Boston Pizza has added a new flavour to its holiday table with Pizza Gravy, a limited-run product that blends traditional gravy with the brand’s trademark pizza-sauce offering.

The launch stems from new Boston Pizza survey results compiled by Harris Poll Canada showing that, while 67% of Canadians consider gravy as the centrepiece of holiday meals, three in five want to introduce new flavours to break up what Boston Pizza describes as “holiday food fatigue.” The product launched Thursday for $9.99 through a dedicated microsite and at select restaurants, with a portion of proceeds supporting Food Banks Canada.

James Kawalecki, Boston Pizza’s VP of marketing, tells strategy that the Pizza Gravy concept, created with agency partner Mekanism, grew out of the brand’s broader holiday strategy, which last year introduced the theme of giving Canadians “a little break” during a the hectic holiday season.

“The holidays are a bit of a crazy time for everyone,” Kawalecki says. “The insight around ‘take a little break’ is, what are you really hungry for around this time of year that Boston Pizza can deliver? It’s about giving a sanity-saving place and permission for Canadians to unwind and take a little holiday from the holidays.”

While playful on the surface, the product required a long leadup to launch. Kawalecki says it took roughly 18 months from concept to market because Boston Pizza had to essentially build a new supply chain to bottle and safely package a shelf-stable “Pizza Gravy” product.

“We essentially created a new revenue channel just for this product,” he says. “We are not in the business of bottling and selling … some ideas are planned and spontaneous, this was one that was well planned and we stuck with it and figured out a way to bring it to market. Not every one of these ideas is going to take off, but we keep trying them. They’re great for the team internally, they’re fun, they’re great for the brand and our agency partners love being a part of them as well.”

Pizza Gravy is the latest in a series of novelty innovation drops that have become part of the Boston Pizza playbook. In spring, the brand released a Champion Room Spray, meant to mimic the scent of a post-victory locker room during hockey playoffs, and during the Toronto Blue Jays’ run to the World Series, it launched Dough Ball Stress Balls to help fans cope with the anxiety of in-game tension.

Kawalecki says these types of ideas often originate from a mix of long-term planning and opportunistic creative collaboration between Mekanism and PR partner Heads + Tales. “We just wanted to give people something unexpected to talk about, something that connects to the holiday campaign,” Kawalecki says. “That’s why our playoff campaigns this year and the Jays, with the Dough Ball Stress Balls, that’s where you start to get some real gold, because the agencies dig in and they know that we’re a client that’s willing to bring ideas to market quickly. We’re always on the hunt for good ideas.”

While Pizza Gravy isn’t tied to a major paid-media push, Boston Pizza expects the launch to drive social engagement and earned media, which the brand now views as core to its marketing personality, Kawalecki says. “Our expectation is to always stay with creating moments that engage socially with our guests and with our fans. And so we take chances on things like this, because we know it’s totally within the brand personality and getting a little bit of a reputation for doing it.”

For Boston Pizza, Kawalecki adds, the light-hearted holiday drop is less about sales volume and more about reinforcing brand behaviour that generates attention. “All of these things are just little moments in time where we try to get people to smile and, in this case, we created something to sell, but it’s fun, it’s good for the brand.”