TikTok’s Notorious Pink Sauce Extends Shelf Life

By now, most people have moved on from the extremely meme-able controversy surrounding the notorious Pink Sauce that went viral on TikTok earlier this summer. But Dave’s Gourmet LLC, a company known for its own viral sauces, is stepping in to help bring the fledgling pink condiment to the masses.

If you’ve never heard of the Pink Sauce, here’s a brief run-down: A Miami chef know as Chef Pii introduced a new Pepto Bismol-colored condiment on social media that first made the rounds for its bright pigment but later exploded online for exploding in the mail, among a host of other unsavory issues. Once the testimonials from dissatisfied customers began to roll in, the entire Pink Sauce operation began to fall apart, as FDA complications, expiration hazards due to lack of refrigeration, and inconsistencies in the product line itself turned the sauce into one big punchline.

Just when it seemed like the Pink Sauce was going the way of Heinz EZ Squirt Ketchup, Dave’s Gourmet, maker of the Insanity Sauce oft featured on wing-eating Youtube series Hot Ones, has come to the rescue. A Wednesday, August 17, press release announced a partnership between Dave’s Gourmet and Chef Pii, gently alluding to her “lack of commercial food production knowledge” that “led to significant obstacles.”

“Our R&D team was able to re-formulate the sauce to match Chef Pii’s exact color and flavor profile for the product and at the same time change some of the ingredients to make the sauce less complicated, dairy-free, and clean of any preservatives, artificial colors or flavors. The public will end up receiving a shelf-stable version of the sensational sauce than Chef Pii envisioned in her Miami kitchen,” said Dave Gourmet’s president David Neuman in a statement.

So the Pink Sauce will live on, albeit in a much more manufactured, more commercial sense, and while that makes for a safer, consistent experience, there’s something about ordering a mystery sauce from a viral TikTok that may or may not explode (or expire) in-transit that made the sauce compelling.

While Chef Pii continues to promote the Pink Sauce on her social media accounts, mass production of the sauce is planned for sometime in the fall.

Update: August 18, 2022 3:35 p.m.: This article and headline were amended to remove mentions of Dave’s Gourmet being a Dallas-based company. It is headquartered in California.