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Newberg Area Business Directory
Barbecue
sauce company
lives up to its name |
Jesse James' homemade barbecue sauces evoke
a sense of the Wild West |
By Gunnar Olson, Newberg
Graphic reporter
E-mail Gunnar at golson@eaglenewspapers.com
|
Jesse
James of Newberg doesn’t know if he’s related to the outlaw of the old west (his
sister’s looking into it), but what he does know is that the name helps sell barbecue
sauce.
A Newberg company, the James Gang BBQ Company is seeing increased sales and
winning more awards with every year that goes by.
“It’s going to be a real big name some day,” Pam James, who
owns the company with Jesse, her husband, said hopefully.
The name
It goes without saying that the name Jesse James is well-known. Jesse said
that at every BBQ conference he attends he meets at least 10 people who claim to be direct
descendants.
“I’m not saying they are or they’re not,” he said,
“but there sure are a lot of James people out there.”
The Jameses originally named the sauce Red’s Barbecue Sauce, after a
restaurant they owned. But the name wasn’t as good as their namesake.
The Jameses applied for the rights of two names and got James Gang. The other
name was Jesse James BBQ, the rights to which are owned, Jesse said, by a guy in Georgia
whose sauce they’ve not tried.
Whether the name recognition has been the biggest key to the James
Gang’s success, or if it’s the taste of the sauce itself, there’s no
arguing the success of the sauce.
The success
The James Gang BBQ Company’s sales took a marked upturn after it joined
the National Barbecue Association and entered a sauce in the spicy contest, Jesse said.
For a first entry, Jesse said, it did well — out of 500 sauces, it
landed in the top-20. Jesse said the sauce has been in the top-10 six times since then,
including a third-place finish.
The Jameses also entered their Whiskey sauce in the American Royals
International BBQ Sauce Contest and took home fourth place.
Growth has been another sign of the James Gang’s success. The company
has added several products to its line.
The 900 plus employees at A-dec, where Jesse works full-time as a product
design technician, know well of his experimental sauces — they’re the testing
market.
“They’re my guinea pigs,” Jesse said.
The James Gang now has four sauces — Original, Spicy, Whiskey Grilling
and, most recently, Honey Habaņero.
The James Gang also offers other barbecue products: Country Jalapeno
Cornbread mixes, Bull Breath Chili Mix and five seasonings — Rib Rub, Cajun Rub,
Cajun Seasoning Salt, Salmon & Trout Rub, Wild Game Seasoning.
But perhaps the biggest indicator of how the company is flourishing is its
sales.
The company sold an estimated 30,000 bottles of sauce in 2002, a 78 percent
increase in sales from 2001. Sales have already seen a 31 percent sales increase this
year.
The start
In 1993, Jesse and Pam James bought Red’s Barbecue Restaurant in Lincoln
City. Since the previous owner took his recipe with him, the Jameses were left to come up
with their own.
“When you have a barbecue restaurant you obviously have to have a
premium sauce to go with it,” James said.
This, however, was no problem for someone who came from wine country in
California and threw a lot of barbecues. Jesse had been making sauces of his own for 10
years by the time he needed one for the restaurant.
His first batch was a bit spicy for some customers’ tastes, though
others liked it a lot. The recipe he settled on was a milder version of the first.
The Jameses started selling the sauce from the restaurant to friends and
customers.
“We couldn’t keep up,” he said.
Within a year he went to Beaverton Foods, now of Hillsboro, to have his
product professionally bottled.
When the Jameses sold the restaurant in 2000, they took their sauce with
them. Running the business is now full-time work for Pam, and makes for many a busy
weekend for Jesse. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the job is quality control. For
every batch they pick up, they test one bottle.
“Since I like barbecue sauce that’s not a big problem,” Jesse
said.
The James Gang label is available in Newberg at Your Northwest Store and Ace
Hardware, as well as in Firestone Farm outside of Dundee and Baggenstos Farms of Sherwood.
Made In Oregon stores also carry the James’ sauces and spices.
For more information, or to order online, visit the James Gang BBQ Web site
at www.jamesgangbbq.com. |
|
From Oct. 8,
2003, Newberg Graphic
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