A former Leflore County resident has transitioned his food truck business into a sauce company.
Austin
Timothy Austin, a graduate of Greenwood High School and the University of Mississippi, launched his new business, Sauce Academy, this month.
Austin, 32, had run his food truck business, Wingtopia, which sold wings and fries, off Park Avenue as a side job to his main occupation as a pharmacist at Greenwood Leflore Hospital. His wife, Sharielle, assisted him.
In January of last year, Austin and his family moved from Itta Bena to Madison. Unfortunately, food trucks were not allowed in his neighborhood, meaning he had to put Wingtopia on hold.
Now working as a pharmacist at Baptist Medical Center in Jackson, Austin continues his work in food, this time making sauces for Sauce Academy.
Austin said he started making sauces five years ago. Prior to opening Wingtopia three years ago in Greenwood, Austin, along with his cousin, Mark Williams, and a friend, Samuel Higgins, began concocting sauces for the wings.
Austin even developed a recipe called Devil’s Batch, a red barbecue sauce with jalapenos that pays homage to Mississippi Valley State University.
Sauce Academy, which features a website, sauceacademy.com, and a Facebook page, currently has one sauce flavor, barbecue, available to order.
Other sauces will be added soon, though. These include Spicy Barbecue, Devil’s Batch and Hot Toddy, a sauce based on the alcoholic drink of the same name. The name of the Hot Toddy sauce comes from the “Hotty Toddy” chant at his alma mater, Ole Miss.
In his day job as a pharmacist, Austin is used to compounding different drugs. Now, he said, in his side business, he gets the “pleasure of compounding different sauces.”
Though he now lives outside the Delta, he plans to have his sauces sold at locations throughout the Delta, such as grocery stores, restaurants and specialty shops. He said he’s spoken with several business owners, but nothing is set in stone yet.
Still relatively new to Madison, Austin said he still keeps the Delta close to his heart and visits the area often to see his family.
“I was born and raised in Greenwood so the Delta is pretty much all I know,” he said.
• Contact Gerard Edic at 581-7239 or gedic@gwcommonwealth.com.
