Summit Hill Foods has rolled out four new concentrated paste bases under its Better Than Bouillon Culinary Collection banner — Chicken Ramen Base, Tonkotsu Ramen Base, Pho Base, and Birria Base — now on shelf at Walmart, Albertsons, and additional retailers nationwide. The launch extends a brand already well-positioned in grocery and club channels into trending global flavor territory, giving retailers a higher-margin, shelf-stable alternative to liquid broths in the soup and stock aisle.
The Products
All four SKUs are concentrated paste formats, meaning a single jar stretches farther per serving than carton broths and offers operators and home cooks flexible flavor intensity. The Chicken Ramen and Tonkotsu Ramen Bases are positioned as the first concentrated ramen broth starter pastes in the market, according to Summit Hill Foods. Both are made without added MSG and lean on shoyu sauce and real pork or chicken for umami depth. The Pho Base is built on real beef stock, ginger, and traditional aromatics — ingredients that in a scratch kitchen would require six to twelve hours of simmering. The Birria Base draws on beef stock, chili peppers, onion, paprika, and garlic to replicate the slow-cooked consommé central to birria tacos and quesabirria, a format that has driven significant menu adoption at quick-service and fast-casual concepts over the past three years.
Channel Relevance
For convenience retailers and their foodservice programs, the Better Than Bouillon expansion signals where ingredient suppliers see growth: globally inspired, restaurant-quality flavor profiles that consumers increasingly expect to find in accessible formats. Ramen in particular has moved well beyond the instant-noodle segment — NACS data consistently shows that hot dispensed food and made-to-order bowls are among the fastest-growing categories at well-capitalized c-store foodservice programs. A concentrated base that can anchor a back-of-house ramen or pho bowl program — without the labor of an eight-hour bone broth — fits neatly into the cost structure most single-store operators and regional chains are working with.
Birria follows a similar arc. The Mexican braise has become a bellwether for global-flavor adoption at foodservice, appearing on menus from food trucks to QSR test kitchens. Operators sourcing a paste base for a birria taco or rice-bowl daypart add-on would find the SKU easier to spec than a scratch consommé recipe.
"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," said Kyle Peterson, Chief Marketing Officer at Summit Hill Foods.
Summit Hill Foods also supplies flavors and ingredient solutions to foodservice distributors and manufacturers, giving the company a dual retail-and-operator footprint that could accelerate broader placement beyond grocery into institutional and convenience channels. Selection varies by retailer and location.
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.
