Ranch dressing

Template:Short description {{#invoke:other uses|otheruses}} Template:Infobox food Ranch dressing is a savory, creamy American salad dressing usually made from buttermilk, salt, garlic, onion, black pepper, and herbs (commonly chives, parsley and dill), mixed into a sauce based on mayonnaise or another oil emulsion.<ref name="Hardy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Sour cream and yogurt are sometimes used in addition to, or as a substitute for, buttermilk and mayonnaise.

Ranch has been the best-selling salad dressing in the United States since 1992, when it overtook Italian dressing.<ref name="slate">Template:Cite news</ref> It is also popular in the United States and Canada as a dip, and as a flavoring for potato chips and other foods. In 2017, 40% of Americans named ranch as their favorite dressing, according to a study by the Association for Dressings and Sauces.<ref name="moskin">Template:Cite news</ref> Ranch dressing is most prominently used in the Midwest region.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

History

Invention

Ranch dressing was invented in the early 1950s by Steven Henson (1918–2007), a Thayer, Nebraska native working as a plumbing contractor in the Anchorage, Alaska area, while cooking to feed his work crews. Henson retired from plumbing at age 35 and moved with his wife Gayle to Santa Barbara County, California, where in 1956 he purchased a guest ranch in San Marcos Pass and renamed it Hidden Valley Ranch.<ref name="andrews">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="ortiz">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="StBarbaraIndy">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="NYTimes" />

Henson served the salad dressing he had created at his Hidden Valley Ranch steakhouse, which became popular, and guests bought jars to take home.<ref name="ortiz" /> The first commercial customer for ranch dressing was Henson's friend, Audrey Ovington, who was the owner of Cold Spring Tavern.<ref name="StBarbaraIndy" /> By 1957, Henson began selling packages of dressing mix in stores.<ref name="StBarbaraIndy" /><ref name="NYTimes">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Henson began selling the dry ingredients in packages by mail for 75 cents a piece, and eventually devoted every room in his house to the operation.<ref name="StBarbaraIndy" /> By the mid-1960s, the guest ranch had closed, but Henson's "ranch dressing" mail-order business was thriving.<ref name="StBarbaraIndy" /><ref name="NYTimes" />

The Hensons incorporated Hidden Valley Ranch Food Products, Inc., and opened a factory to manufacture ranch dressing in larger volumes, which they first distributed to supermarkets in the Southwest, and eventually nationwide.<ref name="InformsJournal">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Commercialization

Manufacturing of the mix was later moved to San Jose, then to Colorado, and then to Sparks, Nevada, in 1972.<ref name=StBarbaraIndy/><ref name=InformsJournal/>

In October 1972, the Hidden Valley Ranch brand was bought by Clorox for $8 million,<ref name=slate/><ref name=StBarbaraIndy/> and Henson retired.<ref name=StBarbaraIndy/>

Kraft Foods and General Foods introduced similar dry seasoning packets labeled as "ranch style". Clorox reformulated the Hidden Valley Ranch dressing several times to make it more convenient for consumers, including adding buttermilk flavoring to the seasoning, allowing the dressing to be made using much less expensive regular milk.<ref name=slate/> In 1983, Clorox developed a non-refrigerated bottled formulation.

During the 1980s, ranch became a common snack food flavor, starting with Cool Ranch Doritos in 1987. Hidden Valley Ranch Wavy Lay's potato chips were introduced in 1994.<ref name=slate/>

In 1992, ranch surpassed Italian dressing to become the best-selling salad dressing in the United States.<ref name="slate" />

During the 1990s, Hidden Valley had three child-oriented variations of ranch dressing: pizza, nacho cheese, and taco flavors.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite AV mediaTemplate:Cbignore</ref>

In 1994, Domino’s first started offering ranch sauce as a condiment with its chicken wings and pizzas, a combination that quickly became popular with customers.<ref name=":0">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

As of 2002, Clorox subsidiary Hidden Valley Manufacturing Company was producing ranch packets and bottled dressings at two large factories, in Reno, Nevada, and Wheeling, Illinois.<ref name=InformsJournal/>

In 2017, Hidden Valley Ranch Products turned over $450 million.<ref name="moskin" />

Production

Ranch dressing is produced by many manufacturers, including Hidden Valley, Ken's, Kraft, Litehouse, Marie's, Newman's Own, and Wish-Bone, as well as Heinz in the Middle East.

Variations

In the Southwestern United States, there is a variant from New Mexican cuisine called "green chile ranch" which adds green New Mexico chile pepper as an ingredient.<ref name="Scinto 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Ragland 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Regional restaurant chains like Dion's produce and sell green chile ranch, as do others.<ref name="KRQE 2017">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Landes 2022">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Let Thy Food 2017">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Other variations include avocado, roasted red pepper, and truffle.<ref name="Hardy" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Trademark lawsuit

One side effect of the adoption of the name "ranch" for Henson's new salad dressing was that it resulted in a federal lawsuit over whether the phrase "ranch style" could be used to describe competing salad dressing products. Since the early 1930s, there had also been an existing brand of pinto beans branded as “Ranch Style Beans”, now marketed by Conagra Brands.

In 1975, Waples-Platter, the Texas-based manufacturer and founder of Ranch Style Beans, sued Kraft Foods and General Foods for trademark infringement for their "ranch style" products, even though Waples-Platter had declined to enter the salad dressing market itself over concerns about rapid spoilage.

The case was tried in 1976 before federal judge Eldon Brooks Mahon in Fort Worth, Texas. Mahon ruled in favor of Waples-Platter in a lengthy opinion, which described the various "ranch style" and "ranch" products then available in the 1970s in the United States, of which many had been created to compete against Hidden Valley Ranch. Mahon's opinion cites evidence indicating lawyers had compelled Henson himself to sit for a deposition during the discovery process to testify about the history of Hidden Valley Ranch.<ref name="Waples-Platter">Waples-Platter Companies v. Gen. Foods Corp., 439 F.Supp. 551 (N.D. Tex. 1977).</ref>

Mahon specifically noted that Hidden Valley Ranch and Waples-Platter had no dispute with each other, though he also said Hidden Valley Ranch was simultaneously suing General Foods in a separate federal case in California. The only issue before the Texas federal district court was that Waples-Platter was disputing the right of other American food manufacturers to compete against Hidden Valley Ranch by using the label "ranch style".<ref name="Waples-Platter" />

See also

• List of dips

External links

• Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing history