Sauce is the smallest line on a takeaway’s shopping list and one of the biggest influences on its margin. Give away two extra sachets with every delivery order and, over a year, you have quietly handed out a week’s takings. Ladle burger sauce from an open bucket and you will use half again as much as a squeeze bottle would.
Yet most operators buy sauce in whatever format their wholesaler happens to stock, rather than the format that suits how they actually serve. That is the gap this guide fills.
BurgerPro supplies Nawhal’s and Colona sauces in five formats: 10ml sticks, 20ml dipping pots, squeeze tubs (the Tubbies), bag-in-box biboxes and 10L buckets. Below is what each one is for, where it saves money and where it costs you. Consumers can buy the smaller formats too, from the online shop.
Sticks (10ml sachets). Single-serve, sealed, ambient. Made for delivery bags, click and collect, and anything that leaves the shop.
Dipping pots (20ml). Sealed portion pots with a peel lid, 120 to a box. Made for dine-in trays, meal deals, chicken and fries, and any dish where the customer dips rather than squeezes.
Tubbies (350ml, 500ml, 850ml Colona / 950ml Nawhal’s squeeze tubs). Squeeze-top tubs for the counter and the pass. Made for dressing burgers, wraps and fries to order, and for offering several sauces without opening several buckets.
BiBox (5L Nawhal’s, 2 x 4L Colona). Bag in box with a tap or pour spout. Made for refilling squeeze bottles and dispensers behind the counter at lower cost per litre.
Buckets (10L). The bulk option. Made for high-volume kitchens, central production and refilling, where one sauce goes through very fast.
The 10ml stick is the format most people picture when they search for sauce sachets. It is sealed, it needs no refrigeration until opened, and it fits in a delivery bag without leaking over the chips.
For a takeaway doing a lot of app orders, sticks do two things. They give the customer a recognisable branded sauce at home, which is a small but real reason to reorder. And they cap the portion: one stick is one stick, no matter which member of staff packs the bag.
BurgerPro carries the Colona Stick Collection and the Nawhal’s Stick Collection. Between them you can offer Algerian, Andalouse, Samurai, Big Burger, Biggy Burger, ketchup, mayonnaise, BBQ, pitta kebab, mustard and more in 10ml form. The 10ml category lists every option.
A rule of thumb: put one stick of your house sauce in every bag as standard, and price additional sticks. Customers rarely object to paying a small amount for a named sauce they asked for, and it turns a cost into a line of revenue.
Dipping pots are the 20ml sealed pots with a peel-back lid that you see on chicken shop trays and in meal boxes. They hold twice the volume of a stick, which is about right for dipping fries, tenders or wings, and they stand upright on a tray without spilling.
The Colona Dipping Pot Collection comes 120 pots to a box and covers Algerian, Andalouse, Samourai, Hannibal, curry, sweet BBQ, cocktail, tartare, tomato ketchup, vinaigrette ketchup and mayonnaise. The 20ml category has the full list.
Where pots really pay is on a chicken and fries menu. A box of tenders with two dipping pots looks generous, costs you a known amount, and lets you offer “choose two sauces” as a feature rather than a cost. Pair a Colona Hannibal dipping pot with a sweet BBQ pot and you have two different sweet-and-savoury dips that sell themselves.
The Tubbies are squeeze tubs with a nozzle top, and for most takeaways they are the workhorse format. A row of Tubbies at the pass means staff can dress a burger, stripe a wrap or zigzag a portion of fries in one motion, with no ladle, no spoon and no open container drying out.
Nawhal’s Tubbies come in 350ml, 500ml and 950ml. Colona Tubbies come in 350ml, 500ml and 850ml. The Tubbies post on the blog covers the range in detail.
Which size? The 350ml is a trial size or a slow-moving specialty sauce. The 500ml suits a sauce you use daily but not constantly. The 850ml and 950ml are for your two or three headline sauces, the ones that go on most orders. Most kitchens end up with a mix: big tubs of Algerian, Samurai and a burger sauce, smaller tubs of the sauces that only a few customers ask for by name.
The squeeze tub also solves the consistency problem. A stripe from a nozzle is roughly the same every time; a spoonful depends on who is holding the spoon. Over a busy week, that difference is measurable in sauce cost.
A bibox is a sealed bag of sauce inside a cardboard box, with a tap or spout. Nawhal’s biboxes hold 5L; Colona biboxes are 2 x 4L. The point of a bibox is simple: the sauce inside costs less per litre than the same sauce in tubs, and because the bag collapses as it empties, the sauce is not exposed to air the way it would be in an open bucket.
Biboxes are for refilling. Keep your squeeze bottles at the pass, keep the bibox in the chiller or on a low shelf, and top up bottles from the tap. It is the format for any kitchen that gets through a tub of a single sauce every day or two.
See the Colona BiBox Collection and the Nawhal’s BiBox Collection. The 5L category lists every Nawhal’s bibox, including Algerian, Samurai, Biggy Burger, Cheezy Easy and Pita Kebab.
The 10L bucket is the lowest cost per litre and the highest commitment. It suits kitchens where one sauce goes through very quickly (a kebab house and its white sauce, a chicken shop and its mayonnaise, a burger bar and its house sauce), or central kitchens preparing for several sites.
Two cautions. First, an open bucket at the pass is the most wasteful way to serve sauce, because ladles are generous and the surface dries. Decant into squeeze bottles and keep the bucket sealed. Second, only buy a bucket of a sauce you know you will finish. A bucket of a specialty sauce that moves slowly is false economy.
The Colona Bucket Collection and Nawhal’s Buckets cover the core sauces, and the 10L category lists them all. Our earlier post on bulk versus retail sauce sizes works through the arithmetic.
If you refill from biboxes or buckets, you need something to refill into. Reusable squeeze bottles with a nozzle cap are the standard; sauce pumps and dispensers make sense for a single high-volume sauce like mayonnaise or ketchup at a self-serve station. BurgerPro’s accessories cover the basics, and any decent catering supplier will fill in the rest.
Label every bottle, date it when filled, and wash and refill rather than topping up. It is basic food safety and it keeps the sauce tasting as it should.
Delivery-heavy takeaway: sticks in every bag, Tubbies at the pass, a bibox of your two best sellers for refills.
Dine-in burger bar or chicken shop: dipping pots on trays, Tubbies at the pass, buckets only for the house sauce if volume justifies it.
Kebab house: buckets of white sauce and chilli decanted into squeeze bottles, Tubbies for the Belgian sauces (Algerian, Samurai, Andalouse) that customers increasingly ask for, sticks for delivery.
Food truck or event caterer: Tubbies and sticks only. Space is tight, refrigeration is limited and you want sealed formats you can pack away.
Café adding burgers: 500ml Tubbies of three or four sauces and a box of sticks. Scale up once you know what sells.
The standard single-serve stick is 10ml, which is one portion for a burger or a small portion of fries. Dipping pots are 20ml, which suits dipping tenders, wings or a larger portion of fries.
Colona dipping pots come 120 to a box, in a range of flavours including Algerian, Andalouse, Samourai, Hannibal, curry, sweet BBQ, cocktail, tartare, ketchup and mayonnaise.
A bag-in-box format: a sealed bag of sauce inside a cardboard outer with a tap or spout. Nawhal’s biboxes hold 5L and Colona biboxes hold 2 x 4L. It is designed for refilling squeeze bottles at lower cost per litre than tubs.
Per litre, a 10L bucket is usually the lowest cost, followed by the bibox, then squeeze tubs, then pots and sticks. The right choice depends on how fast you use the sauce, not just the price per litre. Trade pricing is confirmed through the wholesale enquiry form.
Sealed sticks and dipping pots are ambient until opened; keep unopened boxes in a cool, dry place away from direct heat. Opened tubs, biboxes and buckets should be kept refrigerated and used within the period stated on the pack.
Yes. Most BurgerPro trade customers order sticks for delivery, Tubbies for the counter and a bibox or bucket of their best seller in the same order, all dispatched together from Birmingham.
Yes. Single 350ml and 500ml Tubbies are available from the online shop with nationwide delivery, which is the sensible way to trial a sauce before buying it in bulk.
Every format in this guide ships from BurgerPro’s Birmingham warehouse to anywhere in the UK, dispatched within 1 to 2 working days. Browse the full sauces range, or if you run a takeaway, kebab house, burger bar, food truck, fish and chip shop or catering business, complete the wholesale enquiry form to talk through case quantities and trade pricing for the formats that suit you.
