.

Premium spirits add their own touch to sweet-heat flavors. The alcohol not only tenderizes but also mellows and rounds out any sharp flavors, leaving subtle after-notes. The 2011 sofiTM Gold Winner for Outstanding Cooking Sauce or Flavor Enhancer, Stonewall Kitchen's Roasted Peach Whiskey Sauce, is a perfect example: Its fruity whiskey with vanilla notes tempers the heat. Another example is Earth & Vine Provisions' Pineapple Sake Teriyaki marinade made with Gekkeikan sake brewed in California. When blended with pineapple, the sake tenderizes and turns any protein into candy, says owner Tressa Cooper.

Favorites Get a Facelift

Classics such as Caesar, Blue Cheese and French have been amped up with on-trend ingredients.

When Vino de Milo, Athens, Ohio, decided to augment its salad-dressing line, it looked for flavor profiles that were unusual but had enough mainstream appeal to garner repeat purchases. The company settled on a strong red wine to create the distinctive flavor of its Creamy Light French Dressing with Syrah. "Our dressing achieves a healthy sweetness naturally with veggie purees, plus it has wine in it that gives a natural color and a great background flavor," says founder Jonathan Leal.

Caesar dressing has undergone new interpretations with ingredients such as miso, as seen in Miso Caesar, from Galeos, Costa Mesa, Calif. The lowfat dressing is made with fermented soybean paste that gives it a sharp umami flavor, says founder Andrei Leontieff. He chose miso as a base to give the dressings body and help them stick to proteins when used as a marinade.

Customers are attracted to the new take on some familiar standbys, says James Mefford, grocery buyer at Weiland's Gourmet Market, Columbus, Ohio. Among Weiland's selection are Key Lime Caesar from Island Grove and Smith & Wollensky's Ranch spiked with tomatoes and basil. "Customers are drawn to the familiar but are intrigued by the deeper colors and additional ingredients that offer new flavors in these products,"
Mefford says.

According to the Mintel report, store-bought marinades and dressings are popular with 74 percent of American home cooks. This leaves plenty of room for specialty food manufacturers to drum up sales with restaurant-quality sauces that are flavor-forward, versatile and healthy. |SFM|

Nicole Denis is a contributing editor to Specialty Food Magazine.