Restocking the sauce

May/June 2023 California Bountiful magazine

Veteran’s children revive
family recipe and business

Story by Linda DuBois
Photos by Lori Eanes

Harold Pearson had been on a years-long quest. After traveling the world in the Air Force, he’d yet to find a barbecue sauce anywhere that compared to the one at his favorite rib joint in his hometown of St. Louis.

He had searched in vain for a sauce with a perfect balance of sweet, smoky and spicy that would remind him of home and the succulent ribs that he once “lived on.”

So, he decided to make his own.

In the 1980s, after he and his wife, Angeline, had settled in Sacramento, he began experimenting with fresh, local ingredients, aiming for a “Midwest flavor with a West Coast punch.”

His resulting creation was a huge hit with family members and friends at backyard barbecues over the next several years.

While he had made the sauce solely for himself, after an acquaintance gave a sample to a magazine’s food editor, she encouraged him to bottle and sell it.

So, in the mid-1990s, he launched a business out of his kitchen. Before long, Pearson’s Premium Gourmet BarBeQue Sauce was in more than 30 stores and became the official barbecue sauce of the University of California, Berkeley football team.

His sons, Harold Jr. and David, helped him with tastings at grocery stores and making deliveries after their college classes and during the busy summer grilling season.

Eventually, though, this side venture became difficult to balance with the founder’s busy career as an investment broker and he set the sauce business aside.

Continuing the legacy

Fast forward two decades to the fall of 2020. Harold Jr. and David Pearson were busy with careers and families of their own, but the possibility of bringing back their dad’s barbecue sauce business had stayed in the back of their minds. As restaurants were closing their doors during the pandemic and more people were cooking at home, the siblings knew the timing was right.

“When we discussed it, it was almost a no-brainer, especially when we’d be working with our family, and this was already a proven product,” David says.

So, David of Sacramento, Harold Jr. of Oakland and their younger sister, Angie of North Carolina, relaunched the business, working through supply-chain disruptions and other COVID-related challenges to get it going.

The brothers are the day-to-day managers, while their sister handles administrative tasks and their parents are advisors. “Our father’s also the official taste-tester,” Harold Jr. says.

“It is very exciting for me as a father to see my children take over and re-brand Pearson’s Premium,” Harold Sr. says. “They’ve been there since the beginning and understand the overall vision for the company.”

A special recipe

Part of that vision is making the sauce with fresh California-grown produce and all-natural ingredients. So, the siblings sought out a co-packer that was equally committed to that goal. After interviewing several, they chose Mad Will’s Food Co. in Placer County’s Auburn.

“We felt they understood our product and what we were trying to do. Plus, they’re committed to helping out small businesses—the new guys coming in,” David says.

Scott Bartosh, Mad Will’s president, says Pearson’s is just the type of business his company likes to work with—a small startup with growth potential run by good people with a high-quality product.

“It’s an awesome barbecue sauce, definitely a premium product,” Bartosh says. “The cost of their ingredients, because of the quality, is two or three times higher than most barbecue sauces out there.”

This is because the siblings are staying faithful to their dad’s original recipe.

“We wanted to keep the family recipe exactly what we had growing up in the backyard and have that go to the customer’s backyard,” Harold Jr. says.

David says he especially enjoys the sauce on tri-tip sandwiches, while Harold Jr. likes it best on ribs and salmon. Their customers use it on chicken, ribs, brisket, pork, seafood and vegetables—just about anything savory.

“Some folks use it as a salad dressing,” Harold Jr. says.

Happy customers

One comment they often hear from customers is, unlike with many bottled barbecue sauces, they can taste the fresh vegetables inside. They also appreciate that it’s all natural with no high-fructose corn syrup or gluten.

One of these customers is chef Peguy Vincent, owner of Lakay Caribbean Cuisine & Catering in Sacramento, specializing in Haitian food.

After meeting the Pearson family through a mutual friend about three years ago, he asked to try their sauce.

“I thought it was incredible. So, I decided to make their sauce my house barbecue sauce,” Vincent says. “I like that it’s not really pureed, that you can see all the ingredients that are in there and taste all their flavors.”

Vincent uses the sauce on menu items like prime rib, barbecued chicken and baby back ribs. “The other day, I made cow tongue and drizzled the sauce on it and put it over mashed potatoes. It ended up tasting like a filet,” he says.

He uses the mild, medium and hot varieties, “depending on the crowd.”

If the taste weren’t enough to keep him coming back for more, the customer service would be, Vincent says. “The Pearson family is great. If I say, ‘Hey, David, I’m out of sauce,’ he will meet me wherever I am and deliver the sauce to me. They’ll go out of their way to make me happy.”

Looking ahead

The siblings are proud to carry on a family legacy. “Being able to build something for our family that can live on past us is very rewarding,” Harold Jr. says.

“Our kids are always willing to jump in and help,” he adds. “They’re elementary school age now, but they’re already involved in the business.”

Time will tell if their children would someday like to take over.

“They might,” David says, but he and his siblings want to take the same approach their father did. “It was never forced upon us. He let us do what we wanted to do in life. I would love for my daughter to run the business someday, but if she wants to do something else, I’ll support it.”

Regardless, they are planning for growth. Now, the sauce is sold on the company website and at specialty markets and served in several restaurants.

“We definitely want to expand our reach, both domestically and internationally,” Harold Jr. says. “Currently, we’re supplying sauce in 18 states, but we want to get back into all the grocery stores and create and develop partnerships, like with sports teams.”

David puts it a little more succinctly: “We want to be the No. 1 barbecue sauce in California.”

Linda DuBois