We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dennis Butterworth a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dennis, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What can you share with us about the story behind how you found your key vendors?

When I first started out, I was bottling by hand in a commercial kitchen. 8 months later, I won HEB”s Quest For Texas Best and landed a deal to get in over 250 stores. I began a search for a copacker. HEB wanted me to deliver by December which gave me very little time to secure a location. I went with the first place I found in Houston. They were a large factory that bottle a huge amount of different products. They replicated my recipe and we got the first orders for HEB ready to go. It gave me a huge relief to know I had this taken care of . Little did I know, my year was not going to be easy. This factory had terrible quality control processes in place. Almost every order they filled had a consistency that was not in my standard. I fought this factory for 2 years with these issues until I finally gave up. I actually found another factory in Houston that was closer to my house and agreed to take me on. Firing the first factory was a great feeling. The new factory has been running strong. Their team takes quality control very serious and we have a great relationship. One piece of advice I give to all product creators is to do your research and don’t jump on the first supplier you find. If a factory is taking on new clients, it’s usually because they’ve been let go by other clients.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

We started out as a competition BBQ team in 2009. I had a sauce sponsor that would eventually go out of business and leave us looking for something that would give us a competitive edge. I decided it was time to make my own sauce, to formulate something with the color, consistency, and flavor I was looking for. I started bottling the sauce in mason jars and using it in competitions. Once I made the stage at the HLSR cookoff placing 8th in ribs, the other competitors came around asking to buy my sauce. So, I decided to rent space in a local commercial kitchen and bottle the sauce for retail. As a veteran, I wanted to be able to donate money from my sauce sales to veterans charities. I teamed up with the Folds Of Honor to donate profits from every bottle sold. I had no idea what this would lead to. I got into a few small BBQ shops across the state and then one of my friends suggested I enter HEB’s Quest for Texas Best. Out of over 600 products, our FUBAR Sauce (For Use On Butts And Ribs) took 1st place! So, in January 2018, we entered HEB, we started in 250 stores an by the end of 2018, we were in over 280 stores. FUBAR was the number one selling sauce in HEB for 2018 in their premium section. In January of 2019, I placed two new flavors of sauce, SNAFU & FUBAR Flamethrower into HEB and they are already selling out. I also added a spice rub, Ham Grenade to HEB in May of 2019. I have since added the Lone Survivor Foundation and the PTSD Foundation of America to my list of charities. Fast forward to 2022 and we have added a beef BBQ sauce, 50 Cow and a beef rub, BullZooka to our line. Our products are now carried in hundreds of retail locations across the nation. The thing I will always be most proud of is that I am able to donate to veterans causes thanks to something that I created. The WarPig Brand is just getting started. I can’t wait to see where we take it in the future.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

A couple of things helped me build a reputation in the market. For one, I was a competition BBQ cook. Using and winning with my products brought a lot of attention to them. When I landed in Big Grocery, I had to work very hard to establish Brand Recognition with the public. I visited as many stores around the state and did product demos to educate the public about my brand. Once I got the public to buy my products, my commitment to producing a consistent product built a strong reputation with them. My goal has always been to have customers try every product that they see my logo on because they recognize the brand and respect it from their previous purchases.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In 2020, the whole world had to pivot. With everyone going on lockdown, I had to figure out the next steps for WarPig BBQ. I decided to pull my marketing budget and hire a brand agency to remake my imaging. This downtime we were having gave me the perfect time to do some of the overhauls that needed to get done but were being put on the backburner. I had all new logos and labels created. I wanted a cohesive look across the brand. I am very pleased with the end result. Once we got the labels created, I took them to the factory and immediately put the new bottles out on the market.

Contact Info:

• Website: warpigbbq.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/txwarpigbbq
• Facebook: facebook.com/txwarpigbbq
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/dennisbutterworth/
• Other: Tiktok DW_Butter

Image Credits
Dennis Butterworth