Formulation Magic With Sauces and Marinades

January 2005

Formulation Magic With Sauces and Marinades

By Cindy HazenContributing Editor

In the consumer's quest for added flavor and convenience, perhaps no products fit the bill as succinctly as marinades and sauces. Once an art, sauce making has evolved from careful measuring, whisking and simmering of ingredients to simply opening a jar, or at most, adding water or milk to a package and briefly heating. Classic white sauces, rémoulades and veloutés, have given way to roasted chipotle, Thai barbecue and mango salsa. Likewise, marinades, typically simple spiced vinegar-and-oil emulsions, have moved toward exotic flavors, like ginger teriyaki, garlic artichoke and chile lime. As flavor trends go upscale, marketing names -- and formulations -- have become more complex.

Melissa Ventura, C.E.C., corporate research chef, Red Arrow Products Company LLC, Manitowoc, WI, explains the difference between marinades and sauces. "Meats and vegetables are soaked or tumbled in a marinade and then cooked. Because the marinade penetrates the surface, the flavors are tasted throughout the food product. When a marinated product is cooked, the ingredients of the marinade react with the protein causing a harmonious flavor profile where all the components are tasted at once. Sauces are usually only applied topically. When tasting the finished product, you get the initial flavor of the sauce and then taste the protein or vegetable." Additionally, marinades may also be injected into the meat to add flavor and increase moisture.

Developmental differences "When a researcher is developing a sauce versus a marinade, these differences should be kept in mind." Ventura says. "Typically, marinades have more-concentrated or         -intense flavors because they are going to penetrate and marry with the protein. The marinade is added at 10% to 15% to 90% to 85% meat so the flavors will be diluted and not as intense once the meat is ready to be served in comparison to a sauce. The flavor profile is more subtle and harmonious because it usually is tasted first and may coat your mouth." For example, for one grill flavor, Red Arrow recommends a 10% higher usage rate in a marinade compared to a sauce.

Generally, marinades have thin viscosities. While the goal is to impart flavor, they may also be designed to provide cling or adhesion of spices. If a marinade is to be injected into meat, it can't have color or particulates. Few things are less appealing than streaked meat and particulates cause problems during the injection process.

Sauces run the gamut from very thick, say an Alfredo, to a thin Asian dipping sauce. Yet even though distinct differences appear between sauces and marinades, in the retail sector the lines are blurring and adapting to the preferences of consumers, who are cooking less.

Chris Chickering, research and development manager, American Spoon Foods, Petoskey, MI, notes a distinctive shift in business. "Marinades didn't sell for us." However, reconfiguring the products into barbecue or grilling sauces proved to be a valuable marketing tool. A Thai marinade didn't do well, but the repackaged Thai barbecue grilling sauce became a strong seller. He notes that people didn't quite know what to do with a marinade. "Barbecue or grilling, they know how to do that," he continues. "We don't offer any products called 'marinade' anymore. It took a transformation into these other titles because it was just a much better selling point."

Similarly, Chickering suggests that the appeal of "roasting" sauces might be limited because of the implication that roasting takes time. "Americans have become lazy in their food applications," he says. "People just don't want to cook anymore. For years we tried to offer people, 'take this sauce, add this to it, and it makes a great recipe.' We're finding that people just want to open a jar and put it on a cracker or spread it on a piece of bread. They want it to be as simple as possible. We had some wonderful recipes, but we find that people are resisting. If it's got more than four or five ingredients and the word 'julienne' in the recipe, forget about it. Today's generation doesn't really do that."

Andrew Bosch, senior creative flavorist, Kraft Food Ingredients, Memphis, TN, sees another reason for the decline of retail-shelf marinades. Most of the chicken breasts sold in the grocery store have been injected or tumbled with chicken broth or flavored, added water. "It's hard to find just chicken breasts anymore," he says. "The consumer doesn't realize that. They will take that home and try to put a marinade in there. The chicken can't absorb it. It's already saturated." Though the added moisture the supplier imparts to the product will result in a moister piece of meat that's easier to cook, it will not readily absorb flavors. The average consumer is probably not aware of this change in the poultry industry. They will simply think that the marinade is not very flavorful.

Ironically, this is at a time when the demand for flavor is increasing. "Our palates are developing and flavors are constantly being required to be better, and to have more depth, more body," says Bosch. The question then becomes how to compensate for the deep-flavor impact that marinating provides. The answer, according to Chickering, is to create sauces with very intense flavors. "Put it on for half an hour or just brush it on as a finishing sauce, and in many cases you're obtaining the same flavor intensity and profile that you may have achieved through marinating." This evolution is also occurring in the grocery store in basting, finishing and grilling sauces.

Outside the home, it's becoming more common to see a marriage of marinades and sauces. Bosch says that, in the past year, he's seen use of a combination of injection with sauces -- primarily in the foodservice category, but in some industrial applications, as well. The whole meat is injected with a flavored marinade and then topped with a visual sauce. The marinade penetrating inside the protein source delivers the flavor profile. "They don't have to put so much visual on the outside," says Bosch. "It's a lot more cost effective to put some inside and some outside to really deliver a full flavor profile."

Additionally, because the marinade offers enhanced moisture retention, the meat is protected from drying. Product designers frequently add tenderizers, such as papain or bromine, to the marinade to improve texture. To a lesser degree, vinegar or acidic fruit bases contribute in this regard by softening the muscle. In addition, moisture and flavor loss can be a problem when foods are held for long periods on a steam table in foodservice settings. Using marinades and sauces in combination increases flavor and textural stability.

Flavor first Approaches to flavor development can vary as widely as the range of people creating new products. "You have to think about what that product is going to be, what you are calling that and what you intend it to be," says Chickering. "If I try to create a strawberry or mango-cilantro vinaigrette, a pineapple barbecue sauce, a roasted tomato sauce, or whatever the case might be, my approach is I try to let the natural flavor of the food itself guide my development. I don't want to adulterate it beyond recognition, and I try to allow the product's main ingredients, natural strengths and their natural flavor profile, and then really, really fine-tune it. You don't put too much in, you try to keep it clean, try to honor the original integrity of the ingredient and use it to its fullest extent adding as much of the flavor, or color, or texture or whatever you're trying to achieve from that particular ingredient in that product. I think that's an important rule of thumb for developers -- to look at the ingredients that you're going to build with, and realize which ones are going to be appropriate. If you're developing something, if you aren't going to taste it or you're not really going to realize its potential, it may not need to be in there. Sometimes, ingredients can enhance other ingredients. I think that's a general good rule to think about: To be true to and honor the flavor and the natural attributes of each ingredient that you're using. Oftentimes, I think people overdevelop and overprocess. Food in its purest form is probably always best."

Just as there is a demand for wholesomeness, there's a drive for meals with a home-cooked quality. "Comfort food is huge," says Bosch. "It's not just comfort food but it's really the authenticity from cooking at home. It's really making sure it has all the components. Years ago when people said, "oh, it's a home-style roast," it was just a roast flavor, but now it has a little sweetness, a little crispness, a little fattiness ... and sometimes it will have a little bit of a vegetable note to it, too. A home-style roast has vegetables down in the bottom of the pan."

This might be easier accomplished in a product for home use, but foodservice applications stretch the capabilities of the flavor scientist. Bosch finds it fairly easy to develop flavors for freeze/thaw stability. "Usually, I start with a proprietary stabilized base, and then I add more to it, a top note or other adjusts, and when you have that stabilized base, it really is a very durable part of the product so it really survives that freeze/thaw very well." The abuse of steam tables is a more-difficult problem because, as a product is held for long periods, the flavor will steam off. Bosch says that while some forms of encapsulation help preserve flavor, it's not a universal solution. "It's not widespread, and you can't use it all the time," he says. "There's research going on to address it, but it's still a big issue."

In creating a sauce, the flavor is often the base, usually at 1% or lower usage rates, to which salt, spices, sugar and starches are added. "We are using the yeast extract as the nitrogen source," says Paul Ajemian, technical development manager, DSM Food Specialties, Eagleville, PA. "It's a Maillard reaction in the traditional fashion by using yeast extracts, other amino acids, reducing sugars and adjusting the final temperature and pH to get the desired flavor profile, whether it's a roasted chicken, boiled chicken, fried chicken. Each one of those has basically the same starting raw materials, but they may be different percentages and processed at slightly different times and temperatures."

Additionally, flavorists can add other components to improve the flavor profile of the finished product. For savory sauces, autolyzed yeast extracts (AYEs) can enhance flavor similar to the enhancement done by monosodium glutamate (MSG) and nucleotides. For retail applications, this offers a cleaner label, but AYEs can also reduce the sodium content of the product by bringing out the other flavors, although they contain some sodium due to processing. "We also have products that are low sodium, less than 2%, medium salt range and products that have additional autolyzed yeast extract at around 38%," says Ajemian. "You can limit the amount of sodium intake because if you use yeast extract at 1%, you're getting more than just the sodium contribution. You're getting also the free amino acids and the peptides that are naturally occurring in the yeasts themselves. They help support the savory flavor system, particularly giving the product a meaty type of background, be it beef, chicken or pork based on the type of applications being developed. They're all water-soluble. There are some difficulties in products that have high oil concentrations. They will go into a solution over time and with agitation, but they are readily soluble in water."

Soy sauce has similar attributes. Although popular in its own right and used as a base for other Asian sauces, it can be used as a flavor enhancer in a wide range of applications. The amino acids in soy sauce can boost the flavor of other ingredients.

"Depending on the formula, soy sauce can be used from 1% to 5% in most sauces and marinades to enhance the flavor with soy sauce's umami, without most consumers being able to identify soy sauce in the product," says Matt Hutchinson, manager of research & development, Kikkoman Marketing & Planning, Elgin, IL. "Non-Asian applications include Buffalo wing sauce, queso cheese dipping sauce, many salad dressings and just about any grilling sauce."

Product designers need to remember that soy sauce is available as a fermented (naturally brewed) or a nonfermented (chemically hydrolyzed) product. The choice can make a big difference from a flavor and flavor-enhancement standpoint. "The advantage of using a naturally brewed soy sauce," explains Hutchinson, "is that the flavor is milder and the profile is already balanced. Naturally brewed soy sauce has naturally occurring sugars and acids in addition to the amino acids, so it blends with just about any flavor without detracting from the overall flavor. Nonfermented, chemically hydrolyzed products tend to be more harsh with a sharper bite. They tend to overwhelm weaker flavors, rather than enhancing them, leaving the overall profile more 'spiky' in flavors, rather than smooth and balanced."

Traditional Japanese soy sauce has a combination of soybeans and wheat, according to Hutchinson, and the exact variety of soybeans and wheat are not as critical to the final flavor as the fermentation process. "It is certainly possible to use other grains, such as corn or rice, to substitute for the wheat, but I am not aware of any products available in the United States," he notes. "Beans other than soybeans can also be used, but again, they are not available in significant quantities, and the product couldn't be called 'soy sauce' anymore."

Sodium can be a concern in some product formulations, so product designers might consider using a "lite" soy sauce. Hutchinson says that the company's lite soy sauce is "approximately 33% lower in sodium than our regular soy sauce. However, in most sauces and marinades, salt is a significant and functional component of the final product. The contribution of salt from soy sauce when used at low levels for flavor enhancement is generally insignificant versus the rest of the formula and can be easily compensated for in the formula." Regular soy sauce contains 5,200 mg sodium per 100 grams, whereas lite contains 3,500 mg sodium per 100 grams.

For dry-mix sauce formulations, powdered product is available. "When converting from wet formulas to dry formulas," says Hutchinson, "we recommend 1 part dehydrated soy sauce to 11/3 parts water" in order to create an equivalent to liquid soy sauce.

According to Bosch, in the retail market, "labeling will dictate a lot of the path to take. They probably won't want MSG, they might not want HVP, they probably will want all-natural flavor, and now a lot of people don't want any hydrogenated vegetable oil. In the development of flavors, we start with the flavor of cooking first. We've gone to our culinary staff and said, 'make us a standard of this cooking process, like grilling, roasting, sautéing,' and then we develop a flavor that mimics exactly what the chef can do in the kitchen. We do something very different, because we start with that cooking process, and then we might add meat and other flavor characteristics using our chicken or beef flavors, but it starts really with the cooking process and to mimic that so when it goes to a foodservice customer they don't necessarily have to roast something to get that authentic roast flavor profile. We've provided whatever's convenient for them to reheat. We provide that culinary or home-style cooked quality."

Restaurant quality is the key descriptor in foodservice. "No matter which type of flavor profile you're going after, you want it to taste like it was made by a certified chef in a restaurant," continues Bosch.

Body builders Just as foodservice is demanding that flavor must taste freshly chef prepared, so are the demands placed on the appearance of a sauce. According to Jeffrey Block, executive vice president, Darifair Foods, Jacksonville, FL, one particular sauce, beurre blanc, is especially difficult to prepare -- even for some trained chefs.

"The delicateness of its preparation requires an instinctive touch, almost maternal and patient," says Philippe Couderc, a world-renowned French chef. That hardly describes most processed-food applications.

The challenge is that the sauce so easily separates. To create a prepared beurre blanc sauce that can maintain stability across a variety of platforms has been difficult. Darifair has developed what it calls a "bulletproof beurre blanc sauce." It's a neutral frozen sauce that can be attached to a product, frozen and then heated, or the sauce can be heated and applied. More significantly, "you can microwave it," says Block. "You can put it in an impingement oven and in a sauté pan without the product breaking and get fantastic butter sauces, or beurre blancs, if you will, that typically they do not serve outside of high-end restaurants because it's so difficult to keep that sauce from breaking. To be able to microwave that quality of a sauce without it breaking is a pretty amazing scientific deal."

It has a neutral butter-sauce base that can be flavored numerous ways, from a lemon-herb or wine-herb sauce to a lobster beurre blanc. "One of our close customers has been utilizing the product for six months now and is turning our product into over nine sauces on his center-of-the-plate applications," Block says.

Developmental challenges also exist. "In designing the sauce, you want to be able to take a lot of different types of flavors, some that are neutral in nature, some that are acid in nature -- kind of like the wines and the vinegars without the sauce breaking, which is a pretty good trick to do," says Scott Brink, director of food science, Darifair.

It's a classic case of the synergy that can develop between a food developer and an ingredient supplier, in this situation with the hydrocolloid supplier. "Primarily, it's in the choice of stabilizers," Brink says. "We do use a proprietary blend of stabilizers."

Block also notes the importance of stabilizers. "We work very closely with one of our stabilizer companies on all of our value-added products," he says, "and they are very intricately involved in helping us master those things, as well as utilizing their resources. We designed a lot of those things ourselves and then have them finished off by their food scientists."

There isn't a singular solution to building body or maintaining stability. Depending on the application, either a gum or a starch may be chosen. A blend of gums might be more suitable, or in rarer cases, a combination of starches. Not uncommonly, a gum and a starch may be used together. Gums and starches each have their strengths, and sometimes these are compounded when used together.

Unlike roux or unmodified starch, "gums remain stable throughout freeze/thaw cycles, as well as during the extended heating of the steam table," says Frances Bowman, marketing manager, TIC Gums, Belcamp, MD. "Gum blends are more effective than any one ingredient at stabilizing these complex systems. For example, a blend that contains guar and locust bean gum provides a thick, creamy texture to sauces without any of the flavor masking that is common with starch. A blend of gum acacia and xanthan can work in many types of sauces and marinades by providing cling, suspension and a smooth texture without adding too much viscosity."

In freeze/thaw applications, xanthan gum is often used with starches, particularly modified, cross-linked starches. "When you're modifying starches, you're using chemicals to alter the functional properties of that starch granule," says Celeste Sullivan, senior application scientist, Grain Processing Corporation, Muscatine, IA. "Cross-linking is a chemical modification that inhibits the granule swelling, making it harder to cook-up, but less susceptible to breakdown. If you cook-up hydrated starch granules, it's putting air in a balloon -- that's the way some people think about it. If you overinflate that balloon, it breaks, and the same thing happens to starch granules if they are overhydrated. We call it 'hydration energy' and it can be a combination of time and temperature to reach the amount of shear, whether that would be pumping a long distance in your plant, going though a homogenizer or some type of a high-shear device -- a colloid mill for the dressing industry. Pumping, elevated temperatures -- all of those are stresses that will help to hydrate but could potentially destroy those starch granules. By cross-linking, you're looking to reduce that tendency for breakdown. The substitution gives you something that will inhibit or reduce the tendency for retrogradation, or moisture loss."

The ratios of the starch polymers amylose and amylopectin will also affect texture and stability. The tendency for moisture loss is increased in starches with high amylose contents. Amylopectin is more stable and provides a flowable, creamy texture.

As that moisture loss or migration can impact freeze/thaw, it can also affect steam-table stability. Here again, cross-linked starches are first choice. Pregelatinized starches aid hydration. They are typically used in dry mixes to which hot water is added for sauces that will be heated on the stove. Pregelatinized cook-up starches are made from varieties of dent or common corn, waxy corn, tapioca, potatoes, or wheat.

Sullivan points out that the choice of starch base will not generally impact the flavor. Tapioca has the cleanest flavor profile, but it's also the most expensive. As a result, they are usually reserved for delicately flavored systems, like puddings. For marinades and sauces, starch base flavor is less a consideration. "Almost always, undesirable flavors come from a starch granule that's not properly hydrated," she says.

The key concern for stability is to choose modified starches. Corn starch, as found in the grocery store, is unmodified. As any home cook who has used it to make gravy will know, when hot, the gravy is very fluid. Upon cooling, it sets back to a gel-like structure. After refrigeration, it will weep. "Moisture loss comes from that unmodified starch," says Sullivan. "The amylose is reassociating, and it loses moisture." Unmodified products are suited for foods prepared and consumed in a relatively short period of time. Unmodified corn starch is frequently used in sauces prepared in Chinese restaurants. Industrially, it can be blended with a modified starch to create a more-rigid texture.

In choosing starches, Sullivan advises considering the presence of other hydrocolloids or gums that will compete for the water. Other solids and the temperature necessary to get those ingredients hydrated come into play. "We use a microscope to help our customers either set processing conditions or determine the expected stability from their starch by looking at those starch granules underneath the microscope, and it makes a big difference," she says. "You want a proper hydration, not an undercooked or an overcooked situation."

For marinades, Sullivan recommends either a cook-up or a pregelatinized starch because the granules are intact, as opposed to in pieces. For injection, usually in water-added products, starches or gums are added to increase moisture absorption and decrease weeping.

While the use of starches and gums is the mainstay of the industry, natural companies utilize other techniques. The use of xanthan, propylene glyocol alginate and modified food starches may solve problems with foodservice products, but Chickering says that one of his absolute dictums is to have the cleanest label possible -- especially on retail products. "We use those ingredients as necessary, but they are certainly not our first choice," he says. "It makes it more difficult because, oftentimes, it makes the solution more expensive. Quite frankly, there are times when you really can't achieve the desired result or product because we are just not willing to use those type ingredients. We put in more solids, more actual real food, and real food tends to hold up better." Frequently, for fruit-based products, pectin is added. Processing can also impact texture. "We thicken the sauce with pectin," he says. "We do it through reduction. It's a two-stage process. It's the older, European style of preserve making, but we think that makes our product special."

Quality considerations Proper selection of stabilizers is essential to creating marinades and sauces that do not separate, as well as to maintaining the desired flow. Measuring and maintaining viscosity is critical to sauce and marinade quality. Two instruments are commonly used. The Bostwick Consistometer, a slightly inclined stainless steel trough, measures the distance that the product flows under its own weight in a given time interval. The Brookfield viscometer uses a rotating spindle to measure resistance to flow. Because temperature can affect viscosity, it is important that testing be done at consistent temperatures.

In addition to viscosity, microbial shelf life is an important consideration -- not just from a quality point of view, but also from a safety aspect. Microbial growth is inhibited by acid and temperature. Acid canners rely on the principal that a specific-pH product requires a certain fill temperature. "There is a scale of fill temperature versus your pH, which you then dial into each product to achieve the proper mix," says Chickering. "If you have a super low pH -- a lot of acid -- you can cook to a lower temperature." On the other end, if the pH is higher, "you have to heat it more. Water activity and some other things play into that. It's primarily heat and acid."

According to the Code of Federal Regulations, acidified foods have a pH of 4.6 or less and a water activity (aw) greater than 0.85. They are further defined as low-acid foods to which acids or acid foods are added. Dressings, marinades and sauces may fall into this category, and are described as having a resultant equilibrium pH that does not significantly vary from the predominant acid or acid food. Refrigerated foods are excluded. Low-acid foods are those with a pH greater than 4.6 and an aw greater than 0.85. Low-acid foods are more susceptible to microbial spoilage.

Preservatives are frequently used to inhibit microbial growth. Once again, pH comes into play. Sodium benzoate is the sodium salt of benzoic acid. Though considered a "food chemical," benzoic acid occurs naturally in cranberries, prunes and apples. Because effectiveness increases with decreases in pH, sodium benzoate is recommended for high-acid products, those in the 2.5 to 4.0 pH range. Usage levels vary depending on the pH. At pH 4.0, typical usage is 0.1% (the maximum allowable usage) while at pH 3.0, a 0.05% level achieves the same antimicrobial effect. At a pH above 4.5, sodium benzoate loses its effectiveness. For higher-pH products, benzoic acid is recommended. Sodium benzoate is far more soluble in water than benzoic acid.

Sorbic acid makes an extremely effective antimicrobial agent, effective against molds, yeasts and many bacteria. Its drawback is that it is sparingly soluble in water. Manufacturers use sorbic acid's salts -- potassium sorbate, sodium sorbate and calcium sorbate -- more widely because of their greater solubility. The sorbates are, however, less-effective antimicrobial agents so it requires more to achieve the same results as with sorbic acid. Potassium sorbate remains effective up to pH 6.5, and, like sodium benzoate, effectiveness increases as pH decreases.

The addition of sodium benzoate and/or potassium sorbate raises the pH of a product by as little as 0.1 to 0.5 pH units, depending on the amount of preservative added, the pH and the type of product. In some cases, additional adjustments to pH might be required to ensure food safety.

Chickering notes that fruit-based products present challenges in maintaining quality consistency from year to year because of variations in crops. "We adjust our formulas to the new year fruit," he says. "If there's a lot of sunshine that year, the natural Brix of the fruit is a little higher. We may need to adjust for that. Perhaps just before harvest there was a lot of rain so the fruit absorbed a lot of water. The fruit wouldn't be quite as sweet, or if there's not as much sunshine, the fruit may have been small and it may have not achieved quite the full flavor." Each year's crop requires analysis and test-kettle formula variations to tweak the formula slightly to maximize the natural fruit itself. It's important to take advantage of what occurred that year and compensate for the effect on the quality of the fruit.

When you're hot, you're hot It should come as no surprise that one type of sauce, salsa, continues to grow in popularity. Chickering sees a demand for more fruitful, sweet-and-sour, acidic-type flavors -- the fruit salsas with heat and vinegar. "They continue to be very popular for us and have grown from small sellers to be huge sellers," says Chickering. "The cherry-peach salsa has skyrocketed to be one of our No. 1 sellers." Other successful products include a mango-habanero salsa and a kiwi-lime salsa. "The salsa trend has been around forever -- it may not be fair to call it a trend -- but it is something we see our customers leaning more and more toward," he says.

"The natural trend comes and goes a little bit," continues Chickering. He thinks it's growing. For one, a large group of people concern themselves with eating what they perceive as "real" food. And they are willing to pay more for it. Natural foods tend to be a little more expensive. However, as the economy comes back, sales of these products should continue to increase.

Chickering also agrees that there is a return to comfort foods. In this category, he describes a pumpkin-chipotle roasting sauce, an apple-cider grilling sauce and a peanut-and-ale grilling sauce, all products he categorizes as warm, rich sauces.

Bosch sees a place in the market for the standards, such as Mexican and Asian profiles. Perhaps nothing is more American than barbecue. "In the last year, I've seen numerous requests for different styles of barbecue," he says. "Everybody's looking for something distinctive and different. It's big. Some customers like it a little sweeter, some like a little bit more of a roast-tomato base, some want a little bit more of a char-grilled base. We're always modifying barbecue a little bit for the customer's need." The primary difference, he notes, is an increase of background flavors. "It's a little bit bold, something to give it a little extra kick."

Ventura sees a move toward products that provide the flavor of authentic cooking methods for a variety of trendy, ethnic cuisines that are moving mainstream. As an example, she cites dal and other Indian spreads or sauces flavored to give the authentic taste of foods made in the traditional brick clay tandoor ovens or a grill flavor added to an Oaxacan mole sauce or to an Indonesian satay marinade to lend the product a "cooked over a cast-iron grate" taste, as if the meat it was applied to was cooked by a street vendor in Jakarta or Oaxaca. For a tahini sauce, she recommends a product with a seared, almost charred, note to build depth to vegetables.

Interest in ethnic flavors is on the rise, according to the report "Market Trends: Food Flavor and Ingredients Outlook 2004" from Packaged Facts, a publishing division of MarketResearch.com, New York. Interestingly, mainstream consumers, who will purchase 75% of all ethnic foods in the next decade, drive this growth.

These days, as ethnic cuisine gains more depth and diversity, Italian sauces, ranging from rich, cheesy, creamy sauces to tomato marinaras, are considered mainstream. Many types of Chinese and Mexican foods are likewise commonplace.

The Hispanic market is growing with flavors most evident in salsas and chile-infused products. The trend is moving further south to Latin American foods to provide opportunities for barbacoa, a chile-marinated braised beef, and chimichurri, a common Argentine herb sauce for grilled meat. Caribbean flavors marry heat with tropical flavors. Perhaps no better example exists than jerk, a sauce that includes hot peppers and other spices with citrus juice. Another popular island flavor is the inclusion of adobo, a peppery blend of oregano and garlic, in citrus marinades.

Asian cuisine, encompassing a variety of cultures, including Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Chinese and Japanese, offers a spectrum of sauce opportunities, such as ponzu Japanese dipping sauce, based on citrus and soy sauce; Indian tikka sauce, based on tomato and onion; and curry sauces.

Exploring different cuisines invites us to experience diverse spices and flavor combinations. In part, this experimentation is increasing our appetite for flavor variety. The American Spice Trade Association, Washington, D.C., reports a substantial increase in the consumption of hot spices, such as black and white pepper, cayenne pepper, and mustard seed. Certainly consumer interest in chile peppers -- such as chipotles, habaneros and Scotch bonnets -- speaks to a desire for more bite. Yet to say that it's just a matter of adding heat is not addressing the true hunger for not only bolder flavors, but also for more-complex flavors with depth and interest.

The Market Trends report sees tremendous opportunity for marinades and sauces, in part because they are so uniquely positioned to add bold flavors to familiar foods. Condiments provide a relatively low-risk way to introduce consumers to more-exotic flavors. What's more, this vehicle to add flavor without also adding large calorie outlays is particularly poised for success in our ever-increasingly health-conscious market.

Meeting the market's needs The American palate is indeed complex. Knowing exactly what consumers want can be at times like shooting at a moving target. On the one hand, they long for the comfort of home-style foods -- yet they are also craving dramatic, foreign flavors. They might speak of adhering to low-fat, low-carb or low-calorie diets while simultaneously reaching for rich, fattening cream or butter sauces. Faced with such an uncertain audience, where can manufacturers direct developmental efforts?

"I think you have to know your niche, and know your place in the market," says Chickering. "We have an idea of the kind of products that we want to sell, and certainly we have to pay attention to the market and offer things that have universal appeal. But we try to pay attention to what is going on in the marketplace and what is going on with our customers, particularly our demographics. We want to push the envelope to draw in new people, but you also need to really know who you are as a company. We do try to create new things independently of what everybody else is doing."

On the other hand, there are those who find success with adapting the tried and true. Classic white sauces haven't completely gone out of style, and perhaps consumers are ready again to explore rémoulades and veloutés -- as long as product designers make it easy and convenient to do so.

Cindy Hazen, a 20-year veteran of the food industry, is a freelance writer based in Memphis, TN. She can be reached at [email protected] .

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