Datassential sorts food trends into stages, and the promotion I watch closest is the one into what they call "New Classics." That's the category where a flavor stops being a trend and starts being something your aunt buys at a regular supermarket in Ohio without thinking twice. The latest list is out, and Supermarket News has the breakdown, and the short version is: the grocery aisle keeps getting more international.

Ten foods, flavors, and beverages made the jump this time around. If you've been paying attention to condiment shelves lately, none of it will shock you, but it's still satisfying to see the data catch up to what's actually in people's carts.

My own pet theory while all this happens: gochujang is quietly becoming the next sriracha. I've watched it work its way into the condiment aisle for a couple of years now, creeping from the specialty shelf to the mainstream sauces, and the whole thrust of this new list feels like more evidence that the trajectory is real. Whether it's literally one of the ten this time, you'd have to check the full list, but the direction of the aisle is not in question. Sriracha walked so gochujang could run, or however that saying goes.

What interests me about the New Classics framing is the permanence of it. The idea behind the category is that these are flavors that stopped needing explanation. Nobody needs a parenthetical anymore. Nobody asks where it's from or how to use it. It just gets bought, squirted, stirred, and moved on from.

I've watched this cycle play out in my own pantry, for what it's worth. I remember hauling jars of things back from trips because I couldn't get them at home, or at least I thought I couldn't, and now I trip over some of those same jars at my local Kroger. Half the fun of food travel used to be smuggling flavors home. Now the flavors commute on their own.

Is that a loss? A little, sure. Eating a condiment in the place it comes from, made by people who've been making it forever, still beats squeezing it from a bottle in your own kitchen. But mostly it's a win, because it means more people cooking more interesting food on a random Tuesday, and it means the grandmas whose recipes these originally were get a wider audience. I'll take that trade.

If you want the full list of ten, hit the Supermarket News piece linked above. And next time you're in the sauce aisle, count how many bottles you own that your parents had never heard of. The number might surprise you.