Remember the “Pink Sauce”? Created by Chef Pii, the sauce first went viral during the Summer of 2022 because of its bright pink hue.
Sis had TikTok lit but hit a snag when people called her out for unsafe manufacturing practices, problems with packaging during shipping, and ingredient ambiguities.
Welp, chef PII stuck with it and according to People the Miami chef has now partnered with Dave’s Gourmet, a food brand known for its sauces, to sell her creation in the U.S.
Hitting shelves in over 4,000 Walmart locations, the colorful condiment will be available in stores and online exclusively at the retailer starting mid-January until July 2023.
Vegan and gluten-free versions will also be available to customers looking to try the viral mixture.
Per a release, Pink Sauce is now mass manufactured by Dave’s Gourmet “under FDA guidelines.”
The official regulations come after Pii received criticism over the manufacturing and distribution of the sauce last summer.
She began selling the sauce herself for $20 a bottle in June 2022, with her initial stock selling out in a matter of days.
The sauce, which gets its Barbie pink color from red dragon fruit, is recommended to be used with burgers, burritos, chicken tenders and salads.
Fans awaiting the sauce, however, had a number of complaints.
Pii didn’t describe the taste before shipping the bottles out, stating that “you cannot explain the flavor of the sauce because it tastes like nothing else” in a TikTok video response to one viewer’s critique.
Once customers received their Pink Sauce packages at home, more complaints piled on.
The labels were misprinted, stating that there were 444 servings in the bottle rather than 444 grams and only 30 servings.
Pii corrected this mistake for future bottles, and also had to clarify the sauce was not made in her home kitchen, but an FDA-certified commercial facility when consumers questioned the safety of the product.
“I’m a normal human being, and I woke up to a million insults,” she told the Washington Post at the time in response to all the criticism. “The world is really curious about my creation. And they’re being malicious.”
Dave’s Gourmet stepped in after noticing the success of the product alongside the struggles Pii faced on the manufacturing end.
“A lack of commercial food production knowledge led to significant obstacles,” the company wrote in their announcement of the brand partnership.
“Dave’s Gourmet discovered this situation soon after Pink Sauce went viral on social media and decided to offer their help and expertise.”
Pii, who is a single mother of two, still works as a private chef and, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, shared that she hopes to teach classes on how to get creative in the kitchen.
In the meantime, the stress of making, packaging and shipping all the bottles on her own has been taken off her shoulders.
“Everything is still kind of surreal. But it’s very real. We’ve been working very hard for the Pink Sauce to come out so soon in 4,300 stores. I mean, it’s crazy,” she told the outlet. “More than anything, I have a smile on my face every day. I wake up and I do what I have to do to better myself as a person and a businesswoman because there’s somebody else watching me, and I’m giving someone else hope. That’s the biggest gift.”
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