News Release Distributed 08/13/15

BATON ROUGE, La. – When Alvin Ray started experimenting in his Prairieville kitchen about three years ago, he didn’t expect his creation — sweet, spicy, crispy pickles — to end up on store shelves.

But now, after only about five months of mass production, Alvin Ray’s Bayou Best Pickles are flying off the shelves of about 40 stores around Louisiana.

Apparently, the pickles — available in mild, spicy and hot flavors — are habit-forming. Everyone who tastes them gets hooked, said Ray, a maintenance-man-turned-tenant in the LSU AgCenter Food Incubator.

When Ray first came up with his recipe, he gave the pickles away to friends and coworkers. They loved them, so Ray started selling them at local farmers markets, where he began growing a loyal customer base that frequently buys by the case.

The crunchy Bayou Best pickles are sweet, but not too sweet; flavorful, but not too spicy, Ray said. He calls it a “new pickle in the pickle family.”

“It’s not a dill and it’s not a bread and butter,” Ray said. “It’s totally different.”

So different, in fact, that Ray has heard of folks hiding Bayou Best jars from spouses and drinking the juice after the pickles are gone. One customer even claimed to keep a jar on the bedside table.

What makes these pickles special, Ray said, is versatility. They complement everything from hamburgers to red beans and rice to holiday dinners.

“One of the things I wanted was this product to be at everybody’s table for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said.

Ray was recently accepted into Associated Grocers, which will soon distribute the pickles to its stores. He’s looking for a co-packer, too, to step up production.

But the idea of making and selling pickles for a living still seems a little crazy, Ray said. Not long ago, it was just something he did after coming home from work.

It became difficult to keep up with skyrocketing demand, though. His original recipe, which yielded only a couple of gallons, eventually had to be scaled up to make 40 gallons at a time.

Ray went to a Food Incubator informational session and officially became a tenant about a year ago. Incubator director Gaye Sandoz and food scientist Luis Espinoza “brought it to another level,” Ray said.

Ray makes 5,000 to 6,000 one-pint jars each month at the incubator. He quit his job in May and now runs Bayou Best full time, donating some of the proceeds to the Dreams Come True foundation, which benefits local children with life-threatening illnesses.

Meanwhile, Ray is still trying new things in the kitchen and wants to turn his pickles into a relish. He still goes to farmers markets and distributes samples in stores, where repeat customers recognize him as the “pickle guy.”

The best part of his new job, though, is seeing new customers react when they taste the pickles for the first time, Ray said.

There’s a good chance they’ll be back for more.

“The consumer comes first,” Ray said, “and as long as they want it, I’m going to make it for them.”

Olivia McClure