Heffys BBQ Co. WINS 1st Place for All-Natural Hot and 2nd Place for Product Packaging AT WORLD’S MOST COMPETITIVE FIERY FOODS CONTEST!

The 2012 Scovie Awards judging panel of top culinary experts honored Heffys BBQ Co. with our second 1st place award in the last 3 years.  Well put it right next to the other 1st Place Award in the All-Natural Hot award from 2009.

The competition was particularly fierce for the 2012 awards, with product entries up 177 over 2011. In all, 161 companies entered 792 products for a chance at Scovie glory. Dave DeWitt, founder of the Scovie Awards and National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show said entries came from 38 states and four countries including Australia, Sweden, Canada and the United States.

DeWitt, the “Pope of Peppers,” was pleased with the variety and quality of the entries. “It’s thrilling to see more entries than ever in our sixteenth year of the Scovie Awards. I’m always impressed by the creative new ideas and delicious ways people showcase fiery foods,” DeWitt said.

Guests can sample and buy Scovie Award-winning products at the upcoming 2012 National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show (March 2-4, 2012) at Sandia Resort and Casino in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Vendors from across the country will be in attendance. For more information please visit:www.fieryfoodsshow.com, there is a good chance you might just see the boys from Heffys there too.

The Scovie Awards is an annual competition created by Dave DeWitt that recognizes the top fiery foods products in the world. The awards were named after the Scoville scale, a measurement of the spicy heat of a chile pepper. It is one of the most competitive blind tasted food competitions. Hundred of products are entered and go through rigorous tastings to receive the top honors. The Scovie Awards take place annually in the month of October. For more information, visit www.scovieawards.com.

That’s right Heffys BBQ Co. has launched our All-Natural & Gluten Free line of BBQ Sauces.

Over 2 years ago we began looking at all-natural vs. organic vs. gluten free and everything else that was taking shape in the specialty food market.  Honestly what our customers wanted the most was All-Natural and Gluten Free so that’s what we made…it only took us a year to get it up to our crazy standards.

People have asked us…Why did you switch?  The short answer is we want to make a product that sacrifices nothing, is made with the best ingredients and gives back in some real ways.  So it took some time.

Take a look at our ingredient list for our new All-Natural Original….go ahead we want you to.  There’s more where that came from.

Many of our Heffys Select Retailers are in the process of selling off older inventory to make room for the new sauce.

If you are a retailer and want to carry Heffys in your store or need to re-order head over to our RETAILER RESOURCES section.  Or if you want to snag some sauce for the house, we invite you to BUY NOW “Oh-Natural” style.

Are you a social wannabe and a foodie? Love BBQ and having a good time?

The Heffys Social Internship could be for you!

We Want:  Social Media & Communications Intern

Why: Because we need someone to work under the supervision of our CEO on various projects related to implementing and managing Heffys BBQ Co. Social & Communications Strategy.

Here are some deets:

-Assists with managing our Facebook Fan Page & Twitter Accounts

-Help create an overall strategy for how Heffys relates in social circles

-Researches new uses and aids in recruitment efforts to gain members

-Aid in “viral events” creation

-Creates an appropriate schedule for partners to follow and maintain

Sound Interesting?

Read more about it and apply HERE >>

Around the Heffys family, the iPhone is the phone of choice.  So we thought it would be a good idea to help out those of you that got a new iPhone with a little starter guide so you can hit the ground running.

Jason’s Top 5 iPhone apps:

1. Bible (free)- It’s the #1 ranked and rated app for reading and sharing the Bible with over 60k 5 star ratings.

2. Pandora (free)- Pandora Radio is your own free personalized radio now available to stream music on your iPhone or iPad.

3. RunKeeper (free, paid version available) -RunKeeper uses the GPS technology found in the iPhone to track your fitness activity, giving you comparable results to an expensive GPS watch at a fraction of the cost.

4. Netflix (free) – Get Netflix on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. Just download this free app and you can instantly watch TV shows & movies streaming from Netflix.

5. Instagram (free) – Instagram is an amazingly fun & simple life-sharing app for your iPhone. Snap photos wherever you go to show the world what’s going on in your life.

Bonus: If you have a gmail account and want push email, contacts and calendar…head here to learn how to set that up  http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/

Got any apps you think should be on my Top 5?  Leave your favorites in the comments

JD

I LOVE coffee.  In fact most of us at Heffys LOVE coffee.  Almost as much as we love Heffys BBQ Sauce.  That’s saying a lot.

Recently, I met a really cool guy, Danny O’Neill (aka The Bean Baron), he owns The Roasterie here in Kansas City.  We have lots in common, a desire to do good, a desire to make a product that people love, doing it with integrity among lots of other things.  This guy LOVES coffee.  He is passionate about doing it better than anyone else.  So we sat down and swapped stories.  I learned a lot.

As I was leaving Danny suggested that we create a special blend of Roasterie coffee that could represent Heffys.  Sold.

So I recruited a few trusted coffee coneseuirs (minus brother Jason who was unable to make the trip to KC) and went to work.

Their “coffee hunter” Paul Massard, led us through a coffee cupping.  We tasted, discussed, rated, and repeated for hours.  We used spoons to slurp (no better way to say it) up the fantastic nectar. Awesome.  The smell was amazing, the process helped us blend 3 diverse beans together at specific ratios to create a uniquely Heffys Blend Coffee.  You will be able to snag a bag of this coming very soon, so get on our email list well let you know when.

Thanks to Amanda, Paul and Danny and all the kids at The Roasterie for letting us in.  New friendships are exciting, new products are a privilege and sharing the stories of how both happen is just plain fun.

We love making things better at Heffys, turns out we have a lot of fans with great ideas on how to do just that here at Heffys.

Fans like Millie Picker (aka MP)

Millie has been a fan for the last 7 months or so ever since she got her first taste of Heffys. Since then she has been planning on giving it away to her friends and family, but she had a problem.

Back in September Millie wrote on our Google Checkout Comment section:

It was very easy to order; however, I would like to see an option provided to put a greeting, for example, “Merry Christmas from the Pickers”. I want to send Heffy’s to some on my Christmas list and it would make it much easier if an option like this were available instead of them wondering who the heck sent me BBQ sauce!   By millie – Sep 7, 2010

So we went to work and added the functionality to our site.   Now Millie can send “gift messages” to all her friends and family this holiday season, for their birthday, weddings or whatever is going on.  We will HAND WRITE her note, attach it to her order and send it to her friends and family.  It’s that simple.  We love getting notes so it only make sense that we send them too.

Here is how it works:

*Go to our BUY NOW page

*Add all the glorious Heffys products you want to buy as a gift to your cart

*When you’re ready, click on the “Add gift message” and fill it out to your hearts content

*We will deliver your sauce, and a hand written note to your dad, brother or whoever

Yup, its that easy.  Thanks to Millie.

Thanks Millie for making Heffys better for your family, friends and all those who love Heffys.

Pretty sweet huh?!  We think so, but don’t thank us, thank Millie!

Have a great Heffys suggestion and wanna be as cool as Millie?  Drop us a line and talk to us.

It takes money to run a business, we’ve all heard it said in one way or another right?! Well it’s true. As Heffys has grown, thanks to fantastic fans who appreciate our premium Kansas City made sauces that are lovingly hand labeled by Special Olympic Athletes, the need for some dough to help finance our growth has come along with it.

Enter the problem….banking these days is in an “interesting” spot. But being the optimistic guys we are we thought it wouldn’t be too hard for a good banker to see how sweet of an investment we are. I mean we (the American public) bailed the banks out to help spur business growth right?!

It was frustrating to experince first hand a rather large issue keeping our economy from healing, the inability or unwillingness of some banks to help small business. Kind of felt like we were up against Mr. Potter in the movie.  You remember that crotchety old guy, only bent on making lots of money for himself.  But as it stands we found that America still has heart.

Inman Kansas is about 20 minutes from Moundridge, Kansas. Why the geography lesson you ask? Well our Heffys BBQ award winning original recipe was born out there in the Kansas Prairie’s of Inman Kansas. We’re proud of that, although we are made just up the road in Kansas City these days. We make it a point to remember where we came from.

Lots of folks in Inman remember the family too. Larry the banker knows Phil, the dad of Jeff, one of our founders. See we are already at 3 degrees of separation and it only gets better. Phil and Larry were talking about the financing needs facing Jeff and Heffys BBQ Co. Larry pipes up and says “I’d love to step in and help, we’ve done business with your family for years. Let’s get them what they need”. And just like that a neighbor helps a neighbor striving for a dream.  That’s as American as it gets!  For us it really was something right out of the movie It’s a Wonderful Life (happens to be one of our CEO’s favs).

Larry and Phil, thanks for proving to us that the American dream is still alive and well.  We’ll travel to Inman anytime you need us, cause that’s what neighbors do for each other.

Fans like Erik W. (aka E-Dub)

Erik has been with us since the beginning, he is a Heffys Fan, he gives us his opinion whether we want it or not.  We love him for it.

A few weeks ago he shot us a note about our outrageous shipping prices, he was like “I don’t have Heffys in my house because of how much it costs to ship it to me”.

We have learned a lot the last 4 years….one thing for sure is to listen close our fans.

We also know if would be more convenient for Erik and his fantastic wife Stacey to buy us at their local store which is why we invented the I LOVE HEFFYS program.  But still we wondered if we could do better with our shipping prices.  So we went to work, took a look at our current shipping policies & providers, and tightened down some screws where we could and after much sweat and plenty of empty beer cans we came up with the “E-Dub” shipping method.

So in honor of Erik and our 4th birthday, we are officially launching the “E-Dub” (our nickname for Erik W.) shipping policy.  It’s super simple….$4.95 flat rate shipping on up to 12 items.

Buy 2 bottles = $4.95 Shipping

Buy 12 bottles = $4.95 Shipping

Any combination of 12 items is one flat rate to ship!

Pretty sweet huh?!  We think so, but don’t thank us, thank Erik!

Wanna be as cool as him, drop us a line and talk to us.

We have a sweet deal for our buds on Facebook. If you haven’t “liked us” you should.

Our brand spankin new “I Love Heffys” program is ready for action. If you don’t “like us” on Facebook yet you should (we know there should be a LOVE button for you to use. By the way….this program is just for our friends on Facebook for now.

So here is the deal:

• Download the I Love Heffys Card or shoot us your name and home address and we will send you 10 cards preprinted to hand out

• Do what it says….simply take to your favorite store that isn’t in the know about how AWESOME Heffys BBQ Sauces are

• If they order you get a year of free sauce (pretty sweet)

Now, go forth and spread the Heffys love…

Heffys @ New York Fancy Foods Show from Heffys BBQ Co. on Vimeo.