If you have been hanging around on TikTok lately, you are likely to have come across all the drama surrounding a mysterious product called The Pink Sauce.
Its creator is facing backlash as consumers question the condiment’s ingredients and food safety.
Currently being sold online with the tagline “the infamous dipping sauce that everyone is talking about”, the pink sauce was created by Carly Pii, who goes by @chef.pii on the video-sharing app.
Since June, Pii has been posting about the sauce, a home-made concoction that she has used as a dipping sauce for chicken and cucumbers and poured on tacos and Big Macs.
People seemed intrigued. Why is it pink? What does it taste like? And the bravest of them wanted to know, is it for sale?
More questions were raised after customers started receiving their own bottles of the sauce. Customer reviews have been rolling in, with TikTok users recording themselves unboxing their sauce, examining the packaging and doing a few sniff and taste tests while others look on in (understandable) horror.
Some accused Pii of simply taking ranch dressing and putting in pink food colouring, while others struggled to describe the taste.
@chef.pii ILL TELL MY STORY SOON💖
TikTok creator @seansvv shared a series of explanation videos doing a deep dive into their concerns about the sauce, including that the pink colour seemed to change colour depending on what bottle you got, and the weights and calories listed on the bottle don’t seem to make sense and there are spelling mistakes on the labels.
In the caption for their second video, he wrote: “I’m genuinely rooting for her to obtain a licence, fix the labels, correct any errors and then sell out – legally.”
@seansvv Replying to @unicornpirate1 I’m working diligently to pivot back to my usual content. If you want out of #pinksauce tiktok, I hope this can help. #update #pinksaucedrama ♬ original sound - SEAN [They/Them]
Following the explosion of internet drama, Pii addressed her followers in a video captioned: "We are fixing the issues”.
She apologised for the label errors (“I’m only human”) and stressed that the nutritional labels will be fixed for all future bottles of the sauce purchased.
“Yes, we are following FDA standards,” she continued in the video, stressing that the product is still in “lab testing”. She then spoke about her ambition of selling the sauce in stores.
Read the latest IOL Food DigiMag here.