Salad dressings and sauces have a long and colorful history, dating back to ancient times. The Chinese have been using soy sauce for 5,000 years; the Babylonians used oil and vinegar for dressing greens nearly 2,000 years ago; and the ever-popular Worcestershire was derived from a sauce used since the days of the Caesar. Indeed, early Romans preferred their grass and herb salads dressed with salt. Egyptians favored a salad dressed with oil, vinegar and Oriental spices. Mayonnaise is said to have made its debut at a French Nobleman’s table over 200 years ago.

Salads were favorites in the great courts of European Monarchs - Royal salad chefs often combined as many as 35 ingredients in one enormous salad bowl, including such exotic "greens" as rose petals, marigolds, nasturtiums, and violets. England’s King Henry IV's favorite salad was a tossed mixture of new potatoes (boiled and diced), sardines and herb dressing. Mary, Queen of Scots, preferred boiled celery root diced and tossed with lettuce, creamy mustard dressing, truffles, chervil and hard-cooked egg slices.

But, in the Twentieth Century, Americans went a step further in salad development making it a fine art by using basic dressing ingredients (oil, vinegar or lemon juice, and spices) , to create an infinite variety of sauces and dressings to make salads the best ever.

Store bought dressings and sauces were largely unavailable until the turn of the century. Until then, home chefs had to start from scratch, and because of variations in ingredients, results were also extremely varied. Gradually, restaurants began packaging and selling their consistently good special dressings to delighted customers, and the salad dressings' industry was born. Many of the major brands of dressings and sauces available today were introduced as early as the 1920’s.

In 1896, Joe Marzetti opened a restaurant in Columbus, OH and began to serve his customers a variety of dressings developed from old country recipes. Consumer acceptance led Mr. Marzetti to bottle and sell his dressing to restaurant customers in 1919.

In 1912 Richard Hellmann, a deli owner in New York, began to sell his blue ribbon mayonnaise in wooden containers. One year later, in response to a very strong consumer demand, Mr. Hellmann began to market the mayonnaise in glass jars.

In 1925, the Kraft Cheese Company entered the salad products business with the purchase of several regional mayonnaise manufacturers and the Milani Company (which led to Kraft’s initial entry into the pourable dressing business with French Dressing as its first flavor).

SALES

Salad Dressings Sold

1950 6.3 Million Gallons

1960 17.5 Million Gallons

1970 34.3 Million Gallons

1997 60.2 Million Gallons

TODAY’S TOP DRESSING FLAVORS

The first ranch dressing was introduced in the mid-seventies by Hidden Valley Ranch in a dry dressing mix and later bottled. Competitors followed suit and today ranch-style dressing reigns as America’s favorite dressing flavor followed in order by: Italian, creamy Italian, Thousand Island, French and Caesar.