Reggae Reggae Sauce
Reggae Reggae Sauce is a Jamaican jerk spice (jerk meat or fish sauce), popularised by creator Levi Roots' appearance on BBC2's Dragons' Den.
Originally sold by Levi Roots at the Notting Hill Carnival, he convinced Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh to invest £50,000 in return for 40% of his company.[1] The sauce gained a cult following as a result of his memorable television appearance and on February 9 2007 Sainsbury's were confirmed to be interested in stocking it.[2] On March 7 the sauce went on sale nationwide.[3]
A follow-up episode of Dragons' Den aired on July 18 2007 revealed that Sainsbury's had expected the sauce to sell 50,000 bottles in its first year. It sold 150,000 in its first day, and continued to be a high-selling product.[citation needed]
ASDA, Tesco, Co-op, Nisa-Today's Morrisons, Somerfield and Waitrose all now sell the sauce. Subway started offering a Reggae Reggae Chicken Sub from 7 July, 2008 in its UK and Ireland restaurants.[4] Food chains Hungry Horse and Slug and Lettuce now offer the sauce on chicken burgers.
The product's catch line is "Put some music in your food". Levi Roots released an accompanying single of his Reggae Reggae Sauce Song which he sang whilst pitching his product on Dragons' Den, and also on Harry Hill's TV Burp. The song was released as a download with proceeds going to Comic Relief.[5]
Expansion
In the first half of 2008, Roots launched "Love Apple Tomato Sauce" and "Fiery Guava Dipping Sauce" in the same style as the Reggae Reggae sauce. Also a cookbook called "Reggae Reggae Cookbook" was released in June 2008.
Gallery
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The Reggae Reggae Sauce bottle design used from March 2007 to June 2008
