Monthly Category Review

A syndicated report gives you a market size. This gives you every pack we can find, a cost floor and a ranked conclusion, on the category you name. For each section below: what you see in the report, the system that produces it, and a sample from the sweet chili run.

01 · Benchmarks

The world’s benchmark packs

In the report

Every pack found online in the category, worldwide and in Iran: photo, weight, price per 100 g, ingredients and buyer ratings, where available.
A full record for each benchmark: sales signal (reported or measured), recipe, on-pack claims and what buyers say.
The most-rated packs, placed first.

The system behind it

19 automated searches, one per source group: 13 abroad, 6 in Iran.Abroad Amazon (US and international); grocers and marketplaces in the US, the UK, the EU, Canada, Australia, the Gulf and Türkiye; Asian-grocery e-shops; Thai producers’ catalogues; brand sites; own-label and diet brands; trade press; open product databases.
In Iran Digikala; Basalam, Torob and Emalls; Okala and other online grocers; import e-shops; brand sites; food-service suppliers.
Everything converted to one basis: sizes to grams, prices to US dollars per 100 g; sugar figures taken from open nutrition databases where a listing has none.
Duplicates, multipacks and the different spellings of one brand merged automatically.

From the sweet chili run

Frank’s RedHot443 g · 3,597 ratingsmeasured

Heinz275 g · 2,515 ratingsmeasured

G Hughes510 g · 2,321 ratingsmeasured

Best of Thailand670 g · 1,672 ratingsmeasured

2,228 listings from 35 countries became 703 distinct packs: 645 worldwide, 58 in Iran.

02 · Segments

Segments and attributes

In the report

Segments: packs grouped by what decides the purchase in that category (for sweet chili: recipe, pack, and route to the shelf); those with a search term of their own placed on two axes (search growth and shelf share).
Attributes: every pack read on twelve attributes, among them sugar, additives, heat, texture, format, size, price, variant, claims and uses.
Shares: each row’s share of the world shelf and of the Iranian shelf, side by side.

The system behind it

Segments defined by written rules on recipe variant, sugar, heat, pack and origin, so every pack is assigned the same way; growth taken from search trends, crowding from pack counts, with brand counts beside them.
Attributes read in order of reliability: the pack’s own label, read in full; then the pack photo, read by image-recognition software (format, printed weight, brand); then the listing text.
Anything not seen recorded as “not seen”, never guessed.

From the sweet chili run

Glass bottle54.1%46.6%

Plastic (PET) bottle20.9%27.6%

Bulk tub, 2 kg and up10.5%17.2%

Organic and clean label11.6%1.7%

Hot and extra hot6.5%1.7%

Retailer own-label16.7%0.0%

World shelf, 645 packsIranian shelf, 58 packs

12 attributes · 15 segments · 669 of 703 packs with a photo · 69 labels read in full. The full tables are further down this page.

03 · Market

Market size and growth

In the report

Category size, with its range and each publisher’s name.
The market layers above it, so the scale is clear.
Search growth in each market’s own language, charted.

The system behind it

Published reports collected automatically; every figure kept with its publisher and year, inconsistent figures flagged.
Google Trends read per market, in that market’s language, one term per request.
Growth computed only on months that have data.

From the sweet chili run

Sauces, dressings and condiments$166 bn

Cooking sauces$63 bn

Asian sauces$62 bn

Chili sauce, all kinds$7.2 bn

Hot sauce$5.7 bn

Sweet chili sauce$1.8 bn

Sizes as published, 2023–25. Six published reports put sweet chili between $0.4 bn and $3.2 bn; our report carries $1.8 bn. Search, last 12 months against the 12 before: world +22% · Iran +4% (on the Persian term for Thai chili sauce) · a 61-month window.

04 · Brands

The brands that sell

In the report

The main brands in each market: buyer ratings, number of shops and price per 100 g.
Each brand’s share of all ratings on the shelf.
A stated caveat: ratings signal popularity, not unit sales.

The system behind it

Each review pool counted once per product family; Amazon repeats one pool across countries and pack sizes.
Each pack’s price taken as the median across its shops.
Price-comparison sites counted only when they name the shop.

From the sweet chili run

Delveseh470 g · 1,794 ratingsmeasured

Kaleh400 g · 1,511 ratingsmeasured

82%of all ratings on the Iranian shelf belong to these two brands

542product families, each review pool counted once

05 · Gaps

Where the shelf is empty

In the report

Rows that are crowded worldwide and thin or empty in Iran, with pack counts on both sides.
Segments worth studying further.
Rows that simply lack data, kept separate.

The system behind it

No conclusion drawn from a row with too little coverage; sparse data reads “no data”, never “empty”.
Price comparisons not quoted when fewer than five priced packs stand behind them.
A gap declared only where the world side is crowded: 20 packs or more.

From the sweet chili runPacks worldwide vs packs in Iran

Sugar-free on the pack 31 vs 2Retailer own-label 108 vs 0Jam-thick, lime and fruit 30 vs 0Organic and clean label 75 vs 1Hot and extra hot 42 vs 1

Sugar-free: 31 packs worldwide declare it. In Iran there are two: Kaleh Pro, the only one made locally, and an imported Suree. Kaleh Pro has 147 ratings against 1,511 for Kaleh’s classic 400 g, so the open question is whether the segment is small or the execution is. Flagged in the sweet chili report as worth studying further.

06 · Demand

Demand, in buyers’ own words

In the report

The phrases buyers actually type.
Related and rising searches.
Search and marketplace autocomplete, with video and recipe platforms as supporting signals.

The system behind it

Persian Google Trends and its related queries; Google and Torob autocomplete; Aparat and Cookpad as supporting signals.
Everything collected automatically and put on one scale.
No English term standing in for the Persian one.

From the sweet chili runSearches related to «سس چیلی تای» (Thai chili sauce) in Iran, relative index

طرز تهیه سس چیلیhow to make chili sauce100سس چیلی تای دلوسهDelveseh Thai chili sauce69دلوسهDelveseh68سس چیلی تای چیستwhat is Thai chili sauce60سس چیلی تای دلپذیرDelpazir Thai chili sauce20+250%سس چیلی تای بیژنBijan Thai chili sauce18breakoutانواع سسtypes of sauce13+80%

Buyers type «سس تای» (Thai sauce) more often than «سس چیلی تای» (Thai chili sauce). The transliterated «سس سوئیت چیلی» (sweet chili sauce) does not register on Google, and barely on Aparat or Cookpad. Torob’s autocomplete suggests «سس چیلی بهروز» (Behrouz chili sauce).

07 · Iran

The Iranian shelf

In the report

Every pack found online in Iran: photo where one exists, weight, and price in toman and US dollars.
Iranian-made and imported packs, kept separate.
Price in minutes of minimum-wage work.

The system behind it

Marketplaces and chain stores read directly; where a site blocks automated reading, search-engine results used instead; the report names the blocked sites.
Every price kept with its basis: shop and date.
Free-market and official exchange rates both printed, never averaged.

From the sweet chili run

$0.116median price per 100 g, made in Iran

$1.149median price per 100 g, world

58 packs: 37 made in Iran, 15 imported, 6 unbranded or of origin not established. All but one have a photo; the first 36 are shown.

08 · Cost and rules

Cost floor, margin ladder and the rules

In the report

The recipe, with ingredient and packaging cost floors.
The legal margin ladder, used to work back from the shelf price to an ex-factory price.
Named co-packing leads, and the labelling rules that apply.

The system behind it

A classic recipe costed line by line and checked against the market leaders’ ingredient lists.
Input prices read from Iranian sources within days of the pack census.
Margins and rules traced to their source and labelled; each figure dated, or marked undated.

From the sweet chili run

Classic recipe, ingredient cost per 100 g6,638 toman

Sugar’s share of ingredient cost64%

400 g PET bottle: ingredients, bottle and cap (a floor)30,750 toman

Margin ladder: distribution + retail, then VAT12% + 14%, then 10%

Co-packing leads named4; two offer private-label sauce

The floor excludes filling, label and carton. The report lists the inputs that could not be priced.

09 · Conclusion

Conclusion and conditions

In the report

The openings, ranked: where to build, where to test first, where not to go.
The conditions that must hold before production, each with the cheapest test that settles it.
What was examined and set aside, with the reasons.

The system behind it

A shortlist built through three lenses: defensibility, formulation, and format and channel.
Separate automated reviewers, tasked with disproving our own conclusions; every fix logged.
Unsupported claims removed or marked unverified.

From the sweet chili run

8critique rounds

158corrections logged before delivery

2lead recommendations overturned

One correction the system made on its own: counted per listing, world ratings came to about 80,000; counted once per product family, about 39,000. About half the raw total was the same review pools repeated across countries and pack sizes. In the sweet chili report, this section is the board of openings at the top.

Build, test first, or walk away. Know which before you fund the line.

Nine sections for every category.

The world’s benchmark packs

Segments and attributes

Market size and growth

The brands that sell

Where the shelf is empty

Demand, in buyers’ own words

The Iranian shelf

Cost floor, margin ladder and the rules

Conclusion and conditions

Built to be checked, not believed.

Every number is labelled

“Not found” is never “absent”

Conclusions are attacked first

A person answers for it

What we do not do

Two monthly plans.

Four categories

Six categories

In both plans

Twelve attributes, 88 rows, the world beside Iran.

Sugar

Additives and formulation

Heat

Texture

Pack format

Pack size

Price per 100 g

Recipe variant

Claims

Uses

Who makes it

Chilli on the pack

The sweet chili report, September 2026.

Sweet chili in Iran: the openings, measured against the world shelf.

Choose a plan. Name the categories.