May is National Barbecue Month – do you need a better excuse to fire up the grill and kick off the summer salad and cook-out season?  May is also a good time to organize your buying club to split cases of the barbeque sauce and condiments you’ll need over the summer.  In the spirit of the season to come we present this profile of Annie’s Naturals.

Yes, there is a real Annie behind Annie’s Naturals -- the average height, blonde, blue-eyed, good humored yet serious, creative and visionary Annie Christopher. Born in Nashville, Tenn., raised in Nyack, NY, and a graduate of Colorado Women’s College in Denver, Annie was once an aspiring New York City artist who discovered her creative passion within the culinary world.

Lured by the food markets in New York’s Little Italy and Chinatown, Annie spent more time cooking and grocery shopping than she did painting.  In pursuit of her newly discovered passion, Annie enrolled in New York City Technical College’s program in Hotel and Restaurant Management.  After obtaining an associate’s degree in hotel restaurant management and culinary arts, Annie left her swanky Soho neighborhood for a more rustic neighborhood in rural Vermont.

The idea for Annie’s business started during her apprenticeship at Curtis’ All-American “Ninth Wonder of the World” barbecue stand in Putney, VT.  Annie soon opened the Central Vermont BBQ stand with her husband, Peter Backman.  Selling chicken and ribs basted in her own original homemade barbecue sauce, the two-person stand was a great attraction along the Barre-Montpelier Road and a favorite of both the locals and legislators of Vermont’s capitol city. Though her lunch stand proved to be a big success, Annie decided to close the stand and focus on her sauce.  In 1984 Annie went into business as Annie’s Naturals, operating out of an 1843 brick and clapboard farmhouse surrounded by a working New England dairy farm in North Calais, VT.

Demand for Annie’s sauce climbed. When Bloomingdale’s department store became her first large retail outlet, Annie rented additional space at a local cooperative cannery to temporarily accommodate her growing business. Since then, Annie has grown the Annie’s Naturals brand to its current line of 37 products, which includes dressings, vinaigrettes, marinades, mustards, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, and the original two barbecue sauces. Although production now takes place in four food processing plants, Annie’s Naturals still operates from its original location, and continues the tradition of all-natural homemade recipes—all selected and tested by Annie herself.

As product developer, Annie works in her test kitchen, housed in a white building adjacent to the farmhouse, and complete with state-of-the-art appliances, shelves packed with ingredients, and her enormous cookbook collection. Annie gains inspiration and ideas from reading, traveling, eating in restaurants, and her hundreds of cookbooks. Having shopped at cooperative food stores for years and years, and with a personal desire to eat healthfully, her creations use high quality, natural and organic ingredients — no preservatives, partially hydrogenated oils, artificial colors, artificial flavorings, or excessive sugar.

Annie has always been sensitive to those with dietary restrictions, and was one of the first companies to develop vinegar-free dressings. Many of her products meet the special needs of those who follow gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan, low sugar, low salt, low fat/no fat, or soy-free diets.

Annie’s Naturals retains its family-owned business values with “a hand-picked, small batches” commitment to high quality, true value and great taste. 

For more info, visit http://www.anniesnaturals.com