By Matt Skoufalos
As the vice president of community health equity at the UAB Health System in Birmingham, Alabama, Verlon Salley spends his days assessing and managing health equity concerns, and working to address disparities in clinical data and processes within the system.
But long before he rose to his current position in one of the most prominent academic medical systems in the state of Alabama, Salley was trying to work his way up through a long line of pit bosses and barbecue chefs within the crowded ranks of the family cook-outs.
Growing up in South Florida, Salley’s childhood was punctuated by weekly get-togethers that, for the size of his family, could have doubled as reunions. His parents grew up on the same street in households of 11 children each, and Sunday was reserved for whole-family gatherings.
“It was such a big family and there were so many grill masters – and some who thought they were grill masters – that we used to have contests,” Salley said. “Bring your best meat and cook it on the grill. I was nowhere near the top 10 of people who could get on the grill, so I was like, ‘Let me create something that has my presence on the grill.’ ”
Salley’s contribution to that careful hierarchy became a sweet and spicy dry rub that landed especially well with his Uncle Carl, who encouraged him to develop it into an all-purpose sauce. His aunt, who’d worked in a high-school cafeteria, told him about how the cooks there made their own barbecue sauce from scratch. To that basic recipe, Salley incorporated influences from his own culinary experiences, and blended them into a balance that keeps the flavors from overpowering one other. He purchases his spices in bulk and prepares his sauce in a commercial kitchen near his home.
“My recipe comes from my family and people who helped me,” he said. “Every place I’ve been had an influence of food. In South Florida, barbecue is big, so there’s cumin. Caribbean people are big in South Florida, so that’s where the curry comes in; and then there’s spicy flavors. And for me, cinnamon was the only spice that I liked personally that brought out the flavor in every other spice.”
After experimenting with his recipe and soliciting feedback from some family members, Uncle Carl more than any of them offered useful insight into how to dial in the flavors, and became the namesake for the sauce. Salley put his image on the label, called it Uncle Carl’s All-Purpose Sauce, and for the next decade-and-a-half, gave away “probably thousands of bottles of sauce.”
“I’ve never advertised it,” he said. “It’s just a word-of-mouth thing; it’s not in stores.”
As an all-purpose sauce, Salley’s product was meant to be used by chefs preparing many different kinds of dishes, be they poultry, beef, pork or vegetables. It worked equally as well for Uncle Carl’s smoked turkey as it did for cousin Shawn’s ribs and pork shoulders.
“The sauce is good on everything,” Salley said. “I’ve got a friend, Luz Randolph, who uses it on tofu, and another friend Arlisa Welch, who uses it on salads. My favorite is ribs, but it’s crazy how this sauce goes on any and every meat. I’ve never had anyone say they didn’t like it. Everything’s inspected, pH-balanced and tested.”
When the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit in 2020, things slowed down enough at work that Salley had the time to create an LLC and begin establishing Salley’s Sauces as a formal business. He researched food production and safety regulations, nutrition labels and trademarking. Friends worked with him on the label, advised him on the business, and have watched him grow the concept to its current form.
The first snag he hit in his trademark application came from fast-food chain restaurant Carl’s Jr., who challenged his use of the name Carl under its current spelling. Instead of spending his seed money in a protracted legal battle, Salley added his own nickname to the label, and the product became Big Sal’s Sauce. Fortunately, none of the conversation about his naming conventions affected the composition of the sauce.
“I didn’t realize what this business was going to entail, but because I’m an executive, it didn’t faze me to jump through those hoops,” he said. “All those checks and balances that you learn being an executive, I’ve put that into this business.”
“The sauce has been perfected since 2007; it hasn’t changed at all,” Salley said. “What’s now about to take off is actually selling it outside of being online.”
Now that he’s supported his time-tested recipes with executive knowhow and a business and marketing plan, Salley is poised to field-test the business offline in 2023, bringing his products to farmers markets and festivals near his Birmingham home, and seeing how far he can take it. His fervent wish is to establish his sauce business as a family-based business with which to establish a foothold in the market for his son to grow it in the future, should he choose to do so.
“I want to keep it solely proprietary, where my family does everything,” Salley said. “I would love to be able to pass this to my son. It would be up to him to take it wherever. I want this to be his vehicle and enhance his life; it could be his platform where he starts at a higher place than I did going into my college career.”
Whatever form the business takes – and regardless of the name on the bottle – Salley is confident that the time-tested recipe behind his sauces will continue to endure.
For more information about Verlon Salley’s homemade sauces, visit salleysauces.com.
