Bacon Salt

[Texman]

We all love a good entrepreneurial story – this one is exceptional and makes one feel good for their vision and success....Bacon Salt!
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Bacon in a bottle: It's "holy" to fans
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/foodwine/2004012074_baconsalt14.html
By Karen Gaudette
Seattle Times staff reporter

Word-of-mouth has transformed J&D's Bacon Salt from a fun idea among friends to the condiment of desire for bacon lovers around the country and beyond.

Its fanbase — which includes college-basketball devotees, online gamers, food bloggers, World Wrestling Enertainment viewers and Marines in Iraq — has rallied around the new bacon-flavored seasoning from Seattle in chat rooms, youtube.com videos and on blogs.

"They've taken it up almost like a holy cause," co-founder Justin Esch marveled.
Since July, Seattle-area creators Esch, Dave Lefkow and Kara Gibson have sold 20,000 bottles at $4.49 a pop via baconsalt.com. Now it's being stocked in meat and fish markets, major grocery chains, including QFC, and online retail giant Amazon.com.

The trio of former tech workers was nursing drinks in a bar last winter when Esch suggested combining two of their favorite ingredients: bacon and salt.

"My first reaction was, 'There's no way that's not invented,' " Lefkow said.
"We Googled him wrong," Esch said.

After failed attempts cooking some up in Lefkow's kitchen, they worked with food technicians to perfect the texture and flavor. The result is a seasoning sans calories, fat and actual bacon that delivers an intense hit of flavor that Lefkow prefers to the mess of frying up bacon itself.

Miraculously, Bacon Salt also is vegetarian and kosher (the hickory flavor is even vegan). The product and its packaging are manufactured in the Northwest.

With no advertising budget and few food brokers willing to take a chance on an unknown product, they opted instead to mail bottles to food blogs, family and friends and created Bacon Salt profiles on social networking sites MySpace.com and Facebook.com.

The gambit worked. The first week drew 800 orders for original, hickory and peppered Bacon Salt. One customer in Texas ordered 36 jars.

"That's when we realized this is now a full-time project," Lefkow said.
So far, Bacon Salt is seasoning scrambled eggs, steak, green beans, popcorn and French fries in all 50 states and more than 20 countries.

"My savior has arrived," read a post on Seattle-based food blog iheartbacon.com. "and its name is Bacon Salt."

[BBQMAN]

Very cool story, to be sure!
_________________
BBQMAN
"I Turned A Hobby Into A Business".
Providing "IMHO" Since 2005.

[G's BBQ]

Dammit, I wish I had thought of it!!!!!!!!!!!
_________________
California State Grand Champion-Shake,Rattle & Smoke-July 2007
American Royal Invitational 2007-11th place Ribbon Brisket
2nd Place BBQ Sauce-Best On The Mountain Rib Cook-Off-Horizon Casino, South Lake Tahoe-May 2008

[ClayBBQ]

I ordered 9 bottles for xmas! What a great idea.

[RKB]

Its a good idea, but IMHO the product is a colossal ripoff. I just received some, it tastes exactly like regular table salt mixed with powdered IMITATION bacon bits. If you like that garbage, make your own "bacon salt", just get those imitation bacon bits at any grocery store, grind them up and mix with table salt. Just for test purposes, I did exactly that - bought some, ground them in my coffee grinder, mixed them with table salt - can't tell the difference between theirs and mine.
Don't waste your money on this stuff. Just my opinion of course, YMMV.

[taengland107]

i had it not so good