BBQ Sauce

We tried making our own sauce at first. We believe we have an excellent recipe and have received great feedback and many compliments on our product. However, we have a small operation (limited catering and vending since we have day jobs) so the process of cooking/storing our homemade sauce is more time than we want to spend on that item. Also, since we were producing relatively small batches the ingredient costs were higher (no volume purchasing of ingredients) and makes using commercial sauce (we like Curley's BBQ Sauce) a more feasible option.

Co-Packer

FlavorSavor said:

Anyone ever done the math on making your own tomato-based BBQ sauce vs just buying it? What did you come up with?

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You'll never beat economies of scale if you do it yourself.

If you can use hundreds of gallons, find a custom bottler that will make your recipe. Something like this (note the 150 gallon minimum order) http://www.bestbrandbottlers.com/#!start-ups-new-recipes/cnla

If you can't use that much, you have to decide if your recipe is unique enough to be worth making it yourself. It might be cheaper and easier to buy a bottle of everything on the market and see if something already out there is close to the flavor profile you want. It might be cheaper and easier to buy off the shelf and doctor it up.

My sauce is my reputation, and I ain't leaving that up to nobody but me or my daughter. I don't care what it cost.
Jeff Therrell
Sweetfire BBQ