many great inventions or businesses are
born from necessity that is the case for
Jason and Hillary McDonald the creators
and owners of fresh Jack's
I was in my early 30s and it was way too
early in life to start having health
problems and I was diagnosed with a
stomach ulcer and that's when my doctor
taught me how to clean up my lifestyle
he said look you've got a hole in your
stomach so everything you put into your
mouth goes into your stomach and can
aggravate that hole and so you taught me
all about eating clean and paying
attention to the ingredients in your
food but eating clean doesn't mean
you'll be eating flavor when we started
eating healthier we are eating tons of
fruits and vegetables and really natural
Whole Foods and we found that some of
our recipes were lacking flavor and so
the thing that made our healthy
transition easier was using high quality
spices to make the healthy food taste
great they discovered flavors but they
also discovered something else that was
a little troubling almost all the spices
contained lots of MSG or chemicals or
yeah some really weird things that you
wouldn't ever think was in spices and so
we started crafting our own and before
you know it we said look let's let's add
this to our product mix at the arts
market the farmers market and it took
off they were selling hot sauces along
with their spices and a few other
products but customer demand forced them
to focus on the spices which are quite
unique he really wanted to create these
spice blends you'll notice on our
website that we sell very few spices
that are just
single spice it's mostly blends that are
put together to be really easy to use so
you're not having to combine the spices
in your kitchen and searching for all
these different ingredients it's one
spice you put it in a super simple I'm
all about ease when I'm sweating in the
kitchen while customer demand is
expanded the business the customer
requests have also played a hand with
their Spike's creations ultimately a
customer come up a repeat customer and
be like oh man that smokey Southwest was
awesome have you thought about doing a
taco blend like we are now
yeah and so then we'd go home and do
tons of research and start playing with
ingredients eat a lot of tacos and and
then come back to the farmers market
with taste testers and then let the
people tell us which one was the best
and that would go and mass-produce it
and then go back and start selling it at
the farmers market the combinations are
definitely a labor of love we do
everything in-house yeah you're all done
by hand we don't have any machines that
do this
they McDonald's have their own favorite
spice blends one of my favorites is bold
buy you obviously name because of the
bold city but it's our Cajun a little
bit of heat but goes with everything I
wind up putting it practically on on my
food every night so that's my favorite
it's a great blackening seasoning and
it's really good initially - my favorite
is probably even grill master
we made it to put in two burgers all
kinds of burgers and we end up using
everything T I'll put it on veggies I'll
throw down salad I'll put it in
your favorite was toasted on you betcha
I do but if you're down for some extra
heat because it's so spicy we have to
put on a gas mask it's intense
there's a warning on the bottle for
reason it is very spicy by the first
people who love spicy food it's just
like spice it up I'll take it
I'm Rance Adams for River City live
joining me from Fresh Jack are the jacks
are the co-owners Hilary and Jason and
the legacy owner Ella hey thank you guys
for spending some time with me once
again thank you so we were just talking
since the we shot this you said your new
favorite is no longer go by oh yeah
there's definitely our rosy cheeks BBQ
oh yeah I explained this because I had
the sample dish when you guys first
launched this but then it didn't have a
name now it does so what exactly is it
and how did you guys come up with the
name so rosy cheeks is our maple bourbon
barbecue rub it has savory flavor it has
sweetness everything you'd want in a
great barbecue rub now this code you can
use it for me
chicken anything really we crafted this
because we were focused on the customer
a lot of people like I just don't know
how to grill or you know how do I bring
more flavor and so we focused on the
customer and brought an amazing product
so and then just really quick what is it
like for you guys to be able to create
something with the customer in mind
because a lot of people like I'm just
doing this because whatever but you guys
are actually trying to appease your
clientele it's really fun and that makes
what we do so much more fulfilling
knowing that we're putting a smile on
their face because they feel like
they're part of the process as well well
we're gonna give somebody else to get a
chance to get a big smile so fresh
Jack's has the fresh Jack's
spice it up sweepstakes it's an
opportunity for you to win it backyard
BBQ with 24 of your best friends or even
if they're not your best friends you can
just invite people over to hang out so
it's an awesome opportunity
is just open and you can visit fresh Jax
comm click on the spice it up link to
vote for your favorite fresh Jack spice
it doesn't actually have to be rosy
cheeks but let me tell you that one's a
good one so you make your vote they will
randomly choose a winner and that person
will receive that backyard barbecue I
mentioned with a private chef and 25 of
your friends and you'll get a year
supply of fresh Jack's rosy cheeks
barbecue rub so I sense a lot of
grilling in my future I hope you at home
are up for some grilling opportunities
check out this rosy cheeks good luck
vote off and we're gonna announce the
winner in just a few weeks right here on
River City Live so thank you guys for
joining us thank you guys
alright spicy the more River City live
coming up after this