The New SKUs
Summit Hill Foods is extending its Better Than Bouillon® Culinary Collection with four globally inspired concentrated paste bases: Chicken Ramen Base, Tonkotsu Ramen Base, Pho Base, and Birria Base. The products hit shelves at Walmart and Albertsons this month, with additional retail distribution to follow. Each paste is designed to collapse the prep time traditionally associated with scratch broth — six to twelve hours in the case of pho — into a matter of minutes.
The launch targets one of the more durable trends in both commercial foodservice and retail grocery: consumer appetite for globally authentic flavors. Ramen, pho, and birria have all graduated from niche regional menus to mainstream daypart anchors at fast-casual chains and regional independents alike, creating a halo effect that drives retail demand for at-home replication. For Summit Hill, which already supplies flavor solutions to foodservice distributors and restaurant operators through its ingredient division, the Culinary Collection line represents a direct-to-retail expression of the same formulation expertise.
Product Specs
The Chicken Ramen Base and Tonkotsu Ramen Base are positioned as the category's first concentrated ramen broth starter pastes, built on real chicken or pork respectively and finished with authentic shoyu sauce; neither carries added MSG. The Pho Base leans on real beef stock, ginger, and aromatics to approximate the layered complexity of a long-simmered Vietnamese broth. The Birria Base — drawing on the Jalisco original — combines beef stock with chili peppers, onion, paprika, garlic, and spices, aiming to deliver consommé-grade depth for tacos, quesabirria, rice bowls, and braised applications.
Kyle Peterson, Chief Marketing Officer at Summit Hill Foods, framed the launch around the convergence of convenience and authenticity. "Our new Culinary Collection of global flavors bases deliver the restaurant-quality taste of ramen, pho, and birria with the trusted quality of Better Than Bouillon, making it easy to prepare authentic, flavorful meals in minutes instead of hours," Peterson said.
Foodservice Angle
For commercial operators, the retail expansion underscores a broader ingredient-category dynamic: as global bowl formats — ramen, pho, and birria-forward menus — proliferate across fast-casual and limited-service segments, the demand signal flows upstream to concentrated-base suppliers. Summit Hill's dual role as a branded retail player and a foodservice ingredient partner means the Culinary Collection line can serve as both a consumer touchpoint and a proof-of-concept for operators evaluating paste-format bases as a back-of-house labor saver. Concentrated pastes stretch farther than liquid broths on a cost-per-serving basis, a meaningful consideration given ongoing pressure on food and labor costs across the industry.
The global-flavor segment shows no sign of plateauing. Birria in particular has expanded well beyond its taco-truck origins into fast-casual menus and LTO rotations at regional chains, while ramen-focused concepts continue to open units in major metro markets. Operators looking for ways to standardize globally inspired broth and base applications without dedicated kitchen labor are an obvious secondary audience for formulations like these, even as the immediate retail launch targets grocery shoppers.
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.
