Black-and-white photo of founder Harry Berrier in the basement where Show-Me® Bar-B-Q Sauce began

The Show-Me® Bar-B-Q Sauce Story: From a Missouri Basement to National Exporter of the Year

Show-Me® Bar-B-Q Sauce began the way many good recipes do: someone couldn't find what they wanted at the store, so they made it themselves.

Harry and Lina Berrier

Harry H. Berrier was a veterinarian, a professor of veterinary pathology at the University of Missouri, and a retired colonel. He thought the sauces on the market were "filled with junk", so he started making his own. As Kansas State University's veterinary college later told the story, he brought home a set of pharmacy scales to get the recipe just right. Friends and family kept asking for more.

In March 1975, Harry and his wife, Lina, started Show-Me® Bar-B-Q Sauce in the basement of their home outside Columbia. Harry used his chemistry knowledge to give the sauce a pH below 4, so it could be kept at room temperature. The Berriers made it in small batches, poured it into bottles by hand, and shipped it to anyone who called or wrote. Longtime customers still tell the story of sauce arriving with the bill tucked in the box, trusting them to pay later. Local grocery stores began stocking it as word spread.

The neighbors next door

The Berriers ran the business from their basement for four decades, with help from family friends and neighborhood kids. One of those kids was Enrique Fuhlage, whose family lived next door. He started out helping deliver and bottle sauce as a teenager, and kept coming back to help even while he was away at college.

Harry passed away in 2013 and Lina in 2016. That year, Enrique and his family took over the company, moved production from the Berriers' basement to a small facility in Rocheport, and made their first bottle there on March 24, 2016. They kept Harry's recipe. As the team told the Columbia Missourian in 2018, big decisions still come down to a simple question: "What would Harry do?"

Same sauce, a few new flavors

Show-Me® Classic is still built on Harry's original recipe, and today our sauces are made with no high fructose corn syrup and no preservatives. The family has since added 'Some Heat', made with capsicum frutescens (a hot chile pepper), and Habanero, made with dehydrated habaneros, along with five seasonings: Bar-B-Q Rub, All Purpose, Heat Rub, Cajun and Caribbean. The bottle and label have changed a little over the years, but the recipe at the heart of every bottle is still Harry's.

From Rocheport to the world

Show-Me® has grown mostly by word of mouth. It now reaches customers in all 50 states, many countries and several military bases around the world. Sometimes it turns up in unexpected places. In season 1, episode 2 of HBO's Tokyo Vice, the character based on Columbia native Jake Adelstein opens a care package from home that includes a bottle of Show-Me® (KOMU 8, 2024).

In 2024 the company worked with the University of Missouri's International Trade Center on global market research. By 2026, exports had grown from 7% to more than 30% of sales, including the largest single order in company history. In 2026 the U.S. Small Business Administration named Show-Me BBQ Sauce LLC its National Exporter of the Year, and SBA leaders presented the award in Rocheport on July 14, 2026. A year earlier, the company was a finalist for the Columbia Chamber of Commerce's 2025 Small Business of the Year.

Have a bite n' see

Fifty years on, Show-Me® is still a family business that makes sauce in small batches in mid-Missouri. Thank you for being part of it. If you haven't tried it yet, start with Show-Me® Classic, or send the Bar-B-Q Gift Set to someone who loves to grill. Read more on our Press & Awards page.

Shop the Show-Me® products in this article:

Sources

Posted on October 01, 2026

Show-Me® Bar-B-Q Sauce

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