Wednesday, December 30, 2009

A Catering we go...a catering we go...kind of.


This whole Sweet Life Sauce Company thing is a hoot as far as I am concerned. I am having a blast with it...I think Holly is warming to it more and more each time she packs an order and sends it off.

It is no secret to those in my circle of influence that I really dig cooking for big crowds. It's a secret to my wife though. Well...maybe not that I dig cooking for big crowds but that someday, SOMEDAY I hope to get other people(also known as customers) to give me certificates of appreciation(also known as money) for the stuff I cook for them.

I think this fascination and passion comes from my days during my high school years as a cook at Fryers Chicken in Umatilla, Florida...my hometown. It was the Sieberts in Umatilla that had this neat little fried chicken and hamburger joint called Fryers Chicken...always flush with employees from the local high school. I happened to be one of those high school kids that needed a job to pay for the stuff a high school kid needs.

You know...that stuff all us 80's teenagers had to have. Stuff like quarters to play Star Wars at the arcade at the Lake Square Mall(it took 2 quarters to play that game!)...stuff like a new comb as big as my hip bone for my flowing locks that could stick prominently out of my back pocket...stuff like the newest tape cassette from Journey...stuff like $1.83 for 3 gallons of leaded gas to stick in Donald's chick magnet 1973 Plymouth Fury...stuff like the latest Members Only windbreaker...or Chams...or bleached jeans...or stuff like a big ole' Maxi Burger from Fryers Chicken. I just needed some money...or so I thought!

Have you ever found yourself in one of those jobs where you only did it for the money but you wound up LOVING the work and the money didn't matter. That was Fryers Chicken for me. We cooked all kinds of stuff in that little kitchen in the back. Fried chicken, fish, burgers, chicken sandwiches, mushrooms, cole slaw, fries, hush puppies, corn fritters, potato salad, macaroni salad...man, we had some good stuff.

I learned how to prepare food and cook food and serve food to the public at this gig at Fryers Chicken. And I'll let you know there was some serious inventin' going on in that little kitchen. We had all kinds of things we would throw together...just to see what "could" happen when certain ingredients were thrown together in a melange of flavors...a dance of delicacy.

I remember some of the first fried pickles I ever had...they were yummy. I remember breaded hamburger patties layered with bacon and cheese on toasted buns...I remember something called a jack-o-melon sitting in the cooler...I remember incredible tasting fried chicken that had been brined in this big ole' tumbler that let the chicken get all happy in its own juices with the brine solution...I remember some very tasty cole slaw made from scratch...and I remember these really amazing corn fritters we made from scratch with tons of whole corn all in them finished off with powdered sugar...mmmmm...mmmm...M!

And I remember Donald on his last day of work playing toilet plunger darts on the door of the walk in cooler...man he was good at that game...I suspect it wasn't his first round of this fast food kitchen game....and now that I think about it...THAT WAS GROSS! (all sanitized at the end of each shift I tell you!)

Man what a time it was...to know that I cleaned grease traps and washed dish after dish and cooked pound after pound of food. Now 25 years later...or so...I can look back to that time and really find my roots for my love of cooking. This love moved right to college with me.

College...the "casserole" years...

College...the University of Florida...School of Building Construction. The Phoenix Funhouse. Give me a box of Bisquick, some ketchup, a couple Kraft Cheese Slices, and a hot dog and I will bake you an incredible cheese pizza topped with German spicy sausage. Let me go out to Lake Lilly in Melrose, catch a mess of specs and put a fish fry in front of you that makes your parents come back to college to visit for three weekends in a row! A bag of rice...some peas...a couple cans of the cheapest cream of mushroom soup and a freezer burned chunk of venison from Theron...DA BOMB!

Fast forward 20 years or so and you'll find me doing BBQ's with the friends and family. No meat will intimidate me. Big honkin' chunks of beef with rib bones included and chunks of pork on charcoal and gas grills, smokers and open pits...it doesn't matter. I prepare for my first whole sheep on an open pit...I'm going Middle Eastern on you!

Pounds and pounds of boiled crawfish thrown out on open tables with pieces of corn on the cob, onions, fresh lemons, whole heads of garlic, sausage, hot dogs, baby red potatoes...jumbo shrimp drown in a buttery and garlicky and spicy sauce.

I just loving cooking for the masses!

And then I get hooked back up with Darryl. Me and Darryl go way back. I was this fresh from college superintendent put into a been there done that sales dudes neighborhood of Darryl's...and he taught me the ropes in the world of home building. He teaches me to this day. Though these days its on the fine art of feeding large groups of people with exceptionally tasty and well done morsels of pork and chicken and beef and all the accoutrement's that would go with a proper BBQ catering company. He is a pro for sure and one that I can recommend without reservation from Sweet Life Sauce Company.

If you're up for some incredible BBQ in Central Florida...or just about anything else you can think for a big group of people...outdoors...ready to do some finger licking...listen to some music...hang out around a bonfire...doing some tailgating...got a birthday party celebration...want to have a Shindig...have a wedding reception...need to do a company picnic...want to reward your team for a job well done...Darryl is your first call. Backwoods Boys BBQ...proudly recommended by Sweet Life Sauce Company!

Check out his website and awards at www.backwoodsboysbbq.com. He can even feature sauces from Sweet Life Sauce Company.

Did I say he has an award winning Cole Slaw...a concoction that has won a State of Florida Food Award! Just hook me up with an I.V. and shoot this stuff right into my arm...I could live on his cole slaw...and pez. And baklava...and garlic pegged shrimp coated with Spice of Life BBQ Sauce...

I digress...

As we say at Sweet Life Sauce Company...all is well in the land!

Get your Sauce!...at www.sweetlifesaucecompany.com.

Sunday, December 20, 2009

The battle of...THE LABEL!



You can't put a Bible on a business card. Now I know.

I have found the entire process of starting a company from scratch quite fascinating. Now 90 days into our new venture with Sweet Life Sauce Company and the writing bug hits me at 5 am in the morning. I'm a process guy, I'm a big picture process guy...80% of getting this gig going was having the courage to try it and the last 20% was going through the "process" of a start up you can find by doing a Google Search or reading a start up book or taking a class from the local university.

But.

1% of this process was getting labels made for our sauces and rubs.

I never imagined in a million years the absolute BATTLE I would have on my hands in making a label for jars of BBQ Sauce, Hot Sauce, and Grilling Rubs. We take for granted anything behind the machine of the food industry in the US. We are blasted day in and day out with bulletin boards, labels, ads, newspapers, web pages, and every other type of media you can think of that is trying to yell out a message to you...BUY SOME SAUCE FROM SWEET LIFE SAUCE COMPANY! That is the message behind every type of media that we are hit with day in and day out. BUY ME! I have a much deeper appreciation for all the marketing people I've ever met in my entire life now. Yarbrough...you are on an even higher pedestal now.

Maybe "BUY ME" was the very first marketing slogan that showed up on the side of some cliff or was carved in the bark of a tree back in the days of our ancestors as they trudged along the hunting trails to go gather some squirrel meat and rooty tubers from the local Wal-Forest. Maybe this was the way the first food company marketed their primordial slime. BUY ME!

We humans have grown to be much more sophisticated than that...we've evolved you see. Now we have all kinds of fancy media to get this simple message across and a virtual army of people that do it every day.

Did I say I was amazed by the absolute battle it took to get a label completed for a jar of BBQ sauce?

Let me put this into perspective...pretend you are me...say May 28th of 2009. You think the label comes first in this whole process of selling some BBQ sauce so you bring a couple of chicken scratch concept ideas on the backs of napkins to the local label joint. I'm pretty pumped up see...I'm going to get some labels printed. I am jacked!

Imagine you are the lady that is sitting at the desk at the label joint when I come strolling in. She has seen this play before.

I rattle off who I am and how I'm going to take over the world with BBQ Sauce....20 minutes of rambling. (all part of my marketing plan)

Label lady..."That's nice"

Me..."And I brought you some with our homemade labels"

Label lady..."That's nice...but these won't work"

Me..."What do you mean these won't work?"...(not part of my marketing plan)

Label lady..."sit down and breathe...calm down."

Me...not out loud but thinking..."hmmmmmm...I wonder if the label company across the street can print me some labels today...I got sauce to sell."

And then the well rehearsed soliloquy by the label lady...she's done it a million times I am sure...goes like this. Ahemmmm (I had to clear my throat to write this)

"You have all of 3 inches by 5 inches to get a bunch of stuff on a label.You have to have your branding information...your company logo stuff on the front panel where it can stand out on a shelf from all the other products.You need to theme your labels too...what is the product name and all...it goes on the front panel with your logo stuff.You need a little story somewhere on that label...no more than 50 words.We have different gloss levels you need to select.You have to have the the city and state where it was made, you need some form of contact in case you get someone sick. Where is your ingredients statement?....you need an ingredients statement and it has to be a minimum font size.What about your weight...it has to have the weight on it...its not liquid measure, its weight...how much does that jar of sauce weigh...net weight now...don't include the weight of the jar, cap and label.The jar says 16 ounces but your product may be heavier or lighter than that.If you are wantin' to go retail...nutritional statement panel will have to go here...and it takes up most of the side panel...who is doing your nutritional studies?What are the technical specs of the glass jar you are using...we need that.Dimension from shoulder to shoulder on the jar will be fine...ooohh...circumference too.?Ohh...UPC code...we have to get a UPC code on here somewhere so it can be scanned...it'll make your product be more professional.What type of gloss do you want?We have a few options for you.Here's the number for a graphic artist you can call to get this ball rolling."

Me...pregnant pause..."Sooooo...can I get some labels printed today or not?"

I was off to speak with a graphic artist.

Now the graphic artist thing is REALLY cool. They take chicken scratch from the backs of napkins and turn them into really cool logos and labels. All I had to do was scan my stick figures and basic shapes and then just talk with them about what was in my head. Sweet Life Sauce Company...need a logo that shouts to the world "BUY ME!" I want folks to connect with the image on the logo. Some kicked back dude or dudette in a little boat with a fishing pole in their hands in the middle of some body of water with palm trees and a warm sun and a cool hat and a hot pepper at the end of the line. Just enjoying the Sweet Life! Can you do that?


They can do that! I send them this concept and the one at the top of the blog. I wait in eager anticipation....what is this thing going to look like when it comes back to me?


I was not disappopinted and received this image back a few days later...call it logo image 1.

I liked the overall format for the logo though I didn't see any palm trees, the lake reminded me of a cold lake up in Canada that you would catch Walleyes and Northern Pike in(which I love to do)...which of course took away from of the sun imagry in the background and the guy had on one of those hats like John Candy wore in the Great Outdoors that would have had about 20 mepps spinners, a hot dog, and a treble hook stuck in it and I was ready to see the guy in that boat start swatting at blackflies and he was using one of those rod and reel combos that you buy at the check-out line at Wal-mart. Oh yeah, and it had an old Johnson motor to me on the back of the boat...my Johnson motor blew up and stranded me on a lake 10 miles from the boat ramp....THAT does NOT remind me of the Sweet Life or want me to buy BBQ Sauce!

So I made those comments and waited for round 2 to come back my way. Again, I was not disappointed in the next iteration of the logo...and actually rather pumped up that they turned chicken scratch into this work of art! I'm starting to feel the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, the lake or ocean or flats that the sleek canoe or kayak or poling skiff is floating on looks calm and I imagine a tailing redfish or striper or smallmouth bass coming to the fly that is hand tied by Nome and on the end of an 8 weight bamboo flyrod with a fly reel and the palm trees look awesome and I like the pepper on the end of the line and we are going to have a shindig when we get off the water and eat some great food with Sweet Life BBQ Sauces all over it...but wait....just wait one minute. Something is not right.

If I were to actually catch a hot pepper with the warmth of the sun on my shoulders, the lake or ocean or flats that the sleek canoe or kayak or poling skiff is floating on looks calm and I imagine a tailing redfish or striper or smallmouth bass coming to the fly that is hand tied by Nome and on the end of an 8 weight bamboo flyrod with a fly reel and the palm trees look awesome and I like the pepper on the end of the line and we are going to have a shindig when we get off the water and eat some great food with Sweet Life BBQ Sauces all over it....

I better catch that hot pepper in the mouth!

That pic has a hot pepper that I just snagged in the tail like a snagger on the Salmon River and that ain't right!

So I send it back and ask for the pepper to get a turn and I get this back...

And it is perfect. It is exactly the image I had in my head and it is sitting in front of me on this screen and it looks really cool.

And now I can start to work on the food labels because I have found an incredible graphic artist that is making me want to buy some stuff from the Sweet Life Sauce Company!

So the march starts to get labels made for our 4 products. We finished up our final labels last week. They turned out beautifully and we hope that you like them as well. Here they are in all their glory...with all the stuff that has to be jammed on a 3 inch by 5 inch piece of paper.

In high gloss.















We have all 4 products available for sale on our website at www.sweetlifesaucecompany.com.

"BUY ME!"

As we say at the Sweet Life Sauce Company...all is well in the land!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Friday, November 6, 2009

It's the Shindigs, definitely the Shindigs!


Shindig (shin'dig') n. Slang. A festive party or celebration [Prob alteration of SHINDY]

It is definitely the Shindigs that do it for me...I get giddy knowing there is a Shindig in my near future...like the one that is 210 days away from today!

Not necessarily a phenomenon, not necessarily a party, not just an ole' get together...a Shindig. A shindig has a theme, a shindig can go for days or weeks, a shindig has people reporting on how the shindig is going while the shindig is going on. People get sucked in to the Shindig even though they have never met a person that may be there. A Shindig is a force in the universe, unexplained by science to this day.

And man have I had a chance to go to some great ones!

It was not so long ago...well maybe like 8 years ago that I decided to pick up a flyrod. See, I was going up to New Hapmshire a couple times a year to visit the in-laws in the White Mountains. After about 5 years of doing this and realizing I could only watch so much tv during the day, I headed to the K-mart and bought a 6 weight flyrod combo.

The image I want you to have next is one of a svelte man in glistening water up to his waist, posing in the shadow of Mt. Chocorua, effortless loops of flyline and tippet whisperly shooting through the guides of the rod, rolling in the sunlight behind him, delicately tossing a small caddis fly to rising trout in a moving seam of water quietly running under the little bridge at Chocorua Lake...a Loon's call echoes in the distance...ahhhhhhhh.

Please put that image in your head...

Close your eyes....

Take a couple of deep breaths...

Relax...

Ahhhhhhhhh.......

Now here is the reality...

Imagine a 6'4" 300 pound gorilla standing out in the water thrashing about with every move trying to throw a treble hook lined SUV tire back and forth over his head tethered to the end of a stick and a rope while ducking every flip of the treble hook lined SUV tire to prevent getting tossed under the bridge from the centrifugal force of the rope and tire now wrapped around the gorillas arm and knee...while dropping his cell phone in the water. The echoes of a cursing gorilla all around.

Imagine that 'cause THAT is the image of reality!

My first wade into the sport of fly fishing will stay etched in my mind...and probably yours now as well...but this step led to me getting to know the guys from Clearwater Fly Shop in North Conway, New Hampshire.

I was desperate to get some lessons so I stopped in this little shop and met this guy. This guy was in the middle of the shop whipping up flies so small it looked like they were invisible to me.

He introduced himself as Shahab...and I said Sha What?

Shahab. (now my mind is in panic mode...this little dude in front of me is cussing at me in some foreigh language)

Excuse me...did you say your name was Shahab?

Yep, Shahab Farzanegan....dude...just call me Fisha.

Alright Fisha! I can pronounce Fisha!

Well this chance meeting led to a full day on the coast of Maine fishing for Stripers and getting casting lessons from probably one of the best fly casters on the face of this earth...Fisha...Shahab Farzanegan. It was also the start of a friendship that opened up new experiences...shindigs!

The little flyshop in North Conway had this fly fishing forum that I joined when I returned back to Florida. I signed up...let everyone know I was a new guy and this person with the screen name of Flygal said something about my girth...

Only thing in my head was who's this chick on a fly fishing forum? There are girls in Fly Fishing? This sport gets more interesting by the day.

Well...this little online community has grown to hundreds of people that all share one thing in common and that is the love of Fly Fishing and the outdoors. Each and every one of us has this common bond, no matter what background we have, what color we are, religion, state, country...it does not mattter...our gossamer thread is the sport of Fly Fishing.

We have flyshop owners, plumbers, lanscapers, kids, Maine-ahs, Southern boys, Portland Boatyard Union Pipefitters, telecom salespeople, linemen, maintenance people, artists, writers, chefs, stay at home dads, military members, teachers, conservationists, liberals, conservatives, libertarians, hippies, elelctricians, engineers, doctors, college kids, lawyers, skiers, ice-fishers, moose hunters, moose protectors, race car drivers, shop owners, academes, Swedish kids, retirees, candy distributors, lawn care applicators, home made beer makers, home made beer drinkers...breathe man breathe!

A cornucopia of backgrounds...all about ready to meet at a Shindig! Our first was along the banks of the Saco River in North Conway. We now have something to put on our calendars to get us through the rat race...something to really look forward to.

Months of preparation by all, Shindig Countdowns, who's bringing what food, who has pontoon boats, "Dude, you have a drift boat!", bring this fly, tie that fly, what the heck is that fly...what is a sculpin?, Bill is bringing a new brew, months of prep and anticipation for this event.

The excitement builds...and we haven't even met each other yet. Funny these Shindigs and this Fly fishing thing...

I remember my wife on numerous occasions asking me how I could just show up in the middle of New Hampshire with a bunch of people I have never met and hang out for days at a time. It's that force of nature thing I guess. We all share a common bond in Fly fishing...and I've never met a person that likes to fly fish that we couldn't hang together fly fishing and fellowshipping for a few days.

It is from these Shindigs that some of the ideas, energy, and courage came to try this Sweet Life Sauce Company thing. It was at these Shindigs I could try new recipes on large groups of people without even knowing I was doing it. It was from these events that I received some of the first support to try something different and bold and create some BBQ Sauces that people would actually buy.

Man...I sit here with a humble heart and say thanks to all my friends in the Clearwater Fly Shop community.

Shindig (shin'dig') n. Slang. A festive party or celebration [Prob alteration of SHINDY]...I'll have to agree with ole' Webster himself...Shindigs are truly a celebration.

I also know that it's time for an official Saltwater Shindig Countdown to get us through the winter! 210 days and counting! I'm bringing the sauce!

All is well in the land.

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Let's blow some jars up!

Many have asked..."Hey Rob...are you like actually making these sauces yourself?"

Ummmm...YEP!

With my own two hands in a commercial commissary kitchen in Central Florida. For now, we brew sauce about 3 days a week. In tried and true small business start up fashion, we buy and haul the ingredients we need for each batch to the kitchen each time we brew. We have to be really efficient, really clean, and really smart with the time to keep the overhead as low as possible.

I'll let you know, we had a lot of trial and error before we could even step foot in a commercial kitchen. For example, we had to do some serious tinkering in getting the canning process correct. The canning process is what assures we can send you safe products that have a good shelf life for you and your family without the use of preservatives you find in your store bought varieties of BBQ Sauce. (please do not read the labels in the store bought varieties...unless you want to scared on Halloween..I'd like to know where they grow xantham)

This "learning" process involved quite memorable moments such as...

  • Blowing up jars of sauce in the pressure canner...or

  • Scalding the first and second layers of the skin on my hand "testing" to see if steam was coming out of the canner...or how 'bout this one...

  • Finding out what happens when you try and open a pressure canner before the pressure is 100% released...(I had the bruises to show for it). For all you MEN out there...who needs to read the directions! All in the name of Sauce I tell you!
We fell back to a safer way of finishing off each and every jar of BBQ Sauce from Sweet Life Sauce Company with a simple boiling water bath once all the jars have been hot packed and closed up with lids.

****NOTICE****
I will refer to said "lids" as "closures" in the future to attempt to impress those of you who are impressable that I'm picking up on the sauce industry lingo...kinda like calling toilets water closets in my former industry.

Anyhoo, we are getting awesome products from this canning process. You can enjoy our BBQ sauces without a worry. We even have a microbiology study completed on our sauces that gave us a perfect bill of health.

Enough on canning and on to some other cool stuff. We had a chance to set up shop for the first time at the Sanford Farmers Market this past weekend. WE HAD A BLAST! Other than the fact we melted in the heat, the time out in our community was incredible. We had a chance to meet tons of folks, even sold some sauce. What's really cool...some of our new customers have already sent us rave reviews on our sauces paired with their grilled favorites.
RECIPE ALERT!
If you want to see some entertainment, come watch me at the Farmers Market explain how to stuff Center Cut Pork Chops with Apples and Sweet Life BBQ Sauce...it's like watching charades. The recipe is a favorite from my fishing bud Sparky in Cumberland, Maine and is already a hit to others I have shared it with. I even had an Auburn grad understand it! Go Gators!

Go to http://www.sweetlifesaucecompany.com/ and you can see some more details on this awesome, but easy recipe for the grill.

I'll leave you with this little video recipe we had at the house this week...Sweet Life Grilled Chicken Wings Caramelized with Sweet Life BBQ Sauce...they are as good tasting as they look in the video...

Click here and it will take you to the video

Until next time, as we say at Sweet Life Sauce Company...ALL is well in the land...and Bret Hill...send me your e-mail dude!

Monday, September 28, 2009

Sweet Life and Spice of Life BBQ Sauces...our flagship sauces!


Welcome to Sweet Life Sauce Company! We hope you like the new company logo. As I've had the chance to speak with tons of old friends and reconnect with family I've not spoken with in years, I keep getting the same question...(who'da thunk I could reconnect over sauce...further evidence of living the Sweet Life!)

"Ummm, Rob...where did you get the recipes?"

That is a good question...I have to go back in time to answer. For those of you who do not know, I've been a HUGE foodie since my days in High School at Umatilla High School in Lake County, Florida. I've not reached the height and weight I carry this day because of my picky eating. See...I was "that kid" in the back of Fryars Chicken on SR 19 in Umatilla in the mid 80's that was always experimenting with food when I should have been working....forgive me Mr. Seibert.

I found the experimenting a blast and took my love of throwing different ingredients together to college at the University of Florida. Give me a can of peas, some rice, a bottle of ketchup, a piece of freezer burned venison, salt, pepper, a package of hot dogs we found in the back of the fridge, and a cooler full of Specs we caught that day from Lake Lilly up in Keystone Heights...and the FEAST was on!

I always had it in me...always loved tinkering with different recipes and sharing whatever I could come up with with family and friends. When Holly and I were dating, she had no clue of my culinary skills. I whipped those out AFTER we were married...I guess I just had to make sure I could eat her cooking first. Holly is a wonderful cook and our family is blessed for it. I'll let you know that Holly will say I am a TRUE Chef...why you ask? Cooks clean up after themselves...that precludes me from ever being called a cook!

Well, this passion developed over the years and found me being the "food" dude at some New England Shindigs I have the joy of attending once or twice a year with my friends from Clearwater Flyshop in North Conway, New Hampshire. It was during one of these shindigs that my BBQ Sauce Recipe was first rolled out...today called Sweet Life BBQ Sauce!
Characters with the nicknames Sparky, Flats Stalker, Mtnzone, Fisha, Flygal, Riverwalker, Ned, Swede, Dakota, Fishnreel, Plowjockey, Magfly, Splittail, Troutslayer, Rbreslin, Itchi, ChuckD, Jaffrey, and Jake all dug in to the very first public batch of Sweet Life BBQ Sauce 3 1/2 years ago on the banks of the Saco River in North Conway, New Hampshire. We enjoyed it with a slow smoked pork shoulder. In the span of about 15 minutes, I watched a group of grown men and women tear into this batch of sauce and devour it...I was thrilled when I saw a couple of the gathered crowd rip hamburger buns apart and use the bread to sop whatever residue might be left in the side of the pot that formerly held Sweet Life BBQ sauce.

And then the question..."We need some more sauce Rob...can you bring some more out?"

Nope....nope was always the answer...

Until now!

We've been brewing sauce for the past three to four weeks and have a bit of inventory built up...ready to be sold!

As of this coming Saturday, October 10th, 2009...Holly and I will be making our first public appearance at the Sanford Farmers Market from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Historic Downtown Sanford, Florida. Easy for those of you right here in Central Florida to get your hands on some more sauce...but we couldn't leave out all of our friends and family in points outside of Central Florida...soooooooooo......

To reach all of our friends and family beyond Central Florida, like Cousin Chris in Pittsburgh, PA, Mark up in Cumberland, Maine, Cliff in Minneapolis, MN, Scott in Dallas, Texas, #1 Bro-in-law Mike in Newport News, Virginia, and of course, my blessed Mother-in-law Martha in Tamworth, New Hampshire we will be open for shipping the following week via our company order e-mail site at orders@sweetlifesaucecompany.com. This is only for friends and family to start as Holly and I are still tuning the order and shipping process...we need incredibly patient people on the receiving end to make sure we are doing it right.

Both of our flagship sauces, Sweet Life BBQ Sauce and Spice of Life BBQ Sauce will be available for $5.00 each, plus any shipping if we need to get it to you via mail.

So far...we know we can get from 1 to 4 jars into a flat rate box from the United States Postal Service for $10.35...so the kicker is to get 4 jars and pay the same shipping as for 1 jar. For those of you who have already expressed an interest in larger orders than that...we will get a couple of different ways in front of you to ship...we'd not considered 20 and 30 jar orders out of the gate so bear with us...we'll get it there.

We hope to see any of you that are local this weekend and for those of you that are not, orders@sweetlifesaucecompany.com. We'll get back with you with the total, you can use PayPal or send us a check...we'll figure it out.

Until next post...remember this Sweet Lifeism...Living the Sweet Life means never having to read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ever again!!!

As we say at Sweet Life Sauce Company...ALL is well in the land.

Monday, August 31, 2009

Sweet Life Sauce Company...Welcome and a short intro!

Welcome to our blogsite for Sweet Life Sauce Company! Quick introductions...my name is Rob Willets and I live in the sunny state of Florida...right smack dab in the middle of the state by the beautiful Wekiva River. I have a wonderful and beautiful wife, Holly. We're both the proud parents of an 8 year old daughter.


I've had a passion for all things cooking, grilling, and BBQ'ing for most of my life. Turns out this passion sparked a wacky idea to go and start a small business. See...I've had the pleasure of being hooked in with the home building industry for nearly the past 20 years...and as we know...that bubble burst and I found myself part of a downsizing from the company I worked for. With a door slammed shut for that part of my life, I quickly found out behind it was another door...it was a brand new door, the hinges are still kind of stiff, but it opened right up...the concept and idea for Sweet Life Sauce Company!


Sweet Life Sauce Company specializes in small batch, handcrafted BBQ Sauces, Hot Sauces and Rubs. Our two signature sauces are bbq sauces. Sweet Life BBQ Sauce is our mild sauce and Spice of Life BBQ Sauce is our spicy sauce.


At this writing, we are in the throes of cutting through the red tape to get a food company off the ground in Florida. We're talking tests, and permits, and kitchen agreements, and tax receipts, and LLC's, and EIN's...and other stuff I'm sure will surprise me in the coming months. Friends, family, business acquaintances, strangers, neighbors, church family, and just about every other person, literally hundreds of people, have raved about these BBQ Sauces. Over the past 3 years...too many people have asked where they could get more other than from our kitchen stove.


Ergo...words that will echo in the halls of the Willets' home for years to come..."Hey Holly...I want to start a small business...what do you think about that?"


So it is with these words that we started down the path to where we are today. The path is somewhat weedy...a little bumpy...but it's our path. We like our path at the moment. We are blessed to have an incredibly strong family, a wonderful marriage, a beautiful daughter. Our parents taught us well and it is with this that we move forward with a company that not only supports our family...but supports the community we live in as well.


We'll check back in here often...there is story after story about character after character that must be told...they all weave into the fabric of the story we begin this day...Sweet Life Sauce Company!


All is well in the land.