Red's True Barbecue sauce range

Licensed food specialist All About Food is taking restaurant chain Red’s True Barbecue into retail for the first time.

From this week, Asda is exclusively stocking five Red’s restaurant barbecue sauces – Unholy, Kansas City, South Carolina mustard, Devil Wing and Judas ketchup (rsp: £2/320g) - alongside four meat rubs to pair with pulled pork, pork rib, chicken and beef (rsp: £1/35g).

Red’s True Barbecue would reignite the “struggling” grocery barbecue sauces category, which suffered a 7% value and volume decline last year [IRI 52 w/e to 23 May 2015], said All About Food national account manager Courtney William. “The category lacks an authentic, flavour-focused offering that can translate the flourishing restaurant trend into retail growth in table sauces and rubs.”

The launch was in direct response to “thousands” of requests from fans of the restaurant chain, said Red’s True Barbecue co-founder Scott Munro, adding members of the restaurant team take an annual road trip to the southern states of the US to “ensure we remain authentic to the core”.

Making its first foray into retail was part of a wider expansion plan for the business, which was established in 2012 and serve 45 tonnes of meat each month from its four locations in Leeds, Manchester, Headingley and Nottingham. Munro said the next step was to open the brand’s first restaurant in London.

The retail launch will be supported by PoS, digital, promotional and sampling activity across the summer based on the brand’s ‘pseudo-religious’ tone.

red's true barbecue smokehouse