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THE CHARLOTTE POST - Thursday, June 24,1993
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The Secret
Is In The
sauce
By Winfred Cross
The BusinessMonthly
Henry Hunter is living In hog heaven — bar
becued hog heaven, that Is.
Hunter, who owns Hunter's Down Home
Bar-B-Q service. Is marketing his own brand of
sauce -- "Hunter's Down Home Bar-B-Q
Sauce." It's In local Food Lion, and Harris
Teeter grocery stores as well as Independent
stores.
Hunter said military Installations are buying
It also.
"We're selling It at Ft. Bragg (In Fayetteville),
then we're going to Ft. Jackson, Se5miour
Johnson and Camp Lejeune," he said. The
sauce wUl be sold In commissaries and used In
officer's clubs and mess'halls.
They are buying It by the gallon," Hunter
said. 'We're Just getting started. The way I've
got It figured, we're doing about $2,000 a
week."
So why Is the Army so big on this new prod
uct?
"You need to taste It," Hunter says, plugging
the product's slogan. "The taste makes it dlffer-
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ent. It's not like your Lexington down east, or
your western style. "It's down home style.
When you first taste It, you'll get just a little
sweetness, then a little tanglness -- then you
get this kick, the bite because of the type of
spices that I use."
Himter will not say what spices he uses, but
he does say thqr all come from the Carolinas.
He's a member of Goodness Grows, a Carolina
based advocacy group that promotes area
grown foods.
"I realty think Its the home grown herbs and
spices that makes It so good," he said.
The sauce Is pasteurized, cooled to about
185 degrees , then packaged and shipped out
from Winston-Salem's Golden Farms, process
ing plant. The sauce has a shelf life of more
than a year and costs between $1.59 and
$1.99.
Hunter has been making the sauce since
1972. That's when I bought my first grtU," he
said. "That was my last year at Hopkins Jr.
High in Columbia. S.C. The Industrial arts
shop made it out of a 55 gallon drum. It's long
gone - burned out.
Hunter has made subtle changes to his
recipes each year - a new herb here, a deleted
spice there - but he hasn't made any changes
since 1988.
"That's when my buddy told me 'man, I don’t
know what you've done, but whatever It is you
ought to hold on to It."
Hunter has had a few problems — like when
he had to throw away a number of product
labels because the weight was In the wrong
spot — but that hasn't stopped him from pur
suing his dream of marketing his sauce.
"On a teacher's salary, that mistake had me
eating bolonga sandwiches for a month," he
said laughing. "But I wanted to get this on the
market because it's such a good product and I
didn't want to deprive the world of this prod
uct. To bottle this stuff presents an enormous
challenge. That's what kept driving me to do
this."
Hunter Is planning to go national, but at a
slow and measured pace. 'T thlrik hi the next
couple of years. I want It hi all mlfitary Institu
tions and hi every major store."
Hunter, originally from Florence, S.C., has
' lived In Charlotte since 1983. He's now retired
from teaching chemistry and biology and has
devoted much of his time to promoting his
sauce.
He Is also a professional actor and has even
done his own radio commercials which will
soon ah on WSOC FM and WPEG-FM 98.