From Campsite to Shop Shelf: The Red Gold Concentrate Story
Camp cooking is different from home cooking. Space is limited, ingredients must earn their place, and every item in the caravan or camping box should solve more than one problem. Red Gold Concentrate was developed during three years of full-time camping as a practical way to add rich tomato-based flavour without carrying a long list of separate ingredients.
Red Gold Concentrate did not start as a product idea. It started as my wife’s practical answer to everyday cooking while living and travelling from campsite to campsite. When space is limited and meals still need flavour, a concentrated tomato-based ingredient can become more useful than a cupboard full of separate sauces and seasonings.
When you camp in a small Sprite Scout, certain things become more important than in larger spaces:
- Limited cupboard and fridge space
- Fewer pots, pans, and appliances
- Smaller working surfaces
- Wind, weather, and time pressure
- The need for simple meals that still taste complete
At home, you can build flavour with onions, tomato paste, garlic, herbs, spices, sauces, chutneys, marinades, and slow cooking. At a campsite, every extra bottle or packet takes space and adds clutter.
My wife developed Red Gold Concentrate while we were camping full-time. It came from repeated cooking needs, not a business idea with a formal product launch. It had to be useful in ordinary meals, not only special recipes. It had to save space and simplify flavour.
Red Gold Concentrate is a 50% reduced, concentrated tomato-based flavour ingredient used as a base, booster, spread, sauce starter, or cooking shortcut. It is used in meals such as pasta, mince, stews, braai sides, toasted sandwiches, sauces, marinades, or one-pan campsite meals.
Red Gold makes sense for campers because it is one jar that serves more than one use. It can reduce the need for several separate flavour items. It works with basic ingredients. It suits caravan, tent, and long-stay campsite cooking. It can help when you want a quick meal without bland food.
Red Gold Concentrate started as a real concentrate, not just another sauce. The idea was to create a 250 ml jar that could be used in many different food ideas, whether as a sauce starter, spread, flavour booster, or shortcut in everyday cooking.
Its roots go back to our three years of full-time camping. With more time to think, test, and cook in a small space, my wife began experimenting with products, herbs, and flavours. Over time, that experimenting led to a compact product with its own flavour profile and a practical purpose: saving both time and storage space.
The idea came together during the last few months of our camping life. While we were driving through the Eastern Cape, my wife suddenly said, “I know what I’m going to do.”
That moment was only the beginning. Once we were back home, the idea was tested, refined, and adjusted through days and nights of research, recipe work, and many tomatoes.
In time, the campsite idea became Red Gold Concentrate, and the first jars found their way onto shelves in Centurion, where we live.
Red Gold is suitable for:
- Long-stay campers
- Caravan owners
- Weekend campers
- People with limited pantry space
- Home cooks who like practical shortcuts
- Braai-focused families who want sauces, sides, or marinades
- Small food businesses that need a tomato-based flavour base
It may not suit campers who prefer to make every sauce from fresh ingredients only, or those who do not enjoy tomato-based flavours.
Practical campsite uses
Use it as a sauce starter
For pasta, mince, rice dishes, pap, or one-pot meals.
Use it as a flavour booster
For stews, soups, beans, chakalaka-style sides, or leftovers.
Use it around the braai
For marinades, basting, relish-style sides, or dipping sauces.
Use it for quick meals
For toasted sandwiches, wraps, eggs, sausages, or campsite breakfasts.
Use it when you feel adventurous
It can be used to make Blood Mary’s or anything you may want to invent
9. A note on packing for long trips
Long-trip camping teaches you to judge every item before it goes into the caravan, trailer, or food box. It should be economical in cost, storage, weight, time, effort, fuel use, and waste. This is why multi-use ingredients matter in a camping kitchen: they help you do more with less, without turning every meal into a compromise.
Download the Altydkampers packing list.
Red Gold Concentrate began as a campsite cooking solution, not as a boardroom product. Its value for campers is simple: it gives one compact ingredient several possible uses in everyday meals.
I am proud of the product my wife created. It is heartwarming to know that it started as a camping product and developed into a small business.
If you are interested in the more personal story of how Red Gold Concentrate came about, you can read Van Kampkombuis tot Klein Besigheid on our AltydKampers website.