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Tabasco Sauce Spices Up Potato Chips in China Listen with ReadSpeaker

The best of the East and West was fused when DKSH brought two iconic food brands – Tabasco and Oishi – together to create a truly unique potato chips snack in China.

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Business Units

Consumer Goods

Business Lines

Fast Moving Consumer Goods

Services

Distribution and logistics, Marketing and sales

Markets

China

Tabasco products are made by McIlhenny Company. It is an American brand of hot sauce made from vinegar, tabasco peppers, and salt. The sauce brand also has multiple varieties including the original red sauce, habanero, and sriracha. They are sold in over 195 markets and packaged in 25 languages.

Meanwhile, Liwayway Marketing Corporation first introduced the Oishi snacks brand in 1974 with snacks like Oishi prawn crackers and Kirei yummy flakes. In 1993, the brand entered the China market under the brand Oishi, which in Chinese means “delicious, excellent, and superior.” It is now present in 11 markets and is known as Rinbee in Thailand and Cambodia.

Tabasco Sauce Spices Up Potato Chips In China

Challenge

Although Tabasco sauces were popular in the food services markets largely as an add-on to Western cuisines like pizza and pasta, the Tabasco company saw the opportunity to expand into the snack food segment. Since it had not been done before, they were unsure of consumers’ sentiments and market acceptance.

The company was also keen to increase market visibility in both the retail stores in China and make a bigger impact through the growing eCommerce channels. To achieve this, they had to work with a partner that understands the market well.

Approach

As DKSH has a strong network in retail, managing national key accounts and multiple sub-distributors across 90 cities in China, we facilitated the collaboration between Tabasco and Oishi. We helped the companies to develop the flavor and supported the packaging design development process.

More than 100 key opinion leaders were presented with pizza-flavored Oishi potato chips together with a special pack of chopsticks, Tabasco sauce, and hand sanitizer. The idea was to create a different snacking experience with Tabasco sauces and potato chips.

We also supported the crucial aspects of intellectual property rights and the corresponding licensing agreements. The product is getting more awareness through various sponsorship events like the Hot & Spicy Festival in Beijing, the International Food Fair in Shanghai, and Anuga in Guangzhou.

Result

The project’s digital strategy was initially focused on China’s version of Instagram called Little Red Book. Today, these Tabasco and Oishi blended products are now being rolled out across the online platforms of Tmall and WeChat with a growing fan base.

The biggest accomplishment was to successfully combine a unique food serving sauce like Tabasco with a potato chip snack which was previously unheard of before in China.

This project shows our capabilities in taking our clients’ brands places and that we are an agile and flexible partner for growth.

It was a superb launch of the co-branding partnership in China between two renowned brands: Oishi potato chips and Tabasco pepper sauce. Big thank you to the DKSH China team for making this happen.

Martijn Peters, Global Sales and Marketing Director, McIlhenny Company.

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