🔒BBQ king DennyMike’s grabs kudos for sauces and rubs

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When people in the Northeast talk about barbecue, they think of putting a burger on a gas grill long enough for it to look like a hockey puck. And while Yankee pot roast may be a few dashes of cayenne pepper away from traditional smoked barbecue brisket, Mainers aren't about to spend 15 hours in front of a barbecue smoker.

"New Englanders are in a hurry and that's why barbecue — I mean real barbecue cooking — never caught on," says Dennis Michael Sherman, owner of DennyMike's, a specialty producer of sauces and rubs in York garnering kudos from gourmet magazines and national barbecue competitions alike.

But little by little, that barbecue hesitation is beginning to lessen. As new sauces, styles and flavors pop up across the country, backyard enthusiasts are turning into pit masters ready to compete in world-class barbecue competitions.

"Barbecue is slowly starting to evolve here in Maine," says Sherman. "DennyMike's success was all about the timing."

In 2006, DennyMike's sauces, and later its rubs, hit the shelves of Portland's Whole Foods. Conveniently, it was at a time when New Englanders were also beginning to introduce varied flavors of traditional barbecue to their palates, says Sherman.

Today, DennyMike's four award-winning, gluten-free, all-natural Kosher sauces, and five rubs are sold in nearly a thousand national retailers, in hundreds of Whole Foods and Hannaford supermarkets alone. In six years, Sherman's sales have catapulted to nearly $1 million, growing 50% over the last three years alone, a trend he expects to continue.

Sherman has erased his $150,000 startup debt with the exception of an equity line on his York home, where he headquarters his business, employing six, including his wife, Patty, who keeps the books. He expects to double his work force within the next six to 12 months. Internet sales at www.dennymikes.com increase each week, now averaging 30 to 40 transactions of about $50 each, with an occasional spike such as the one that followed his appearance on NBC's "TODAY" show over Christmas of 2009 that brought in 600 orders.

Despite being a relatively young company, DennyMike's Sauces & Seasonings has gained recognition from top-notch Southern barbecue organizations, including the SCOVIE Awards, known as the world's largest spicy food competition. The National Barbecue Association recently awarded Sherman top prizes out of 300 submissions for his Sublime Swine barbecue sauce and his Fintastic seafood seasoning. In addition to the product awards, DennyMike's labels and packaging, designed by Portland-based Pulp+Wire design and marketing firm, were recognized by the judges.

"First and foremost, his products are good. In fact, I have a bottle of his Sweet 'n, Spicy Sauce in my desk drawer right now," said NBBQA Executive Director Jeff Allen.

For many people, barbecue has become an obsession, so products and restaurants have an eager base of customers ready to give new variations a try. Nationally, barbecue sauce today is a far cry from the first bottles of Heinz barbecue sauce to land on grocers' shelves in the 1940s. Joining longtime staples like Famous Dave's BBQ and Sweet Baby Ray's, there are hundreds of sauces made with everything from beer, whiskey or bourbon to mayonnaise, a staple of Alabama barbecuers.

And the number of producers has increased right along with the selections. Stonewall Kitchen now makes a number of barbecue sauces, as does Schlotterbeck & Foss of Portland. Tallywaggers Barbecue Sauce of Bath is used by Beale Street Barbeque restaurants in Maine, and World Harbors in Auburn, which makes specialty marinades and sauces including barbecue sauce, was sold last year to a Japanese condiment company with annual gross sales of $1.65 billion.

"As barbecue continues to grow in popularity, people are getting educated on the fact that there isn't just that one kind of BBQ sauce — the thick, sweet sauce everyone is familiar with — but rather a surprising diversity of flavors," says Allen. "Exploring that diversity naturally means going back to barbecue's roots and the many traditional sauces that developed in the Carolinas and other parts of the South."

There's been more consumer interest in comfort foods in general, perhaps because of the economy, the last few years, and barbecue is about as comforting as it gets. According to the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade's State of the Specialty Food Industry 2011 report, inflation-adjusted retail sales of specialty foods grew 5.5%, or $56 billion, between 2008 and 2009.

"Where specialty foods may have been a bit more rare 25 years ago, you can now find them in retail channels ranging from convenience to gourmet to mass," says Matt Thomas, publisher of Specialty Food Media at the NASFT. "As consumers become more careful about the foods they eat — whether for dietary restrictions, taste, health, politics — they find specialty foods more appealing. A product like DennyMike's might cost a bit more, but a consumer can understand the ingredients label, taste something way better than any mainstream product and feel a personal connection to a small business."

Online, a 9-ounce bottle of DennyMike's barbecue sauce or a 3-ounce tin of seasoning will run you $5.95, plus shipping and handling. But Sherman and many of his competitors agree making 'cue isn't just about the money.

"There is a unique emotional connection that we have to barbecue. For those of us who spend hours tending to the smoker or standing over a grill it's only natural that we would want to utilize the best ingredients and techniques. On that level, barbecue sauces and rubs equate very well with gourmet and specialty foods," says Thomas.

Sherman first smelled and tasted Texas-style dry rub with his "cowboy buddies" in 1976.

"I went to school on an exchange program from the University of Maine to study Spanish in central Mexico and became friends with a second-generation Texican, if you will, from Houston. His family was in the restaurant business," recalls Sherman. "Once I tasted the finest Texas-style barbecue, there was no going back."

Firing up the business

It wasn't until 2000 that Sherman's career as a real estate investor led him into the barbecue pits. He opened DennyMike's Smokehouse BBQ and Deli in his hometown of Old Orchard Beach as a commercial real estate investment.

When the restaurant opened, Sherman went back to Texas to learn everything he could about 'cue. He smoked his first marlin on a Trager Pellet Smoker and tasted every barbecue sauce he could get his hands on.

"Everything was too salty or filled with artificial additives. I decided I could do better," he says.

So he began mixing sauces, slathers and rubs from every barbecue cookbook he could find, including one written by Ardie Davis and Paul Kirk, the Kansas City Baron of Barbecue.

"In the book, Paul advised 'take the recipes as your own.' He said to get familiar with his recipes and make them your own," Sherman says.

Sherman began modifying the Baron's original recipe. "I'd put a sauce on the tables for a week and see what we had for comments. With their help, I was able to get a flavor profile that I thought worked well," Sherman says.

Thirty-some renditions later, Sherman's first product, his Sweet 'n Spicy sauce, was done. He used everything from sea salts to fine molasses for his remaining three sauces, among them a tangy Carolina-style sauce and his Hot 'n Nasty, with habaneros. Sherman's bold sense of humor wasn't lost on another smoky sauce called Mesquit-O Madness, named after what he likes to call the Maine state bird.

The smokehouse had become a test kitchen of sorts for DennyMike's LLC, which was established in 2006, the year Sherman sold the restaurant as planned. But first, Sherman contacted Kirk.

"I was lucky enough be able to steal the basis for my first recipe at this chef's suggestion," Sherman says. "Paul told me congrats, good luck and send me a sample."

Sherman could have never guessed that, six years later, he'd be joining Kirk in cooking demonstrations at the Western Maine BBQ Festival in Fryeburg. Or that in mid-August, he'd do the same with Davis at the Raitt Homestead Farm Museum in Eliot for the Mainely Grillin' & Chillin' BBQ Festival. Sherman was a judge at the barbecue cook-offs at both events, which offer big money prizes.

Sherman may hang with barbecue hot shots like Dave Anderson, founder of Famous Dave's; John Markus, executive producer of TLC's reality show "BBQ Pitmasters;" and Chris Lilly, of Big Bob Gibson Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Ala., and has met the "The Legend of BBQ" himself, Mike Mills, but he doesn't take any of it for granted.

"The whole thing about barbecue is that the industry is made up of a bunch of really good people," Sherman says. "I've been fortunate enough to achieve this recognition. We are happy to say we are friendly competitors."

Future forays

New products in the works include an Acadian spicy marinade, as well as Pixie Nuts, made with his Pixie Dust seasoning. His other seasonings include DennyMike's Chick Magnet, Sublime Swine and Cowboy Hell.

"I'm building this business very carefully. I'm not a young kid in a candy store anymore," says the 60-year-old.

Like any entrepreneur, Sherman envisions someone passing him a big check for the business some day, but he has no intention of selling in the immediate future.

"I'm still building a brand," he says. And he likes to envision a future where he'll still have a hand in the business, perhaps as the personality behind the brand, like KFC's Col. Sanders.

For now, though, he's on the hunt for equity capital and is soliciting investors who can match his enthusiasm to grow the business. Before long, he anticipates bringing the company under one roof with a test kitchen to create video cookbooks to post on his website. Currently, he produces sauces and rubs in facilities in Westbrook and Gray.

He already supplies various hospitals and colleges with his products and is approaching broadliners such as Sysco and Smithfield Foods to further expand his market. DennyMike products are recent arrivals into stores on the West Coast and recent talks with distributors in Canada, Norway and China could tee up the international market.

"I haven't reached critical mass yet, and while we're still figuring out how to calculate and prepare for that, we know it's coming," Sherman says.

DennyMike's 'Cue Stuff Inc.
P.O. Box 256, York 03909
Founded: 2006
Employees: 7
Products: All-natural, gluten-free barbecue sauces and seasonings
Sales: Nearly $1 million
Contact: 251-0023
info@dennymikes.com

Anna Fiorentino, a writer based in Kennebunkport, can be reached at editorial@mainebiz.biz.