Great Taste Award 2026 — “Heat Wave” by Brandstifter Wins Award
Our “Hitze Welle” chili sauce was awarded a star at the 2026 Great Taste Awards. This means that one of our most uncompromising chili sauces has received one of the most internationally renowned awards for exceptional foods and delicacies. For us, the Great Taste Award is one thing above all else: independent confirmation that a good chili sauce doesn’t have to be complicated to deliver great flavor.
Sometimes less really is more. It was precisely this idea that gave rise to “Hitze Welle”: a handmade chili sauce from Hamburg that focuses on what a truly good hot sauce should be all about—namely, chili, flavor, and a clean, intense heat.
We are therefore particularly delighted that this idea has now been honored with a Great Taste Award 2026.
What is the Great Taste Award?
The Great Taste Award is organized by the British Guild of Fine Food and is one of the world’s best-known and most prestigious awards for food and beverages.
Every year, thousands of products from numerous countries are evaluated by a large panel of independent experts. These include chefs, specialty retailers, buyers, producers, and food journalists, among others. In 2026, 15,038 products from more than 3,917 companies in 116 countries were submitted for evaluation.
What makes the Great Taste Award special is that the submitted foods are tasted blind. Brand, packaging, and marketing play no role in the evaluation. The focus is exclusively on the product and its taste quality.
Among other things, the evaluation assesses taste, aroma, texture, appearance, and the quality of the ingredients used. Ultimately, however, one question is decisive:
Does this product taste particularly good?
The best products are awarded Great Taste stars. One star signifies a food product that clearly impressed the jury with its taste.
For manufacturers of high-quality foods, artisan producers, and delicatessen producers, the black-and-gold Great Taste seal is therefore an internationally recognized mark of quality. At the same time, it helps consumers identify exceptional products with outstanding flavor.
Hitze Welle: Excellent Chili Sauce from Hamburg
The fact that our Hitze Welle chili sauce, of all things, won the Great Taste Award fits quite well with our idea of what a hot sauce should be like.
Its recipe is intentionally simple:
Red jalapeños, Carolina Reaper, garlic, agave syrup, sea salt, white wine vinegar, and water.
No unnecessarily long ingredient list. No artificial additives. No overpowering spice blends or flavors that distract from the chili itself.
The red jalapeños form the aromatic base of the sauce. The Carolina Reaper provides an intense, distinctly noticeable heat.
The result is a chili sauce with a pretty clear mission:
Hitze Welle is meant to add heat, not take away flavor.
That, for us, is exactly what makes it special.
Spiciness that doesn’t overpower the food
Many extremely spicy sauces have a very dominant flavor of their own in addition to their heat. That can be exciting—but it often changes the entire dish at the same time.
When developing Hitze Welle, we wanted to avoid exactly that.
The sauce is designed to function like a precise heat regulator.
Just a few drops are enough to make pasta, bowls, soups, stews, pizza, grilled dishes, or many other foods significantly spicier without overpowering their true character.
If you want more heat, you get more heat.
The flavor of the food still takes center stage.
It’s precisely this combination of a simplified recipe, intense chili, and versatile use that makes “Hitze Welle” a special hot sauce for us.
Carolina Reaper Meets Red Jalapeño
In this heat wave, two very different chili varieties come together.
The red jalapeño adds fruitiness and the classic aroma of ripe red chilies. The Carolina Reaper, one of the world’s most famous extremely hot chili varieties, provides the intense heat.
The result is a sauce whose heat is clearly noticeable, without the sole focus being on achieving the most extreme Scoville ratings possible.
Because, for us, a good chili sauce shouldn’t just burn.
It should taste good despite all the heat.
The fact that this very combination has now been honored with a Great Taste Award makes the prize especially valuable to us.
Handmade Chili Sauce from Hamburg
Brandstifter was born out of a passion for chili and the question of why so many hot sauces are either primarily spicy or so overloaded with other flavors that the actual chili is barely detectable.
That’s why our approach is deliberately different.
We produce our chili sauces in Hamburg, by hand and in small batches. The chili varieties we use aren’t meant to simply provide heat—they’re meant to remain an integral part of the actual flavor.
Our sauces are 100% vegan and contain no artificial additives.
“Die Hitze Welle” perhaps takes this idea to its most extreme:
Few ingredients. Two chili varieties. A pretty clear goal.
Pure. Direct. Explosive.
An award-winning chili sauce and validation of our vision
That’s why the 2026 Great Taste Award for “Hitze Welle” means more to us than just a pretty star on the bottle.
It’s independent validation of our product philosophy.
A chili sauce doesn’t need an endless list of ingredients.
It needs good ingredients, a clear vision, and above all, flavor.
The fact that an international panel of experts recognized and honored exactly that in our “Hitze Welle” naturally makes us a little proud.
And at the same time, it reaffirms our commitment to continuing on this path:
Chili sauces where the chili takes center stage.
Not as complicated as possible.
Not artificial.
But with plenty of heat.
Hitze Welle – Great Taste Award Winner 2026 ★
Handmade chili sauce from Hamburg.
100% vegan.
No artificial additives.
Made with red jalapeños and Carolina Reaper peppers.
And now, officially:
exceptionally spicy.