Shownotes
The primary focus of this episode revolves around an enlightening conversation with Dave Raymond, the esteemed co-creator of the renowned Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce. Within this discourse, we delve into the inception of the sauce, its remarkable ascent to prominence, and the unique challenges encountered in the competitive realm of barbecue. We further explore the profound impact of personal history on professional endeavors, as Dave shares anecdotes from his life that shaped his entrepreneurial journey. The episode also addresses the significance of relationships within the industry and the enduring legacy of Sweet Baby Ray's, which now commands a substantial market share. Through this dialogue, we aim to illuminate the intricate interplay between culinary passion and business acumen, offering listeners a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to thrive in the barbecue domain.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Sweet Baby Ray's
- Smithfield
- Kraft
- Bullseye
- KC Masterpiece
- Walgreens
- Menards
- Jewel
- Ralph's
- Food for Less
- Deuces Wild
- Pig Powder
- Heritage Steel
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the.
Speaker B:Charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker B:Now, from the Turnito Burnett studios in Portland, here's jt.
Speaker A:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Hey, everybody.
Speaker A:Welcome to the nation.
Speaker A:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with my hall of Famer Co host, Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker A:And Dave and Chris and Alex and the crew are running around in the background somewhere.
Speaker A:We'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker A:Beef the way nature intended, do have a special going on.
Speaker A:We'll talk about that a little later in the show.
Speaker A:Today we have a very, very, very special guest, Dave Raymond, the namesake and co creator of Sweet Baby Ray barbecue sauce.
Speaker A:He's famous, and he's one of our more famous guests that we've had.
Speaker A:And if you don't know anything about Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, you've probably been living under a rock, is the only thing I can say, because it's.
Speaker A:It's a big.
Speaker A:The big seller in, in the barbecue sauce business.
Speaker A:But we'll talk all about that.
Speaker A:Dave, welcome to the show.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker B:Happy to be here.
Speaker A:Well, you look good.
Speaker A:Are you happy?
Speaker B:Oh, Covid retired me the first week.
Speaker B:I'm about as happy as a guy could be.
Speaker A:So let's.
Speaker B:And I mean that sincerely.
Speaker B:I stopped coming to work, but my nephew Deuce, who's my partner and the son of my brother who created Sweet Baby Rays, we've shared office space for, at that time, 15 years.
Speaker B:Not office space, but one office where we were in it together.
Speaker B:So the last three years of the company had basically been running the company already.
Speaker B:So now it just seemed like it was perfect timing and, and surviving Covid, we're doing better than ever.
Speaker B:So to be able to.
Speaker B:To.
Speaker B:To get the good part of that stuff without having the.
Speaker B:The pressures and responsibilities, who would be the happiest guy in town?
Speaker A:Oh, absolutely.
Speaker A:So you.
Speaker A:You actually had Covid yourself?
Speaker B:I. I got it in January, This.
Speaker B:This January for the first time.
Speaker B:But, but, but I'm saying people in the restaurant and catering business.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Had no reason to come to work after the first week of COVID Right.
Speaker A:Yeah, we saw that out here on the west coast, and I think Leanne saw that in Florida, so that was a.
Speaker A:A very, very tough deal.
Speaker A:Well, Ray, let's get some historical stuff out of the way.
Speaker C:We're calling him Ray.
Speaker A:It's Dave.
Speaker A:It's Dave.
Speaker B:David.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker A:I'm sorry.
Speaker C:Easy to do.
Speaker A:Oh, geez.
Speaker A:All right, Dave, let's get some historical stuff out of the way here.
Speaker A:Thank you, Leanne, for that.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's why she's my boss.
Speaker A:Really, Dave?
Speaker B:The sauce is the boss.
Speaker A:The sauce is the boss.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:How did you.
Speaker A:How did you and your brother come up with this?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And you've got to tell the story about why the sauce is called Sweet Baby rays.
Speaker B: Back in: Speaker B:The salesman came in, said he made good ribs.
Speaker B:I said, no, I made good ribs.
Speaker B:He came back three days later with a column from Mike Royko, who said he made good ribs and didn't understand why black people got all the credit for it.
Speaker B:He was besieged with letters and phone calls, and that's what began at the Mike Royko rib contest.
Speaker B:Salesman comes back and said, hey, let's get into this rib contest.
Speaker B:Having never done anything like that before.
Speaker B:I said, sure.
Speaker B:Salesman leaves.
Speaker B:I immediately get on the phone to my brother up in Wisconsin, who's a chef by training, told him I was getting into a rib contest.
Speaker B:I needed a barbecue sauce.
Speaker B:He talked to the seven best people in the business that he knew to get their ideas what would constitute a good barbecue sauce, and then, with his own ideas specifically for you, formulated the sauce for the name Sweet Baby Ray, a nickname I had growing up on the west side of Chicago.
Speaker B:My last name is Raymond.
Speaker B:The black guy is called my brother Ray, and they called me Baby Ray.
Speaker B:Most of my life, I was £100 less than him.
Speaker B:I've managed to narrow the gap as I told my story, so they called me Baby Ray, and for my baseline jump shot playing basketball, as in, that is Sweet Baby Ray.
Speaker C:There you go.
Speaker B:I like it was actually created for the name.
Speaker B:We wound up winning second place out of 700 contestants, and I incorporated the following year.
Speaker B:And the rest, we say, is history.
Speaker A:Yeah, is.
Speaker A:Is Mike's rib contest still going in Chicago?
Speaker A:I know he's not.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:I don't think it's been going for about 15, 20 years now, because I.
Speaker A:Used to read it.
Speaker B:So Ray Lampy tells the story that.
Speaker B:That.
Speaker B: rst Mike Rifle Rip Contest in: Speaker B:And I'm pretty sure I heard him say that.
Speaker B: e were no competitions before: Speaker B:So he takes some and gives me some credit for starting out even.
Speaker B:Even earlier than those guys.
Speaker A:Well, that's why.
Speaker A:That's why we love Ray Lampy, too.
Speaker A:Like that.
Speaker A:Leanne did you ever.
Speaker A:You were up there?
Speaker C:No, I wasn't there at the time, but later on.
Speaker A:Did you.
Speaker A:Was Mike's contest still going when you were there?
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:I mean, it could have been, but, you know, I was more along the Eastern seaboard than I was Midwest.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker C:My comps.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:People are going to ask, and I want to know for sure.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker A:So, Dave, in all the years you've been doing this, I know there's ups and downs.
Speaker A:There's ups and downs in every business.
Speaker A:There's ups and downs in what we do right here, right now.
Speaker A:But what's the greatest up, the greatest high you.
Speaker A:You might say that you've had from being in the barbecue slash sauce business?
Speaker B:Probably winning second place in Reno, Nevada in Best of the west rib contest.
Speaker B: r out there, we, like, travel: Speaker A:Of.
Speaker B:Brisket and pork and ribs, and we had a fried chicken with a pecan glaze for it and all of our sides and everything.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And we weren't that advanced as.
Speaker B:As cookers.
Speaker B:So to go out there our first year and have that kind of success and.
Speaker B:And standing.
Speaker B:My nephew Deuce was standing right next to Mike Mills, who was my absolute personal hero.
Speaker B:And Mike uttered these words that my nephew will ever, will never forget talking about.
Speaker B:Mike says to him, deuce, I hope you come in second place.
Speaker A:Well, a little karma there or something like that.
Speaker A:Go ahead.
Speaker B:I was just gonna say there's.
Speaker B:There's a lot of karma wherever Mike Mills goes.
Speaker A:That.
Speaker A:That is true.
Speaker A:How many competitions do you think you've competed in, Dave?
Speaker B:First of all, I think my nephew might be right in the background here.
Speaker B:So let me say I'm the fluff and not the stuff.
Speaker B:And I think I've cooked in.
Speaker B:I've been with our team in 60 competitions.
Speaker B:I'm guessing he would probably say he's been in closer to.
Speaker B:To 70 or maybe 75.
Speaker B:And then we've been with other people, have cooked more.
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, I judge by what.
Speaker B:What Deuce and I have been in, and almost all of those it's been with.
Speaker B:With his team, Deuce is Wild.
Speaker B:Although the first competition team I. I was on, especially since I'm a Christian person, the name of the team was the Church of Swineology.
Speaker B:So just, you know, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm 100% a.
Speaker B:A guy in his story.
Speaker B:And then you can tell me about your barbecue and your place and.
Speaker B:And competition.
Speaker B:Barbecue has all of that and more, just like restaurants do and barbecue People are unique that they like each other and hang around with each other and each eat each other's food.
Speaker B:Once again, like the.
Speaker B:Like Mike Mill says that the pizza guys don't do that.
Speaker B:So sort of enough to hang out with each other.
Speaker B:We like each other to share.
Speaker B:Share our information with.
Speaker B:And I think it is a.
Speaker B:A unique community.
Speaker A:Yeah, I. I think Mike was right on that in the fact that I owned a restaurant at one time and I owned a catering company at one time, and I didn't hang out with the other restaurateurs.
Speaker A:Now the bar owners I would hang out with.
Speaker A:But the restaurant, the actual restaurant aspect of that, and, you know, unless it was something that they put right in front of you when you were sitting there across the counter from something with a big mirror and a lot of bottles, I probably didn't bother much, you know what I mean?
Speaker B:My guys come to find out they're probably working.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't know any other industry where people work more than the restaurant industry.
Speaker B:68S hours a week, common up to 100, 110.
Speaker B:Not uncommon.
Speaker B:No, that's here.
Speaker B:You got to be nuts to be in this business.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:Well, my co pilot right over there, you know, she's been in it at times for.
Speaker A:Well, she's got a lot of years, but with the apron on, back in the kitchen overseeing this stuff.
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:And it's funny, it's tough because sometimes on this show, Dave, just a little sidebar, people will be doing the interview, doing the discussion and all that, and then they'll say, either I really want a brick and mortar restaurant or I want my own TV show.
Speaker A:And Leanne and I both simultaneously will say, why?
Speaker C:Why?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker C:Grass is not greener on the other side, but somebody's got to do it, right.
Speaker B:People should do it.
Speaker B:Are people.
Speaker B:People who.
Speaker B:Who are in the restaurant business.
Speaker B:Could be love.
Speaker B:People who love to serve other people.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:At the end of the day, you need that reward because the work or the pay isn't worth it.
Speaker A:But.
Speaker B:But if you relate to people, well, then, then you get to serve people.
Speaker B:And that makes them happy.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:We're going to take a break.
Speaker A:We're going to be back with Dave Raymond, the namesake and one of the originators of the Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, now a catering magnet and restaurateur in Chicago.
Speaker A:And Ms. Leanne.
Speaker A:And I'll be back with Dave right after this.
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Speaker A:Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Ms. Leanne Whippen.
Speaker A:Follow us on Facebook if you would.
Speaker A:I never asked people to really do that, but follow us on Facebook, which is Barbecue Nation, jt, or our own respective Facebook pages and our Twitter accounts and all that stuff.
Speaker A:Today we're talking with Dave Raymond, Sweet Baby Ray's restaurant catering business.
Speaker A:And if you recognize the name, of course, that was.
Speaker A:He was one of the originators of the Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce, which is huge.
Speaker A:Dave, do you regret selling the sauce?
Speaker B:Well, let me clear that up for you, okay?
Speaker B:I am the founder of the company and I can.
Speaker B:And how I refer to myself in a situation like that.
Speaker B:I'm the name on the bottle.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:All right, all right.
Speaker A:So as the name on the bottle and the founder of the company, do you, do you have any regrets from selling the company because you guys were doing, you know, land rush business and it's just gotten bigger.
Speaker B:We were the fifth best selling barbecue sauce in the country when we sold.
Speaker B:And my wife and I thought that we had enough money to last us the rest of our lives.
Speaker B:I felt as though we could never catch up to our competition.
Speaker B:KC Masterpiece and Kraft and Bullseye, they've been around 40, 50 years longer than us.
Speaker B:They had the brokers, the network top sales guys, and the money required to take advantage of all those opportunities.
Speaker B:So how are we going to ever catch up to that?
Speaker B:Well, as it turns out, I was wrong about that as well as a lot of other things.
Speaker B:I would say the regret I would have is not dealing with some of the excellent people that I had a chance to build some relationships with and the absolute most fun in my entire business career.
Speaker B:And maybe my whole life is going in and spending 15 or 20 or 25 minutes on a sales call and being able to walk out with a few thousand cases sold.
Speaker B:Sometimes less end days, sometimes more and that's when you know you're alive.
Speaker B:That's what I would say.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's old sales calls.
Speaker B:But then having said all of that, I would say that doesn't come close to the level of pride that I have with where Sweet Baby Rays is today.
Speaker B:The massive market share that they enjoy never could have happened if my partner Mike and I had.
Speaker B:Had kept a business.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And as my brother Larry, the chef that created Sweet Baby Ray, and.
Speaker B:And Deuce's dad said one time, I mean, we had lots of great moments together that would bring tears to our eyes just talking about how something like this happened to us, how we grew up and everything.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So the notion of what he said in one of those times was the fact that Sweet Baby Rays is number one now, be number one as long as my kids are alive.
Speaker B:What more could a guy ask for?
Speaker B:That covers a lot of ground and to emphasize the growth that they have had.
Speaker B:And it just absolutely unbelievable.
Speaker B:I started the company with $2,000, barely a high school education and a dream.
Speaker B:And over the years, I have been many people saying, who is this guy?
Speaker B:How could he do it?
Speaker B:I could do it.
Speaker B:I could.
Speaker B:Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker B:To me, the only thing that sets me apart from any other person is I would say, because of how I grew up, I had bigger dreams, and they lasted longer.
Speaker B:And I'm 68 years old.
Speaker B:I'm still chasing my dreams.
Speaker B:Most of the people I know had to give up chasing their dreams a long, long time ago.
Speaker B:So, again, for all that, I feel as blessed as anybody could be.
Speaker A:You know, David, it's funny you say that.
Speaker A:I went to a. I don't want a celebration of life yesterday.
Speaker A:And he's one of my best.
Speaker A:His son is one of my best friends.
Speaker A:The guy who passed away, his son, and he's also happens to be my lawyer.
Speaker A:And we grew up across the Crick together.
Speaker A:We grew up in a very rural area of Oregon.
Speaker A:All right, so we're, you know, we're out there doing this stuff, and a bunch of old people that we went to high school with because his dad was a baseball cook, they.
Speaker A:They come filtering through the door through the course of the afternoon.
Speaker A:Every one of them asked me, are you.
Speaker A:Are you retired yet?
Speaker A:Are you going to retire like that?
Speaker A:And my friend, his name is Jeff also, both of us were standing there, and they would say, are you guys going to retire?
Speaker A:And then it's like, why?
Speaker A:What am I going to do?
Speaker A:You know, I can only play so much golf and cut the lawn so many times.
Speaker A:So I think if you've got it in you to keep charging forward, I think that's a really good deal.
Speaker A:And you obviously have that.
Speaker B:I do.
Speaker A:It's all good.
Speaker A:Have you.
Speaker A:Have you.
Speaker A:We got a couple minutes where we got to go to break here, Dave, but what's a big thing still on the agenda for you to accomplish?
Speaker B:On my wish list and dream list, I currently have three things.
Speaker B:First, ongoing my faith.
Speaker B:I'm pretty involved with my faith, and I spend a fair amount of time trying to serve the underserved and to help feed the food insecure in the inner city, kind of sort of in the neighborhoods I grew up in.
Speaker B:So that's ongoing.
Speaker B:And the most important thing and the pie in the sky for me is trying to help my nephew at some point move, move his brand forward to Deuces Wild competition barbecue, and then put that right to the side of still having some input into how.
Speaker B:How he and I are 50, 50 partners in our businesses now.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I still.
Speaker B:We have lots of conversation, and I have some input on that.
Speaker B:And then the other pie in the sky thing, for probably 12 or 13 years, I've had it in my head to try to get a national barbecue and grilling museum together.
Speaker B:And I've read four and a half books on it, and I've talked to a lot of people, and everybody tells me that it's not really possible because in this day and age, it could be millions and millions and millions of dollars or not.
Speaker B:But at the end of the day, there's better causes where people would put their money.
Speaker B:Not in my mind.
Speaker B:In my mind, Smithfield is a $22 billion company.
Speaker B:All the other companies associated with people who eat barbecue and grill foods in their backyards, in my mind, this could be a place where.
Speaker B:Where it could more than ever.
Speaker B:We need it because could help bring people of all flavors together.
Speaker B:And, you know, you can't have the best of anything without diversity.
Speaker A:Well, I ask, and that's a great answer.
Speaker A:And another great answer is Dave, Ms. Leanne and myself will be back in just a couple of minutes.
Speaker A:We got to pay a couple of bills, but you're listening to Barbecue Nation on USA Radio Networks and assorted other platforms and things around the world.
Speaker A:And we'll be right back.
Speaker B:Foreign.
Speaker A:It's JT And I have eaten.
Speaker A:If you've ever looked at me, you know that.
Speaker A:But I have eaten seafood all over the world.
Speaker A:And I can tell you there's no place better than here in Oregon.
Speaker A:And our dungeness crab.
Speaker A:If you want to learn more about Oregon Dungeness crab, just go to oregondungeness.org find out how to cook it, how to catch it, where to buy it, and the sustainability of what they're doing there in the Oregon Crab Commission.
Speaker A:Check it out.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm J.T.
Speaker A:Along with Leanne Whippen, hall of Famer and Mr. Dave Raymond.
Speaker A:There, see, I got your name right this time, Dave.
Speaker A:Geez.
Speaker A:Only took me 14 minutes to do it again.
Speaker A:The people at Painted Hills Natural Beef, they have a special offer for Barbecue Nation listeners.
Speaker A:You can go to their online store, which is Natural beef dot com.
Speaker A:Got to put a hyphen in there.
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Speaker A:Just put BBQ Nation, lowercase is fine, BBQ Nation.
Speaker A:And you'll get 15% off your order.
Speaker A:And some of their fine people arrive right at your door.
Speaker A:And secondly, Ms. Whippins, family owned and her management, pig powder.
Speaker A:Pig powder was developed by her dad, trim tab, or Jim, if you will.
Speaker A:And he won the best rub on the planet.
Speaker A:And Leanne runs that outfit now.
Speaker A:And you can find [email protected] I will say I use pig powder not just on pork.
Speaker A:I use it on a lot of stuff and it's.
Speaker C:I'm shipping you out some more today.
Speaker A:Are you?
Speaker C:Yes, I am.
Speaker A:Do I get the autograph picture that goes?
Speaker C:Sure, I'll do that.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:Thank you, Dave.
Speaker A:Dave didn't know that.
Speaker A:But if you order enough pig powder, Dave, Leanne will send you an autographed picture eight by.
Speaker C:So you should do that with your barbecue sauce.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah, I think, I think it works out well, don't you?
Speaker B:How tough this would be my big tip Sense off at store level.
Speaker B:That's how you sell the most product, is to get the price as low as you can to make it most affordable for the consumer.
Speaker B:Then, then after some point when they actually try it, then you got a chance to repeat business.
Speaker B:And that's the name of the game in retail.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:Words well spoken.
Speaker A:I forgot what I was going to ask you there, but growing up in Chicago, your story, your family wasn't a family of great means.
Speaker A:You were probably just average kids, weren't you?
Speaker B:Oh, we were a long way from average.
Speaker B:My mom was married five times.
Speaker B:I went to eight different grammar schools and I was the last white kid on the block in two neighborhoods.
Speaker B:On the other hand, the people I grew up with, were sort of all like that.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So if you ask me if, if I had a good childhood and I had a good time growing up, my answer would be absolutely yes.
Speaker A:Well, sure.
Speaker A:What, what's wrong with that?
Speaker A:That's just part of life.
Speaker A:I mean, really, you can do that,.
Speaker B:It's part of life, but you have to, you have to make adjustments to it.
Speaker B:Like, like you have to muster up a, a positive attitude and you have to muster up doing more to get to, to get out of that place so you can have somewhat of a normal life.
Speaker B:And, and in doing so, growing up, I'd say I grew up ghetto strong.
Speaker B:I knew at a very early age that no matter how crappy the day is, tomorrow rolls around and you find some way to deal with it.
Speaker B:I knew a lot of people.
Speaker B:I was exposed to diversity at a young age.
Speaker B:And that helped me in my business, it helped me in my life to get along with people and learn that at the end of the day, no matter how tribal we are, we're all humans.
Speaker B:I was able to get.
Speaker B:I, I also learned not to be afraid of things.
Speaker B:You know, I had, I've never had, I never had that much.
Speaker B:So I was always willing to risk everything.
Speaker B:So it wound up being a major competitive advantage for me in business.
Speaker B:And just any one of a number of things like that.
Speaker B:It just, you know, it could always be better, but it could always be a lot worse than it could be a lot better.
Speaker B:So you have to find some way of connecting positivity to your life, no matter where you are, no matter what your situation is.
Speaker C:Very wise words.
Speaker A:Do you remember the first sales call you went on after you had Sweet Baby Ray's sauces bottled and ready to go?
Speaker A:And do you remember the first big account?
Speaker B:You.
Speaker B:You bet you.
Speaker B:I might have said this to Leanne, and that might be why you're asking me, but here's the truth of the matter is my very first sales call, I went into a 500 square foot butcher shop and, and said these words.
Speaker B:You don't need any barbecue sauce today, do you?
Speaker B:As it turns out, they did not.
Speaker B:And I'd like to think, I'd like to think that over time my presentations got a little bit better.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:But there wasn't for a long time.
Speaker B:I would say six, eight months, and then I would say easily 200 calls before you learn how to turn the nos into yeses.
Speaker B:And for me, that happened over a period of time after being rejected time and time and time and time again.
Speaker B:I would Then come out and say, oh, I should have said this, or I could have said that.
Speaker B:And then sometime after that, because I'm a businessman, I got together a sheet of paper and I titled it Responses to Common Objections.
Speaker B:So then I would go in on a call, and the guy said would say, well, it's February.
Speaker B:I don't need any barbecue sauce.
Speaker B:And be able to say, well, you want to get a bottle ready for April or May when they have the pantry fill.
Speaker B:So the first nice day, you got a bottle of barbecue sauce to use, or I own a restaurant and I have great rib.
Speaker B:Why would I change my sauce?
Speaker B:And number nine might have been, well, ask your good customers to try the sauce on a chicken sandwich.
Speaker B:Get some feedback from them.
Speaker B:So at some point, I learned and understood that no wasn't always no.
Speaker B:And then I also learned that you can help yourself.
Speaker B:And I also learned there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Speaker A:That is true.
Speaker A:That is true.
Speaker A:Do you remember the last sales call you went on before you sold the company?
Speaker B:I remember my last year that I made a successful sales call to Walgreens, which got us into an ad program that went out to 40 million potential people that could buy Sweet Baby Rays.
Speaker B:And then I remember we had an ad with a hardware store called Menards that they had on their front page of their ad up to 6 bottles free sweet Baby Rays.
Speaker B:Of which that earned me calls from every buyer in Chicago.
Speaker B:Hey, I want the deal.
Speaker B:You gave that guy.
Speaker B:Hey, I want the deal.
Speaker B:And there were a lot, a lot of question to be answered there, but California was what was my last year.
Speaker B:And we went into Compton, California, where I had lunch, by the way.
Speaker B:And then I called on Food for Less and Ralph's, which were like 200ft away from each other in the same building, and made successful calls for both of them and walked away with a 8.3 share of the Los Angeles market in our first year.
Speaker B:And hard to think that anybody could have had that kind of growth all due to Ralph's, which was, I think, 40% of the market at that time.
Speaker B:And they had a buy one, get one free offer that just drove cases and cases and cases.
Speaker C:It's not only your sales tactic.
Speaker C:I feel like the sauce itself, you know, it's merit on its own.
Speaker B:Do you think that that would be my brother's opinion?
Speaker C:I was going to say, do you think the hurdle was getting it to the point where they'd actually taste the sauce and then you make the sale, or they didn't even need to taste it in order for you to make the sale.
Speaker B:Well, early on, early on, we knew that if we could get people to try our sauce, we would earn our share of repeat business.
Speaker B:That was a big, big deal for us, of which I remember the days, very early days, my partner saying to me that anybody could give it away.
Speaker B:Which turned out not to be true.
Speaker B:Not that he wasn't true about a lot of stuff, but he wasn't true about that because three times crap is still crap.
Speaker B:So you have to have a reasonable product.
Speaker B:And I think I forgot your question.
Speaker B:Could you ask me that again?
Speaker C:I think, I think you got it.
Speaker A:You got it.
Speaker C:You didn't have to actually taste it, you know, but once they did taste it, you kind of got them hooked, you know.
Speaker B:Could I comment on that?
Speaker B:So sure.
Speaker B:I would want to say that, that when my brother passed away, I think it's been two years ago now, his, his daughter, my, my niece was, was getting together his opit, as they call it, and wanted to honor him and give him recognition that she felt he was deserved in the barbecue community.
Speaker B:And I tried to explain to her that from my position, he wasn't deserving of that in the barbecue community.
Speaker B:He was deserving of that and the barbecue in the retail barbecue sauce world.
Speaker B:Because literally what his recipe did was change the perception of, of what the vast amount of people in America feel is the correct flavor profile of barbecue sauce.
Speaker B:It used to be a vinegar based sauce and then Sweet Baby Ray's, which has over a 50 market share in the entire United States right now, number one or two in 34 of the 35 major markets.
Speaker B:So he literally, with Sweet Baby Rays, change the perception of what people think they like for barbecue sauce.
Speaker B:You could also accuse him of being contributing to the obesity of America with a.
Speaker B:But in our family, that's how we look at it.
Speaker B:And I am immensely proud of him, as is Deuce and his daughter.
Speaker B:And I can't even talk about without getting choked up.
Speaker B:I understand how it got us out of where we were and gave us some significant feelings of achieving when we were in a position where now we thought we would.
Speaker A:That's actually the best legacy the way you described it there, Dave.
Speaker A:I mean, to me, I didn't know your brother, obviously, and you and I just met 40 minutes ago, but what a great way to remember somebody like that.
Speaker A:We're going to take a break.
Speaker A:We're going to come back with Dave Raymond from Sweet Baby Rays right after this here on the Nation.
Speaker A:Stay with us.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker A:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker A:I'm JT along with Ms. Whippen, we've got Dave Raymond.
Speaker A:Sweet Baby Rays.
Speaker A:That was his nickname from his basketball, inner city basketball stuff that he did.
Speaker A:That's how he got the, the handle on that Dave.
Speaker A:I wanted to ask him one thing.
Speaker A:Back in those days when you first started selling the sauce.
Speaker A:A common practice today is for people to have to buy shelf space, you know, facings and shelf space.
Speaker A:I've been through that.
Speaker A:Slotting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Did you guys have to do that?
Speaker B:Yes and no.
Speaker B:We, the vast majority of my career, we were able to negotiate better terms because we were a little guy.
Speaker B:And then at some point I'm going to.
Speaker B: o, so my last year, which was: Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So at that point I was, I would say, and once you pay it, then, then, then you're in and you don't pay it every year as long as you, you keep your, your sales up, which in the grocery business, they say birth is tough, resurrection is almost impossible.
Speaker B:So once you win, you got to keep paying, keep paying, keep paying, because if you get the boot, you don't get back in.
Speaker A:Did they make you.
Speaker B:So anyhow, go ahead.
Speaker B:So I would say we probably got in for around 5,000 per size per flavor.
Speaker B:And, and Campbell Soup is the only brand that I, that I knew of at the time that didn't pay any slotting.
Speaker B:They had so much performance that, that, that, that, that's how it went.
Speaker B:And so anyhow, my last year I go into Jewel in Chicago and I'm, you know, trying to, to negotiate what's going on and get the best deals like we always got.
Speaker B:And And.
Speaker B:And the buyer says to me, dave, you know, like, you're number one in the category.
Speaker B:You got to pay some money.
Speaker B:But let me.
Speaker B:Let me just take a second and explain what that $22,000 does.
Speaker B:$22,000 Got me into 184 stores.
Speaker B:And then you got to be selling like three quarters of a case per week to keep your slat.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:So the product goes to Juul's warehouse.
Speaker B:Then from Jules Warehouse, it goes to 184 stores.
Speaker B:Warehouse.
Speaker B:Then it goes from the store's warehouse to the show.
Speaker B:And then there's kids that have to front it every night.
Speaker B:When bottles.
Speaker B:Excuse me, when bottles are taken away, if you have it on display, it gets moved back and forth.
Speaker B:If bottles break, they have to clean.
Speaker B:So there's lots of things that occur.
Speaker B:There's all the tracking of a retail price of a sale price of a 2 for 3 of a 3 for 5 of, of of returns that come back that you.
Speaker B:That you have to make good.
Speaker B:And there's just lots of things that happen just for that piece of it.
Speaker B:And then you have a broker that represents you to all those stores.
Speaker B:And in stores like jewelry, you got to be in those stores.
Speaker B:They're big stores once a week.
Speaker B:They're smaller stores twice a week.
Speaker B:Independent groups you got to be in twice a month.
Speaker B:Independent stores you got to be in once a month.
Speaker B:And, and all these times, you're not just walking in there.
Speaker B:You're.
Speaker B:You're working to build your relationship with the grocery manager.
Speaker B:You're looking to build your relationship with a store manager.
Speaker B:If you do a demo there and, and you can hand out some bottles to the.
Speaker B:To people that work in the store, why wouldn't those guys be more inclined to recommend something that they've tasted and they're familiar with and somebody is doing them right than a plain old everyday brand like Craft and open Fit.
Speaker B:So as a smaller guy, you do have opportunities, but you have to be there and seize them because the big guys have all of the advantages.
Speaker A:Did you have to do with your slotting?
Speaker A:Did you say, okay, we are slotting this?
Speaker A:And you had to.
Speaker A:And you just went over the, you know, the shelf space that you had to fill, and this is how much you had to fill it, and this is how much to be there.
Speaker A:I went through a similar situation like that a long time ago, but they also wanted so many free cases per store.
Speaker A:They wanted, like four cases of my product per store.
Speaker A:There was 20 stores.
Speaker A:That was a lot of cases with you're starting up with no money to give away.
Speaker B:So there's a customer in Chicago.
Speaker B:We'll call them customer A.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:And my.
Speaker B:My first year, they had 17 stores, and he wanted two cases free for each store, and then he was going to build four more stores.
Speaker B:So he wanted another eight cases for those stores that.
Speaker B:That weren't open yet.
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That seemed ridiculous.
Speaker B:Ridiculous to me.
Speaker B:So I said, no how?
Speaker B:No way.
Speaker B:I'm not going to do that.
Speaker B:So that was one whole year.
Speaker B:I had no sales whatsoever from store A.
Speaker B:So the lesson there is if you want to play the game, you got to pay the price.
Speaker B:And he was a big customer, and they wound up moving a ton of product for me and live and learn and also how you are as a person and what kind of values you.
Speaker B:You have that you bring to your business.
Speaker B:I was doing a food show in the early day and.
Speaker B:And we had a raffle to give away a rubber grill.
Speaker B:And at the end of the day, I go to pull the winning raffle out, and I pull it out and the guy puts it back in.
Speaker B:And then he looks at the list of people who got there.
Speaker B:Here, this is your winner here.
Speaker B:You pick the best customer that we have.
Speaker B:So that.
Speaker B:That didn't play well with me.
Speaker B:So my solution to that was I never had.
Speaker B:I never had any more of those deals.
Speaker B:Instead of doing that, I would rather have nothing.
Speaker A:No, I under.
Speaker A:I understand.
Speaker A:Dave Raymond from Sweet maybe Ray's restaurants now and catering companies and the original company owner and namesake of Sweet Baby Ray Sauce.
Speaker A:Dave is going to stick around for after hours, but thanks, man.
Speaker A:This has been great.
Speaker C:You missed the most important recent news about him.
Speaker A:What's that?
Speaker C:That he was inducted to the hall of Fame.
Speaker A:That is right.
Speaker A:And that is my bad.
Speaker C:And that is a huge, huge honor.
Speaker C:Huge honor.
Speaker B:Big mouth that I am.
Speaker B:I do want to say, counting you as a Chicagoan for your years of a most excellent restaurant and representing the barbecue community in Chicago.
Speaker A:There are.
Speaker B:There are nine inductees from Illinois.
Speaker B:So I. I don't.
Speaker A:Wow.
Speaker B:More.
Speaker B:More than any other state and clearly higher.
Speaker B:Higher than anybody.
Speaker B:I think a lot of people should be thinking that George Stephen from Weber Grill, you know, he opened up our country's minds to backyard barbecuing or grilling is the fact of the matter.
Speaker B:And I try to make this differentiation is if you just count barbecuing, there are all these great barbecue guys and get all the recognition.
Speaker B:Recognition.
Speaker B:But the end of the day, 3 or 4% of the population is barbecuing.
Speaker B:When?
Speaker B:When?
Speaker B:If you throw grilling into that mix now we're up to 95% of the population.
Speaker B:Where is the next great barbecue guy coming from?
Speaker B:Absolutely, positively, 100% backyard barbecue.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker B:So?
Speaker B:So.
Speaker B:So to me, barbecue is both a noun and a verb.
Speaker B:And as I said earlier, I'm.
Speaker B:I'm much more tuned into the guy in his story than I can get into his barbecue in his place.
Speaker A:There you go.
Speaker A:Anyway, we have got to get out of here.
Speaker A:Dave, Raymond, thank you.
Speaker A:He's going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker A:Ms. Leanne, thank you.
Speaker A:Remember our motto here.
Speaker A:Turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker A:And we'll be back next week.
Speaker A:Take care, everybody.
Speaker B:Barbecue Nation is produced by jtsd, LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker B:All rights reserve Sam.
