Beck, who said he learned about the thrill of the grill as a youngster, refined the recipes of his family after trying about 30 of his own variations and began selling Zeck Beck’s Sweet-N-Spicy BBQ Sauce in October 2009. A member of the Goodness Grows in N.C. Association, he took his recipe to a commercial bottler in Raleigh. He said the sauce was originally intended for ribs and pork chops, but people also like it on chicken and beef and even use it as a dip for chips and fries.
He just introduced a second version, Zeck Beck’s Sweet-N-Spicy Hot BBQ Sauce, a few weeks ago at Lexington’s inaugural BBQ Capital Cook-off, in which he was a competitor and food vendor. He said the new sauce has the extra kick of red habanero.
Beck said he sold about 26 cases of the sauces, half the mild original and half hot, at the cook-off, which he said he entered primarily to receive some exposure for his sauces. In fact, he sent some of the bottles over to the Johnsonville Sausage Co.’s “Big Taste Grill” at the cook-off to be used as a condiment on the brats they were selling. Sauce samples were also given to cook-off attendees.
“The cooking competition seemed like an opportune time to come out with the new one,” Beck said of the hotter version of the sauce. “People who tried it really liked it. It’s hot enough you get about a 35- to 45-minute burn, but you’ve still got the flavor of the sauce coming through.”
Beck’s working on a third sauce that he hopes to release late this summer or in the early fall called XXX Ghost Hot, named for the hottest pepper on the planet, bhut jolokia, from Assam, India, also known as the ghost pepper. Beck said there is a certain market for the truly hot sauces, and he’s always been a fan of heat.
“I’ve eaten chili peppers all my life,” he said, noting he recalls walking through his grandmother’s garden eating raw tomatoes and peppers as a child. “One of my best memories of childhood is eating pork chops off the grill with my grandmother’s barbecue sauce.”
A stone mason by trade who owns Beck’s Stone Masonry, Beck said cooking has always been a hobby and family tradition. Both of his grandmothers and his mother taught him to cook at an early age, and one of his uncles taught him about pit cooking.
“For years and years I wanted to open a barbecue restaurant, but the area is just so saturated with them,” he said. “People would say ‘why don’t you do the second-best thing and sell barbecue sauce?’”
Beck said he made his barbecue sauces for family and friends as well as his clients for Christmas gifts, and they all encouraged him to pursue his dream.
“We started it in the worst economy,” he said of beginning the business during the recession. “It’s been a tough row to hoe.”
But Beck said he has felt called to use his talent to produce his products, noting his fellow congregation members from Grace Alliance Church volunteered to help him with food and sauce sales during the cook-off. He also noted a percentage of sauce sales go to CMA Missions and to feeding the hungry.
“We gave this business over to God from the start,” he said.
It’s also a family business, he said, with his wife, Diane, as president and 51 percent owner. They have a daughter and two sons who have also helped with sales.
The name of the business, Zeck Beck’s, was coined by an uncle, David Hunt, who owns Hunt Cellars in Paso Robles, Calif., an award-winning winery. He said Hunt nicknamed him “Zeck” for executive after they discussed his fee for doing the stone work at his home and it just stuck.
Beck said the challenge now is to achieve wider distribution of his sauces. He will return to the N.C. Hot Sauce Contest in Oxford in September to seek more exposure.
He said he hopes to make the production and selling of the sauces his retirement job and would love to gain greater consumer exposure through a grocery story chain.
“I would put our sauces up against anybody’s,” he said. “And I’d love to do steak sauces, rubs, wing sauces, marinades. I’ve got the recipes — I just don’t have the funds to get them all going.”
Zeck Beck’s sauces are available locally at Lanier True Value Hardware, North Main Exxon, Daddy Rabbits, Cook’s Barbecue, LD Produce, Michael’s Grocery and Southmont Grocery as well as on Saturday mornings at the Lexington Farmer’s Market. They can also be ordered online through the company website at www.zeckbecks.com.
Vikki Broughton Hodges can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 214, or at [email protected].
Article source: http://www.the-dispatch.com/article/20110517/news05/305179985&tc=yahoo
