Pink Sauce

About

Pink Sauce is a product promoted by amateur TikTok chef @Chef.pii. In mid-2022, the sauce went viral and puzzled users on TikTok and Twitter, as some were curious to try it while others found the pink-colored condiment disgusting-looking. The pink color purportedly comes from the ingredient dragon fruit. In July 2022, the increased presence of the sauce on various social media apps led to discussions and memes about it.

Origin

In June 2022, TikToker @chef.pii began posting videos of herself trying her "pink sauce" on her foods. On June 11th, she posted her first video with the sauce, dipping a chicken finger in it. The video gained over 655,000 views in five weeks as the product began initially gaining a presence on the platform (shown below).

Spread

Over the following weeks in late June 2022, @chef.pii continued posting videos of the sauce to increased attention and confusion. After users pointed out that the sauce appeared to change shades of pink from video to video, @chef.pii posted a TikTok on June 25th, 2022, saying the changing look of the sauce was due to lighting (shown below, left). Later that same day, she also eventually revealed the sauce's ingredients for the first time, consisting of dragon fruit, sunflower seed oil, honey, chili and garlic (shown below, right).^[2]

Pink Sauce Drama / Controversy

Though @chef.pii posted multiple reviews of people trying and enjoying the sauce,^[1] many remained skeptical, and others found errors with the nutritional information @chef.pii had provided. For example, on July 19th, 2022, TikToker^[3] @seansvv posted a video noting there were nutritional inaccuracies on the bottle and the nutritional facts were not readily available on the Pink Sauce website, receiving over 1.3 million likes in three days (shown below, left). On July 20th, TikToker^[4] @annareportsnews also noted that the label for Pink Sauce did not alert users that the product needed to be refrigerated, accumulating over 272,000 likes in two days (shown below, right).

Some TikTokers also reported issues with the shipping, as Chef.pii was shipping jars of the sauce in unrefrigerated bags, leading some customers to purportedly receive exploded, rancid packages of sauce. This was covered in a TikTok^[5] by user @spillsesh_yt on June 20th, which received over 74,000 views in two days (shown below).

In response to the concerns, @chef.pii posted a TikTok apologizing for the nutritional label inaccuracies and stated that they would be corrected, gaining over 2.2 million views in one day (shown below).

"The F In FDA" Incident

On July 25th, Twitter users discussed a recent livestream by @chef.pii in which she wondered why her product would need FDA approval because the Pink Sauce was not a medical product. Many interpreted this to mean that chef.pii did not know "FDA" stood for "Food and Drug Administration" and thought the administration only approved medicines.

This began to sour public opinion of @chef.pii's venture, as people began to wonder if she was intelligent enough to create a food product fit for mass consumption. Many tweets pointed out the F in FDA stands for "food," causing "The F in FDA" to trend on Twitter on July 26th.

Success

On January 11th, 2023, the Pink Sauce began exclusively being supplied at Walmart locations. In the months since the "F in FDA" incident, Chef.pii partnered with Dave's Gourmet to help her navigate getting FDA approval and supplying businesses with the sauce.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References