From barbeque competitions to farmers markets: The rise of Cracked Ribs Seasoning

Summer is a time for many things here in Southeast Missouri. The lake, family time, and good cooking, one thing these usually have in common is barbecue. There is a new BBQ spice company in Southeast Missouri that believes they have some of the best.

According to owner Bill Johns from Oak Ridge, Cracked Ribs Seasoning started selling to the public back in August of last year. However Johns did not start his BBQ spice creation just last year, he started back in 2008.

Johns said he got into a BBQ contest years ago with some friends and their team name was Crack Ribs Barbeque. While doing competitions he decided that if they were going to compete then he wanted to be using their spices and sauces to win. From there Johns said he started looking at cookbooks for information on how others make theirs and went from there. From that hard work from a few months on the weekend came his brainchild of the Cracked Ribs Seasoning. It originally was just one sauce, the original. Due to his daughter at a young age not enjoying the spiciness of the original he created the Sweet seasoning and when some friends asked for spicy, the Spicy seasoning was born.

Johns said he has won several times with his spice and sauce creation since 2008. They have competed in BBQ contests in Cape Girardeau, Oran, Perryville, Kansas, the Jack Daniels Invitational, and more, and one occasion they were crowned the overall winner.

Johns said his girlfriend was the one to tell him he needed to quit giving away his spices and to try to sell them to the public.

“We found out all the legal parts of selling and found out we can sell our seasoning face to face but can not sell the sauce due to bending to be in a commercial kitchen. As long as we sell face to face we are fine as of now for seasonings. So we started going to some of these farmer’s markets in Marble Hill, Chaffee, and Cape to sell. We now also go to the downtown Cape one as well,” Johns said about his spices.

While they have to sell face to face, Johns said it does get hard at times but they make it work by meeting customers at their house, in their town, or out of town they do it to get their seasoning out into their hands.

Cracked Ribs is not able to sell their barbecue sauce just yet but Johns said they are in the works of talking to a bolting company in St.Louis and he is hoping in a few months they will be able to have Cracked Ribs Seasoning and sauce on the shelves of some stores.

With making all their products in-house a lot of time goes into each bottle. He said they make what they call a triple batch at a time and said from start to finish the batch takes about two hours once it’s all bottled and sealed up. From each batch twenty-four of the smaller six-ounce bottles can be made or a dozen of the bigger bottles. Johns said once they are working with the bottling company they will be able to sell half-gallon and gallon-sized barbecue sauce as well as the smaller sizes.

When Johns is cooking for himself he is still partial to the original for most meats but when he is cooking chicken wings he goes for the spicy sauce. He said he is looking to make new flavors such as a honey barbecue and a jalapeno flavor but nothing is ready just yet.

For those who would like more information about the Cracked Ribs Seasoning and where you can find them selling go to their Facebook page at Cracked Ribs Seasoning or email them at Crseasonings@outlook.com.

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