Spicy food has crossed a threshold — no longer a niche trend, it now represents a diversified, segment-spanning market with measurable consumer expectations around pepper variety and product presentation. That's the headline finding from Kalsec's new global consumer research report, Beyond the Burn: The Next Degree, which surveyed 9,000 consumers across 17 countries to benchmark where the hot-and-spicy category stands today.
The Kalamazoo, Michigan-based natural ingredients supplier has built its spicy-food research into a flagship industry resource for product developers, menu strategists, and foodservice operators tracking flavor trends. This latest edition goes beyond simple heat preference to examine what consumers expect in terms of pepper specificity — the type, origin, and intensity profile of the chili source — alongside how packaging communicates those attributes at the point of purchase.
Why It Matters
For restaurant and foodservice operators, the implications run deeper than simply adding a hotter sauce to the menu. When consumers distinguish between, say, the fruity heat of a habanero and the slow burn of a guajillo, menu language and ingredient sourcing both require a rethink. The data suggests that operators who speak precisely about pepper provenance and heat profile are better positioned to meet rising consumer literacy around spice — a dynamic that mirrors what happened with coffee origins and craft beer hop varieties over the past decade.
Natural ingredient formulation is central to this shift. As beverage and food manufacturers navigate clean-label demands, Kalsec's position as a supplier of natural spice and herb extracts means its research carries direct supply-chain weight for brands reformulating or launching in the hot-and-spicy space. The report's geographic breadth — 17 countries — also gives multinational operators a rare cross-cultural read on where heat tolerance and flavor preference diverge and converge globally.
Reading the Research
Kalsec has positioned Beyond the Burn: The Next Degree as a milestone iteration, implying this is part of an ongoing longitudinal study rather than a one-off survey. That continuity matters for operators and brand managers benchmarking category growth over time. With 9,000 respondents, the sample size is substantial enough to support regional segmentation, which is where the most actionable intelligence for global menu development typically lives.
For Food & Beverage Magazine readers and the broader foodservice industry, the report arrives at a moment when spicy-food launches continue to outpace most other flavor segments on new product trackers. The combination of consumer demand data, pepper-type granularity, and packaging insight makes this a reference document worth pulling into both R&D and marketing planning cycles.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
