A Truly Awesome Experience
Over 35 teams from all over the country participated in the Annual BBQ Competition hosted by Vulcan Materials Company on May 10, 2024. The event was hosted at Calera Quarry in Calera, Alabama and locals were invited to take part in the delicious food and fun! Over 1200 visitors from the community stopped by to enjoy this free event!
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work
Each team’s BBQ was judged on certain categories including best chicken and best ribs. 2024 was Mellott’s first time attending the event. The competition was fierce, but we certainly had our game faces on! After setting up at Calera Quarry on Thursday afternoon, Jim Levy got to work chopping the wood that would fuel the fires for our oven during Friday’s competition. Friday morning, our team arrived at 3:30 am to start cooking. Mike Stavola, who led our cooking team, worked tirelessly to produce BBQ chicken and ribs that we were truly proud of! To throw a fun twist into the competition, teams were encouraged to get creative and come up with a “lunch special”. Our team, the “Mellott Mountain Killers”, decided to call our lunch special “The Pitmaster”. It consisted of semolina sourdough bread, brisket, gruyere cheese, and pickled onions.
Connections and Comradery
We made amazing connections and enjoyed conversations with hundreds of Vulcan employees throughout the event! Going into the awards ceremony, this was already enough to make us feel like winners! However, we came to win, and we did not want to leave empty handed. Our BBQ chicken came in 6th place with a composite score of 41.40. We were able to secure a 2nd place win and a trophy for our ribs with a composite score of 43.60. We were also awarded a bonus trophy for “Ugliest Smoker”! This was quite a surprise as we think our smoker is actually rather nice looking!
Grand Champion Winners!
At last, it was time for the crowning of the Grand Champion of the competition! Our team could not have been more excited to hear “Mellott Mountain Killers BBQ” announced with a composite score of 85! We were the first non-Vulcan team ever to take home the title of Grand Champion and the coveted “Steel Chicken”. We were told that we absolutely must return the trophy when we participate in next year’s competition, which we are already looking forward to!
Thank you, Vulcan Materials and Calera Quarry
We received an incredibly warm welcome at this competition. We’d like to sincerely thank Vulcan Materials and the Calera Quarry team for the invitation to attend. We are so grateful for the opportunity to share this day of fun with you all! We greatly enjoyed the comradery and conversation!