Chick-Fil-A Is Sending Two More Sauces To Grocery Stores (And We Got The Merch)
Business has been booming at Chick-fil-A for quite a while now, and the company has continued to expand and find new ways to spread the wealth. The QSR now has almost 3,000 franchises across the country and a legion of very loyal fans.
Some Chick-Fil-A lovers would stockpile their sauce containers to keep on hand whenever the urge struck. Well-known for its excellent customer service and strong marketing strategies, Chick-Fil-A responded by creating products available to take home: 16-ounce containers of its best-known dipping sauces. Chick-fil-A's special sauces entered the grocery sector in several southern states in 2020. The following year, the company widened expanded across the country; Chick-fil-A's original signature sauce and its ever-popular Polynesian have been available for purchase nationwide since then. Some stores even offer 8-ounce bottles of their Honey Mustard and Garden Herb Ranch Sauces to bring home.
Building on the success of that venture, Chick-fil-A is releasing two more of its signature sauces in 16-oz bottles. The two sauces set for the new big bottle treatment are Barbeque and Sweet & Spicy Sriracha.
Sweet Sauces feature heat and smoke
Any southern company worth its salt knows that barbecue is a tough business, as the "right" kind of barbecue continues to be hotly contested (right down to the spelling of the word). And, Chick-fil-A must have done something right to earn the accolades it has with its sauce. When the company changed its recipe to "smoked" BBQ, the complaints broke through to the higher-ups, and they decided to bring the original version back. Now they've done themselves one better, by making the sauce available at supermarkets as well.
Chick-fil-A's Barbeque Sauce contains pineapple juice in addition to standard ingredients like tomato paste and brown sugar. That may be what gives it that special something, but whatever it is, it's a definite winner (now all we need is the chain's honey barbeque sauce).
Their Sweet & Spicy Sriracha Sauce packs a punch. Like regular Sriracha, it's spicy. But, while Sriracha is thin, Chick-fil-A's sauce is thicker and strikes a sweeter note. The ingredients include chili garlic sauce, and with chili flakes interspersed throughout, it tastes like Sriracha got together with Thai sweet chili sauce.
While this drop has our tastebuds salivating, it includes a lot more than just sauce. Chick-fil-A has decided to celebrate all things saucy by adding tons of merch to its lineup — and it's pretty extensive.
More than the usual suspects
It's not the first time the company has experimented with branded clothing and accessories, but they've expanded considerably. Chick-fil-A's new merch is dressed to impress, featuring a full assortment of products to highlight your brand loyalty and celebrate your saucy side. The products include T-shirts, sweatshirts, sneakers, socks, shoelaces, and two types of hats in trucker and bucket styles. They've also made extra accessories like watches, tote bags, pins, and water bottles.
Some have their sauce flavor stated clearly and visibly, while others depend on their color coding to communicate. Each sauce has been paired with a color or set of colors, and there is corresponding stylized camouflage representing the flavors: Honey Mustard is shades of gold; Spicy Buffalo is orange; Barbeque is red; the Chick-fil-A original sauce is red and white; and Sweet & Spicy Sriracha is green (presumably because red was already taken). There is a rainbow of shades represented and a full assortment of products.
Colorfully camouflaged merch
While the link between the green Sriracha water bottle and Chick-fil-A's new 16-ounce sauce offering is tenuous (no, we would not like any sauce flavor packets for our water, thank you), the bottle is well-made and aesthetically pleasing. It features an aluminum interior and a silicone sleeve in a contrasting shade of green, with a screw top for access. There's a small Chick-fil-A logo in one corner but it's very unobtrusive.
The watch, too, is impressive: similar to a Swatch in style, the watch face and band are minimalist and colorful, but solidly constructed. The golden camo of the strap is the only thing that whispers "honey mustard," and only a tiny logo replacing the number 12 reminds you that this is official Chick-fil-A merch.
The tee is similarly subtle: a medium-thick gray cotton made in Guatemala, Mexico and the only thing that sets it apart is a small camo patch pocket in shades of blue (making it an official Garden Herb Ranch Sauce Drip shirt). The ceramic pin is cute but a bit silly, and the trucker-style hat is the only one that doesn't feel like it's at the same level — after all, it's a semi-disposable kind of hat, anyway.
Chick-fil-A has definitely upped the ante on its sauce game, and its merch is a decidedly class act. Now it's up to its loyal fans to decide if they love the look as much as they love the taste.