MasterChef Sarah Todd brings her hot chilli sauce brand to India
Australian MasterChef Sarah Todd on Friday evening launched her range of ready-made chilli sauces in Mumbai. Called Hot Toddy, it comprises five sauces — Sweet Chilli, Bird’s Eye Chilli, 7-Spice Sriracha, Ghost Chilli and Kashmiri Tomato. While the fiery Ghost Chilli is made using hybrid chilli cultivated in Northeast India called bhut jolokia, the Kashmiri Tomato as the name suggests is made using the chillis from the Valley.
“Everybody loves condiments! Especially in India, it is all about adding that extra bit of spice,” Todd told The Indian Express just before the launch in Goregaon, adding that she has always been wanting to move into the FMCG space but her restaurant business kept her busy — Todd ran the famous Antares in Goa until recently. The pandemic, which forced her to slow down, offered her the right opportunity.
When asked if there was any particular incident that led to this venture, Todd recalled a friend who reached out to her during the pandemic asking if she knew a place from where he can buy Kashmiri chilli sauce for his Indian curry.
“Since I had everything I needed in my pantry, I made it for him. He was so sweet that he put it up on Instagram and more and more people started requesting sauces. But, I didn’t have a range of sauces and that’s when I decided to make them considering I had the time I always wanted,” said Todd, adding her priority was to offer natural sauces that are free from preservatives and artificial flavours.
“Whenever you pick up a sauce bottle while shopping kitchen supplies, and look at the ingredients, it is loaded with numbers, artificial colours and flavours. I didn’t want any of that. I wanted to have healthy sauces — natural and free from gluten, artificial flavours and colours, and I also wanted them to look beautiful so that it matches your dinner table aesthetics,” she notes. The sauces are priced Rs 749 onwards.
Even though India is a country where a wide range of chutneys, depending on the season, rule every home across the length and breadth, the data says it is increasingly becoming a big consumer of readymade sauces and condiments. According to Sauces & Spices Report 2023, the revenue in this segment amounts to USD 28.45 bn in 2023 and the market is expected to grow annually by 6.67 per cent (CAGR 2023-2027).
