Oh, hello there. I didn’t notice you, busy as I was using this slice of pizza as a dedicated ranch dressing spoon. Anyway, friend, while you and I might not need anything official to know that Americans are dumping, slathering and otherwise distributing ranch dress on all kinds of food, a new report says it’s the No. 1 condiment shipped to our country’s food service outlets.

The NPD Research group said in a report released yesterday (H/T to The Salt) calling ranch the “Swiss Army knife” of salad dressings (which makes me think of biting a knife, and that’s wrong) as Americans eat it with veggies, on salads and with pizza dipped into it, along with a myriad other food uses.

NPD says it’s the top ready-to-use dressing flavor shipped to places like cafeterias, restaurants and other food institutions, followed by blue cheese dressing, and is growing in an otherwise mostly flat salad dressing category.

So why exactly do we savor each moment that delicious creamy concoction is in our/my presence? Or really, what is it about the ranch flavor that’s conducive to multiple food experiences.?

“It’s cool, creamy, dairy, and it has a little bit of nip to it, but not much,” a new-product expert at the market research firm Mintel explains to NPR’s The Salt.

Also put it on pizza, seriously. Have I mentioned that yet?

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