Despite the July 1 sale date, deliveries didn’t begin to roll in until last week. One customer took to TikTok to show that her shipment contained a bottle with just two ounces of chunky, baby pink sauce inside. Another said she wouldn’t even be tasting it after waiting “this long,” due to its rancid scent. What’s more, its unstructured, soft packaging resulted in her Pink Sauce exploding like a grenade full of melted crayons.
The nutrition labels baffled many. TikTok creator @annareportnews pointed out that the stout bottles boasted 444 servings each, which was impossible at their 1 tablespoon serving size (roughly 1.7 gallons in total) but did match “angel numbers,” or sequences of repeating numbers that some believe foretell good fortune. @annareportnews also questioned the lack of instruction to refrigerate the product, despite milk being in the ingredient list.
On Twitter, self-proclaimed food scientists and onlookers weighed in.
“As a food scientist and a person with general common sense… DO NOT BUY THAT PINK SAUCE,” wrote @Kayla_SaidIt. “ppl are receiving bloated bottles meaning 1 of 2 things: there is a bacterial reaction occurring (gas production) and/or there are 0 preservatives.”
“cause of death: pink sauce,” tweeted another user.
This week, Chef Pī posted an apology video with the caption, “WE ARE FIXING THE ISSUES.” She noted that the label had swapped the number of grams within each bottle with the number of servings, and claimed that she would correct all future labels. Each bottle, she said, actually contains 30 servings. The label available on thepinksauce.com still states that the serving size is 1 tablespoon, and that each bottle contains 444 servings, each with 90 calories.
“I’m only human,” she said in the video. “This is a small business that is just moving really, really fast.” In an interview with the Washington Post, she said she has also switched shipping companies due to damaged bottles and added refrigeration instructions to their labels. She said her product is legal, safe, and made in a commercial facility that is certified by the Food and Drug Administration. Chef Pī did not respond to Bon Appétit’s request for comment.
In the age of Caroline Calloway’s Snake Oil (a fiasco involving an influencer, overpriced facial oil, and colorful customer reactions), it’s no surprise to see internet users clamoring for critical information pertaining to a product that retails for the cost of roughly twenty Arizona Iced Teas. But others still have come to Pī’s defense.
“How about we stop bashing and try to inform her?!?! What is wrong with humanity?” @Marlyn Monrose responded to TikTok creator @seanvv’s explainer video diving into food safety concerns surrounding Pink Sauce.
It isn’t the first time a small—or large—food business has used TikTok as a main promotional channel, to great effect. When a video posted by Nectar Hard Seltzer got more than 400,000 TikTok views, the founders were able to sell 150 boxes of their drink in short order. After influencers espoused the benefits of Chlorophyll Water across Tiktok, the brand sold out its stock. Even Taco Bell has commissioned a TikTok-based musical featuring Dolly Parton and Doja Cat to advertise its “Mexican Pizza.” In the case of Pī’s Pink Sauce, the dynamism and quick proliferation that have underpinned such marketing boons have also worked against a creator, providing just as much free rein for scrutiny.
But the (sometimes) Lyft-logo-colored sauce appears to be thriving despite its controversies. On Tuesday, Pī posted a spliced-together selection of meals adorned with neon pink drizzles, including at least one salad, loaded fries, and lamb chops, to the soundtrack of Beyonce singing, “You won’t break my soul.” It has been liked more than 35,000 times.
“Let the lawsuits begin,” wrote commenter @alessandraaa.1234. As usual, Pī did not reply.
