The market for cooking/pasta sauces suffered in 2014 and 2015 from consumers cooking more meals from scratch, as well as downward pressure on prices. By contrast, the smaller stocks market benefited in 2015 from interest in cooking and the launch of new products, including new flavours, formats and premium stocks.

Brands and retailers in cooking sauces need to target both aspiring home chefs interested in scratch cooking but pressed for time, as well as people looking for quick and easy meal options at least some days of the week. A number of marketing angles could help sales of cooking sauces, including focusing more on authenticity, nutritional content and more exotic meal options.

With a return to growth in real incomes, room exists in the market to encourage people to trade up to more premium sauces, including sauces with weekend meals in mind that more closely replicate restaurant meals, and expand their meal repertoires through offering a wider range of cuisines.

This report examines the UK retail market for cooking sauces, stocks and gravy makers.

Cooking sauces are defined as sauces used during the preparation of food and those used in the kitchen, rather than at the table. They fall into three categories:

• Cook-in sauces (including cooking pastes) are added to ingredients at an early stage of cooking, such as chilli con carne or Bolognese. Stir-fry sauces and stir-fry pastes are a style of cook-in sauce primarily intended for use with a wok or quick frying style of cooking

• Pour-over sauces are added to the meal just before the end of cooking, or poured over the top just before serving, such as parsley sauce, some pasta sauces and pesto sauce

• Oven-bake sauces are added to the other ingredients part way through cooking, before the dish is placed in the oven.

The cooking and pasta sauce market may also be divided into wet sauces and dry sauces:

• Wet sauces are packaged in jars, cans, pouches or cartons and may be ambient or chilled

• Dry sauces come in packets or cartons and require the addition of water or other liquid to rehydrate them before use.

Stocks and bouillons include stock cubes, pastes and ready-to-use ambient and chilled products.

Excluded

• Table sauces such as tomato ketchup, apple sauce and cranberry sauce (for the purposes of this report, soy sauce is treated as a table sauce and is excluded from the report)

• Salad dressings such as salad cream and mayonnaise

• Dips, including salsa dip

• Sauce bases such as passata and concentrates such as tomato purée

• Sales of cooking sauces, pasta sauces, stocks and gravy through foodservice outlets.