comment this story
Comment
The Florida chef whose Pepto Bismol-toned condiment went viral this week, with people on social media scrutinizing her TikToks with Zapruder-like intensity and questioning its legality, safety and ingredients, says she’s proud of her product.
The Miami-area personal chef who goes by her professional name, Chef Pii, and her newly introduced pink sauce have been at the center of a whirlwind of Barbie color and theme controversy for dozens of TikTok videos that have amassed millions of views. visits. . “The world is very curious about my creation,” she said in an interview with Mademoiselleosaki. “And they are being malicious.”
Chef Pii, 29, who refused to reveal her real name, has a response to all the criticism that has been leveled at her and her nascent brand. First among them: Her product, she says, is legal and safe. She makes it in a commercial facility certified by the Food and Drug Administration, as per the law, she says, not in a home kitchen, as some people have suggested. She says that she had been making the sauce, which she uses to coat fried chicken, French fries and vegetables, long before she produced it for sale. “I’ve been using it and serving my clients for a year, no one has ever gotten sick,” she says.
She admits to early stumbles, like mislabeled bottles. TikTokers had taken advantage of the errors in the initial packaging and questioned whether any of it could be believed. She says a typo in the graphic design confused the number of grams of product with the number of servings (444 servings instead of about 30 servings totaling 444 grams). And after receiving backlash, she added the instructions to “refrigerate.” She apologized for the mistakes. “This is a small company that is moving very, very fast,” she said in a video posted yesterday.
As customers began receiving their products when shipping began on July 1 (he said he’s sold about 700 bottles so far), people complained about poor packaging and some posted pictures of leaking bottles. Chef Pii says he changed shipping companies and apologized to customers who received damaged bottles.
And for those who said they suspected the sauce contained something not on the list — at least one video suggesting she used mayonnaise to thicken it had garnered 3.9 million views as of Thursday afternoon — she tells you it doesn’t. . But she’s not divulging everything about her process: “I won’t explain my process, and I won’t be intimidated.”
Previously, Chef Pii had only offered a cryptic response to many on social media who wondered if he was operating legally. “Yes, we are following the FDA standard,” he said in a video, adding that “we are currently in lab testing, so once we go through lab testing, we will be able to release to stores, to put the pink sauce in stores. .” He is now planning to post a long video, maybe up to 45 minutes, tonight on YouTube to answer all the questions that people have raised.
Many people thought it strange that the sauce’s inventor didn’t describe its taste, an omission that helped fuel the mystery surrounding the sauce and fueled the feeling that she was hiding something. But Chef Pii says she wasn’t being intentionally coy or even trying to create hype. She says she really can’t put into words the flavor, which some have described as ranch-adjacent. “She wasn’t trying to be rude or anything,” she insists.
Another thing you say is not a trick? The distinctive color of the sauce, which comes from the red pitahaya or pitaya. Chef Pii says that he has suffered from depression and anxiety, and that for a long time he had discovered that the properties of the fruit were useful in treating his conditions. “I have a relationship with this sauce,” she says.
While some people on social media investigated potential health or legal issues, others simply enjoyed poking fun at the show.
No, because people talked about not trusting COVID vaccines. But they willingly spent $20 on a watery “pink sauce” because they saw strangers on TikTok eating it. Lmao.
— Bella Goth (@HotCommieGal) July 20, 2022
Covid, monkey pox, decimated abortion rights and now this profane pink sauce… the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse y’all 🥴 pic.twitter.com/lu6qBkDzTm
— Mihrimah| FS | xanaxed and living in prayers 🪬🤲🙏 (@Mihrimah_FS) July 21, 2022
Chef Pii says some of the online backlash hurt him. “I’m a normal human being and I woke up to a million insults,” he recalls. Still, he has big plans for the brand, starting with lowering the price from the current $20 to make it more affordable. He doesn’t want to sell his brand to a bigger company, but he dreams of partnering with one, maybe a fast food company that serves his sauce.
But she is trying to tune out the backlash while keeping busy filling more orders.
“Yes, salsa is extremely controversial, but to my curious and artistic people who are really into the pink salsa craze, I love you all,” he said in a video this week. “Haters don’t take my light away.”
Source: www.washingtonpost.com