After TikTok fans questioned the safety of her homemade dipping sauce, the inventor of the viral “pink sauce” responded to the internet’s concerns.
The mystery sauce, which looks to range from an opaque pink to a vivid fuchsia, has both intrigued and alarmed Internet users. TikTok users can’t stop discussing the product, which costs a staggering $20 a bottle. On the app, the hashtag #pinksauce has 80,9 million views. On Thursday, Pink Sauce was trending on Twitter.
The sauce has inspired memes and sparked food safety concerns regarding the product that TikTok inventor Chef Pii makes, sells, and ships from Florida. However, Chef Pii is unconcerned. In an interview about her product, she commented, “I’m like, this is the Madonna.” This sauce is the Beyoncé of its peers.
Chef Pii, who wished to be called to by her TikTok username out of concern for her privacy, debuted the sauce in videos of herself spreading it across meal plates.
Videos of her creating the sauce for a pop-up event gained popularity, and “TikTok craved the pink sauce,” she claimed.
However, not long after the sauce went popular, numerous TikTok users began pointing out the apparent hue variations. They questioned Chef Pii’s quality control and highlighted that each bottle contains conflicting nutritional information.
Critics have also questioned the sauce’s shelf stability and if it is safe to ship during the summer’s high temperatures. Some noted that the bottle’s label urges consumers to refrigerate the product, even though it was supplied without temperature-controlled packaging, which raises additional concerns regarding food poisoning.
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Others accused her of selling “mayonnaise with food coloring” since Chef Pii first refused to reveal the sauce’s ingredients. She eventually disclosed a partial list that included dragonfruit, honey, chili, garlic, and sunflower seed oil.
Chef Pii dipped a chicken tender in a bowl of magenta liquid in one of the earliest films she uploaded featuring the product. The video, posted on June 11, has approximately 755,000 views. “It looks like purple sauce today,” said one viewer.
Chef Pii stated that she began experimenting with pink sauce in June 2021 and began sharing videos of “prototypes” later that summer. When she started her restaurant, Flavor Crazy, Chef Pii began incorporating her sauce into dishes. During pop-up events, “it was requested by customers.” Chef Pii stated that Flavor Crazy no longer operates, but “that’s an entirely different tale.”
The 29-year-old chef resides in Miami, where Florida’s “cottage foods” regulations let anyone sell “low-risk” items from unlicensed home kitchens. Cottage food producers can produce and sell these items without a license as long as their yearly total sales do not exceed $250,000.
She noted earlier films presenting the sauce as a lighter shade of pink were “prototypes,” She altered the tint based on “what the audience responded towards most.” Chef Pii asserted that she could not initially reveal that she substituted dragonfruit for food coloring before registering a trademark for the sauce.
