Our Ready Foods sales team was spending time in the market, visiting accounts and tracking market trends when they focused in on multiple food service operations making a carne adovada. They recognized what a time consuming process it was in a restaurant kitchen and how many raw ingredients need to be purchased to create it, so sales brought the idea to the R&D team at Ready Foods. They felt it was a product we could make high-quality in our facilities, while taking something difficult off the plate of restaurant operators.
Adovada or Adobada is a Spanish word that literally translates to "marinated." Originating in New Mexican cuisine, carne adovada usually consists of pork cooked or marinated in this chile sauce complete with spices and a delicious acidic element like vinegar or lime juice. Once our R&D and production teams nailed down a flavorful recipe, complete with pork, based on authentic formulas, they worked together to figure out how to pump and package the product from our large kettles into ready-to-use packaging for foodservice. This item was then taken to the market with our sales team for feedback. We heard from chefs and foodservice operators that they loved the flavor, but needed something more versatile. For some, the price was too high, for others, they would rather use a different cut of meat or no meat at all. The sales and R&D teams went back to the drawing board, eventually relaunching the product, thanks to our agile R&D and production team, without meat at all. This meant that dining operators still had access to adovada sauce, without having to order a slew of ingredients, but they also didn't have to use it just with pork. Today, our Marco's Adovada Sauce is used as a marinade for meats, a braising sauce, a finishing sauce with roasted vegetables and even slathered on a pizza instead of tomato sauce. Our customers have found this item to be a time saver in their back-of-house operations. The Adovada Sauce can easily be warmed right in the bag and tossed with wings, for example, minutes before heading out to a customers' table. It provides kitchens with complex flavors in minutes. Without the meat, our Adovada Sauce comes in at a lower price point that restaurants can adjust to be vegetarian or loaded with meat, as they see fit.
Our R&D team researched the history of the adovada sauce to come up with a recipe that utilizes authentic ingredients while highlighting modern flavor trends and diners' cravings. With a tomato base, our Adovada Sauce features New Mexico Chiles, Ancho Chiles, and Chile Pequin. This combination of peppers along with cilantro, garlic, lime juice, onion, coriander and a perfect blend of spices brings the heat and flavor variety that consumers are asking for. Our cases of sauces also allow kitchens to order one product, instead of an array of peppers and spices that will take up space in their pantries and not be used before their expire date. Arriving in BPA-free packaging, customers love that our sauce gives them a 100% yield and solves labor issues or inconsistencies. Since its recent meatless launch, our Adovada Sauce has had great success. From its relaunch in August of 2019 through January 2020, our sales team was able to garner the interest with distributors and place the product in 8 DCs in 5 states. The quick, upward trending case sales and great interest from our distributors and end users validated how versatile the product is and confirmed our market data that suggested a need for this flavorful profile that falls between an enchilada sauce and a red salsa.
For more information, click here.