Louisiana hot sauces fiery competitors
Associated Press
NEW IBERIA, La. – Louisianians like their food with a kick, the kind that drowns the taste buds in a rush of red pepper seasonings and goes down perfectly with a cold glass of iced tea.
And whether it's crawfish etouffee, chicken and andouille gumbo or blackened alligator, once it's cooked and laid on the table, the hot sauce bottles come out – from cabinets, refrigerators or purses.
The small town of New Iberia has given the world two of its best-selling hot sauces, Tabasco brand Pepper Sauce and Original Louisiana Hot Sauce.
While the companies admit no more than a healthy competition between them, state residents often have preferences, noting that Tabasco and Louisiana Hot Sauce are not interchangeable.
"To me Tabasco has more of a vinegar taste, where the Original Hot Sauce has more of a pepper taste," said Mary Belleau, past president of the Baton Rouge chapter of the Council for Development of French in Louisiana and a connoisseur of Cajun food.
Belleau carries tiny bottles of hot sauce with her, just in case a restaurant doesn't provide the hot sauce she prefers, Louisiana Hot Sauce.
"My son-in-law and I are the ones that are, like, 'Take away the Tabasco, we want the Original Hot Sauce,' " she said.
So what's the difference?
Tabasco is made with a type of red pepper, originated in Central America, that is nearly twice as hot as the cayenne pepper used in Louisiana Hot Sauce. Tabasco uses less salt and vinegar up to four times stronger than Louisiana Hot Sauce. Tabasco's aging process takes three years; Louisiana Hot Sauce takes one.
"They are really two different products," said Si Brown, president and CEO of Bruce Foods, which owns and markets Louisiana Hot Sauce. "Tabasco is made from different ingredients, has a different heat level and has a different profile, with stronger vinegar and a hotter pepper."
Paul McIlhenny, president and CEO of McIlhenny Co., which produces Tabasco, agreed, saying his family's sauce is "more powerful, it's hotter. It's dramatically different than cayenne hot sauce."
According to Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based company that tracks product sales through supermarket scanners, Bruce Foods leads the hot sauce market slightly in volume sales while McIlhenny leads in money earned. Tabasco sells for a higher price. It's a slight point of contention for the companies.
"We claim in terms of volume, you have to use five times more of theirs because it's weak," McIlhenny said to explain the slightly lower volume sales. "We consider ourselves, by far and away, to be the hot sauce leader."
McIlhenny said he views Louisiana Hot Sauce as Tabasco's true competition because other hot sauces tend to be sold only regionally, not internationally. Brown said he thinks of it as "friendly competition" rather than a rivalry.
"We will market our product as hard and as intensely as possible," Brown said. "We just want to have ours on the table. As long as ours is on the table, we feel our job is done."
The sauces are similar in history and breadth, if not in taste.
Both remain family businesses, started on kitchen stoves and sold to neighbors. Tabasco is older, patented in 1870, while Bruce Foods started making Louisiana Hot Sauce in 1928.
Both sauces are distributed across the United States and to 100 other countries, and both companies have broadened to sell a variety of pepper sauces and other products.
"Over the past 50 years, it's been a gradual education of hot sauce to the palates of Americans outside of Louisiana," Brown said. "Hot sauce wasn't a staple in other states, but it certainly has become a staple there today."
