The owners behind Sherwood Park business You Need a BBQ turned up the heat and flavour at the American Royal World Series of BBQ in Kansas earlier this month. They competed against more than 400 teams from around the world and took home first place in the potato category with a perfect score. The team was also named International Reserve Grand Champion for securing the highest overall finish ever. “To hear our name get called out from the stage brought tears to my eyes,” said Russell Bird, CEO of You Need a BBQ. “It was pretty exciting.” The award-winning dish is a fondant-style warm potato salad that has fire roasted corn and candied bacon. “It’s just a huge, big rush, and then you can’t believe it. There was a lot of yelling and screaming and crying, and then we were on the big stage,” said Brian Jerebic, store manager of You Need a BBQ. Bird has his own line of seasonings and used his Yoneda signature seasoning to help the dish stand out. They won a blue ribbon to display in their store and $500. “It’s an honour to represent Canada at every competition that we go to, but to bring home the victory for Canada, for Edmonton, was pretty cool,” Bird told CTV News Edmonton. The dish also uses Little Potato Co. creamer potatoes, a business based in Nisku. Bird says the goal with You Need a BBQ is to help everyday people make “world class” BBQ at home. It’s another reason why they’ve posted the recipe online for their potato salad. “We sell seasonings, sauces, accessories and barbeques; everything someone needs to do to recreate the recipes that we’ve invented,” Bird said. The team drove 30 hours each way to get to the competition and say it was all worth it in the end. “Going down there was sort of one of those bucket list items, getting a chance to compete against the best teams in the world,” Bird said. The team says they’ve already started talking about doing the competition again next year.
