Pickle is the pumpkin spice of summer

By Scottie Andrew, CNN

(CNN) — Generations of Americans knew where to find pickles: sprinkled on top of their hot dogs, hidden inside hamburger buns and tucked next to deli sandwiches in wet wax paper.

Now, people seeking that distinctive briny tang can sip from a pickle lager at a barbeque, douse plain chicken and rice with dill pickle seasoning before a beach day and snack on pickle-flavored potato chips by the pool. Brands even sell pickle juice on its own, pickle-free, for use in salty, zingy cocktails or refreshing probiotic supplements.

What was once a “boring sidekick“ is “now the main character,” said Andrea Hernandez, a food trend forecaster and the author of the Snaxshot newsletter. Thanks to a “pickle renaissance” in the past decade, pickle has become to summer what pumpkin spice is to fall: the all-American flavor that stands in for the season, a genuinely tasty fusion of herbs and spices that show up in unexpected places, whether it’s a salty-sour pickle ice pop or a sweet holiday pie–flavored can of Spam.

Whether there is actually pickle or pumpkin in pickle- or pumpkin spice-flavored products doesn’t usually matter to the people who eat them. What registers is the mood — breezy or cozy, to conjure the season.

Unlike pumpkin spice, which has settled in to be such a seasonal cliche that people feel the need to defend it, pickle is still crisp and new. But while pickle pops may not hold their place in the freezer case as long as the real thing will endure in the condiment aisle, all-pickle-everything is here to stay, Hernandez said.

“It’s not something that just feels gimmicky –– it’s a major unlock for a category that has been sleepy for a while,” she said.

‘Food that bites back’

Pickle’s ascension has been a while in the making. So far, it seems to have happened more organically than the bacon boom before it, which was eventually revealed to be a marketing operation masterminded by the pork industry. Hernandez said the pickle push probably isn’t a “psyop” by Big Food (though the consumer packaged goods industry is certainly benefitting) –– pickles earned this.

The renaissance embraces the pickles themselves, the flavor of their pickling and even their packaging. There are more brands now selling artisanal pickles in distinctive flavors like honey harissa (or gimmicky ones that beg for virality, like purple grape), and many of them are sold at national grocery chains. A foodstuff that was historically fished, dripping, out of a giant barrel now comes with tidy transportation technology, like the Oh Snap! pouches of baby dills make for a somewhat-healthier youth-sports sideline snack than a bag of chips and Capri-Sun. Neatly bottled shots of pickle juice live near the checkout line at major grocers like Publix, right next to the candy and magazines.

Meanwhile, there are many more foods that are not pickles that are being made to taste like dill pickles: Popcorn, peanuts, peanut butter, pretzels, protein bars, beef sticks, canned fish, hummus, sour gummies, jellybeans, mayonnaise, mustard, cream cheese, seltzers, sodas, frozen pizza.

Pickle-mania started with millennials, who could purchase artisanal pickles at farmers markets and for whom pickling was a hipsterish activity lampooned by “Portlandia”. For Gen Z, the pickle phenomenon “came from inside the house.” During the pandemic, Zoomers were “deprived sensorially,” she said, and sought out content that ratcheted up taste combinations to new extremes: Mukbang bingefests, bizarro food mash-ups, TikTok users daring themselves to try the spiciest or, sourest foods and broadcasting the results. Those videos made them more adventurous eaters who didn’t bristle at the idea of a sweet-and-sour pickle that tastes like a Warhead, she said.

Zoomers, Hernandez said, go for “sophisticated” flavor combos that incorporate Korean or Moroccan flavors, cute branding and purported health benefits. Self-styled nutrition influencers have bestowed a “health halo” upon pickle, she said.

Whether its fermented brine actually supports gut health, replenishes electrolytes or aids hydration (see: the Grillo’s-Liquid IV dill pickle electrolyte powder), consumers are buying it, she said. It’s summer, it’s sweaty, and pickle lovers need to replenish their lost salts somehow.

Conglomerates like Frito-Lay noticed when smaller indie pickle brands started to take off and Trader Joe’s quickly capitalized on the pickle craze with its private-label pickle offerings. Though the big brands’ rollouts were slower, they eventually launched widely available snacks caked in pickle flavor dust, said Melissa Abbott, vice president of syndicated studies at Hartman Group, a research firm that focuses on food and beverage industry trends.

Mt. Olive and Vlasic are still among the top pickle grocery store brands, but to the young consumer, they’re also extremely boring, Hernandez said. Fluency in Zoomer-speak is part of the reason why a company like Grillo’s Pickles keeps churning out popular collaborations with major national brands, turning aggressively high-concept offerings such as a neon-green Smoothie King pickle beverage — the food-industry equivalent of a “sh*tpost,” as Hernandez put it — into durably legitimate products. (Grillo’s, which launched in 2008 and wasn’t sold nationally until 2016, declined to share sales numbers, but CEO and President Adam Kaufman said the brand’s sales have “steadily grown for a number of years” partly due to its collaborations, which “drive excitement.”)

“It’s Pickles 2.0, where it’s not for the utility as much as the feeling that it makes me feel, or the vibe it’s getting,” Hernandez said. “Now snacks are identity signalers.”

Like pumpkin spice, pickle can be a seasoning, liqueur or scented candle, but its vibe is steadfastly sour and salty. It’s a flavor profile that has come to define the times, said June Jo Lee, a food ethnographer and former industry consultant.

“It’s what Gen Z reach for because the old guard rails are gone,” said Lee. “Everything is pretty uncertain and dynamic and changing so fast and fluid. It tastes like how the times feel right now, and I think pickles are the safe sour for that. So Gen Z are craving food that bites back.”

The vibes of pickle are a far more appropriate match for the current moment than bacon was for the Great Recession and its aftermath. Pickles were introduced to American cuisine by Eastern European Jewish immigrants who preserved cucumbers as an economical solution to extend the shelf life of their foods, Abbott said. Buyers, she said, are thinking about preservation again amid widespread uncertainty.

“It’s all about self-reliance, which is very American, as American as hot dogs and freedom,” Lee said.

For all the iterations it takes and zesty flavors it wears well, there’s something nostalgic about a dill pickle, Abbott said: “During times of uncertainty and stress –– we’re snackers in America –– we will reach for things that feel like … part of our collective nostalgia, our imagined past. There’s something comforting about it, like, ‘We’re gonna be okay.’”

Pickle can’t save the country, but it can sate its salt cravings and provide a cool, crunchy mouthful while the world burns. Sickeningly sweet fantasy is dead. Salty reality is in.

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