Fruit-Forward Heat Emerges as Swicy’s Next Act

Mango habanero is up 120% on U.S. menus over the past four years, and as Datassential’s Launches & Ratings platform reveals a growing list of fruit-and-spicy combinations building on the same sweet heat flavor that made swicy trend.

Mango habanero has reached 5% menu penetration and is expected to grow another 40% over the next four years, according to Datassential Menu Trends. As a side-dish flavor specifically, it’s grown 2,633% over the past four years, making it the fastest-rising new side term, according to Datassential’s Menu Trends: What’s New report.

Swicy, a portmanteau of sweet and spicy, can describe any food or beverage with that flavor profile, according to Datassential’s Comfort Food Trends report, and mango habanero is a primary example of a “swicy” or “fricy” flavor. While the term “swicy” appears on less than 1% of U.S. menus, the broader sweet and spicy flavor profile appears on 9% of menus and has grown 12% over the past four years, according to Datassential’s Menu Trends platform.

Food website Tasting Table uses the term “fricy” to describe the pairing of sweet fruit with a spicy flavor, pointing to chefs like Giada de Laurentiis adding chili flakes to fruit salads. The outlet also points to opportunities for making simple swaps, such as hot honey in place of sugar, for a spicier lemonade, and it notes that fricy margaritas have become a fixture of summer drink menus, with Datassential’s Menu Trends showing spicy margaritas up 123% on U.S. menus over the past four years and mango margaritas up 35% over the same period.

Datassential’s Launches & Ratings data reveals that the spicy fruit pairing is concentrated around mango and pineapple. El Pollo Loco has released several mango habanero LTOs, including a Mango Habanero Chicken Meal and Mango Habanero Chicken Tostada, and Taco Cabana has offered a mango-pineapple-habanero Sunset Caliente Margarita that was a Superstar in Datassential Launches & Ratings with an 86 composite score, which combines consumer ratings across purchase intent, uniqueness, and value.

The spicy fruit trend notably extends beyond just mango habanero and pineapple. Datassential’s Spicy report identifies tropical fruit more broadly as the backbone of the fruit-forward heat trend. For example, Jeremiah’s Italian Ice built its Island Fire Italian Ice around POG, a classic Hawaiian passion fruit-orange-guava blend, paired with Hawaiian Hot T’s habanero-scorpion-ghost pepper hot sauce. The highest-scoring fricy item tracked on Datassential Launches & Ratings is BARTACO’s Strawberry Seoul Margarita, which paired strawberry with gochujang, a Korean chili paste that has grown 32% on menus over the past four years. The item earned a 99 composite score.