The reliably stupendous sales of pizza on Super Bowl Sunday have inspired makers of pie accoutrements to intercept some of the action.
Tabasco sauce has made an annual habit of piggybacking on the pizza industry's holiday, running radio ads reminding consumers how much a drop of pepper sauce improves a plain pepperoni slice. In 2009, a Dallas marketing agency spearheaded a program in which five million samples of sauce were delivered with pizzas.
Pizza sales jump by about 35 percent when the Super Bowl's showing, making it one of the five top sales days on the pizza industry's calendar: About 30 million eaters order a pizza to go with the game. If a mere 10 percent of them sprang for a standard 12-ounce serving of Tabasco sauce, the company would see about $14 million in revenue.
But Tabasco execs count on pizza fans to handle the task of saucing. Not so in the U.K., where a major supermarket chain this past summer rolled out three Tabasco-flavored frozen pizzas. The branded line includes Sizzling Pepperoni, Spicy Meatball and Smokin' Barbecue Chicken.
There don't seem to be any plans to bring the pies stateside. A spokesperson for Tabasco said she'd never heard of the product, and didn't anticipate a U.S. release.
