A1 Steak Sauce

A.1 Sauce

Type	Steak sauce
Place of origin	United Kingdom
Created by	Henderson William Brand
Invented	1831 (1831)

A.1. Sauce (formerly A.1. Steak Sauce) is a brand of steak sauce produced by Kraft Foods. Sold from 1831 as a condiment for meat or game dishes in the United Kingdom, it was later introduced to North America, where it was marketed as a steak sauce. In May 2014, Kraft Foods announced it was dropping the "steak" from the A.1. name reverting to A.1 Sauce, to "reflect modern dining habits". Although the sauce is widely available in the U.S. and Canada, in the UK, it is currently only sold by Tesco and Ocado.

The original sauce upon which A.1. is based was created in 1824 by Henderson William Brand, a chef to King George IV of the United Kingdom. A popular myth has it that the king declared it "A.1." and the name was born. It went into commercial production under the Brand & Co. label in 1831, marketed as a condiment for "fish, meat and fowl", and continued production under this label after bankruptcy forced ownership of Brand & Co. to be transferred to W.H. Withall in 1850. It was renamed A.1. in 1873, after a trademark dispute between creator Henderson William Brand and Dence & Mason, who had since purchased Brand & Co. from Withall. It continued to be produced by Brand & Co. until the late 1950s at the firm's factory in Vauxhall, London. A.1. was officially registered as a trademark in the U.S. in 1895, and imported and distributed in the United States by G.F. Heublein & Brothers in 1906. Beginning in the early 1960s, it was marketed in the US as "A.1 steak sauce". In 1931, A.1. was introduced to Canada.

Heublein was acquired by R. J. Reynolds in 1982, which merged with Nabisco in 1985 to form RJR Nabisco. In 1999, Kraft Foods acquired Nabisco, including the A.1. brand.

In the 1980s, two new flavors of A.1. were introduced, representing the first expansion of the trademark. These varieties were soon discontinued. In 2000, the A.1. line of marinades was launched.

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