An Interview with Sandi Ford,
President, Ford’s Gourmet Foods.
GN: Where did the Bone Suckin’ Sauce
recipe come from?
SF: Phil Ford, my brother-in-law, is a
real estate appraiser and father of four in
Raleigh, North Carolina.
Phil developed his barbecue sauce recipe
around 1987, while he was trying to copy
his mom’s recipe for a western North
Carolina-style barbecue sauce. Phil came up
with an incredible barbecue sauce that had
people asking for more! It was made from
tomato paste, apple cider vinegar, honey,
molasses, mustard, horseradish, lemon
juice, onions, garlic, peppers, natural
hickory smoke, natural spices and salt.
GN: How did you come up with the
name?
SF: While driving to Charleston, South
Carolina, to find my youngest son, Patrick,
an apartment for college, I was trying
to come up with a name for the sauce. I
thought about how good it was and how it
made me do something I had never done
before – suck on the bones to get the last
little bit of flavor. This reminded me of
my mom also when something was really,
really good.
GN: When did you realize you had a
winning product in Bone Suckin’ Sauce?
SF: I realized we had a winning product
when customers started being repeat
customers. Repeat customers are the
biggest compliment you can have with
any service or product. Customers were
buying it for themselves and also buying
Bone Suckin’ Sauce and shipping it all over
the world to share it with their family and
friends.
GN: Has Bone Suckin’ Sauce won any
competitions?
SF: Bone Suckin’ Sauce entered the
North Carolina Battle of the Sauces in
1994. Bone Suckin’ Sauce took first place
in the Battle of the Sauces, which drew
more than 10,000 people. With increasing
rave reviews, the sauce won best in sales
records every year in the Winner’s Circle,
the elite category of past 1st Place Winners.
Bone Suckin’ Sauce was off to the races and
grocery and specialty store shelves from
there!
GN: How do you decide to add items to
your product line up?
SF: We only add items that taste great
and have clean ingredients.
GN: How many items do you have now?
SF: We have quite a few amazing items
in the Bone Suckin’ line up. We have four
types of Bone Suckin’ Sauce (Original,
Hot, Thicker Style and Hot Thicker
Style), two Mustards (Original & Sweet
Spicy), Wing Sauces (Garlic & Honey and
Honey & Habanero), Seasoning & Rubs
(eight varieties including Original, Steak,
Chicken, Vegetable, Lemon Pepper, Cajun,
Seafood & Hot), our version of Teriyaki
which we call Bone Suckin’ Yaki, Steak
Sauce, three Organic Seasoning &
Rubs (Original, Cajun & Lemon
Pepper) and Hiccuppin’ Hot Sauce.
