Jamie’s Brunswick Stew

Tell everyone about it

The maker of Jamie’s Brunswick Stew, Jamie Griffith lives on Lake Martin and last year put his stew mix on grocery shelves

STORY BY SIRI HEDREEN PHOTOS BY KENNETH BOONE & COURTESY OF JAMIE GRIFFITH

As pleasant as Lake Marrtin’s weather has been in recent weeks, temperatures are likely to dip again before winter makes its exit. When they do, there’s no better time to cook up a simmering pot of stew for supper. The great thing is that doing so also supports a Dadeville business by picking up a pound of meat and a jar of Jamie’s Brunswick Stew at the grocery store.

“It was just a recipe that I came up with, maybe going on 20 years ago,” business owner Jamie Griffith said. “I haven’t had anybody tell me yet they don’t like it.”

Griffith was stationed at the Kings Bay naval base in Georgia 20 years ago and took the stew to a church potluck, where it was an instant hit. The tomatobased, meat and vegetable stew – with possible origins in Brunswick County, Virginia; Brunswick, Georgia or Braunschweig, Germany – has been his specialty ever since.

The product comes in a 32-ounce jar with satisfyingly simple preparation. Traditionally stewed with small game, Griffith suggests adding cooked pulled pork, shredded chicken or ground beef.

“It’s a meal in a jar. Just add a pound of meat and a jar of water to it,” he said. “That’s why it just kind of sells itself.”

Griffith, born in Jasper, has since retired from the military and moved back to his home state in 2016, settling in Auburn. Once his son graduated high school, he and his wife, Michele, moved to the Lake Martin area.

Last year, at the suggestion of a friend – the Auburn man behind salsa brand Uncle Keith’s Red Sauce – Griffith decided to step out on a limb and commercialize his famous stew. Until then, the recipe was only something he had published in a few church cookbooks. Last June, Jamie’s Brunswick Stew became a grocery shelf item.

Now, the stew mix is produced at a food processing facility in Mobile and is stocked by more than 50 vendors in Alabama and Georgia, including 34 Market and Floyd’s Feed and Seed in Dadeville, Cloud Nine and Catherine’s Market in Alexander City and about two dozen Piggly Wiggly locations.

More vendors are catching on. Bama in a Box, a monthly subscription service of Alabama-made products, selected Jamie’s Brunswick Stew to be included in one of their bundles. The stew was also selected by Publix, Griffith recently learned, for its local end cap program, promoting Jamie’s Brunswick Stew alongside other products grown or manufactured in Alabama. If successful, the stew may become a part of Publix’s regular stock rotation.

“I never anticipated it would do that well just to begin with,” Griffith said. “This Publix thing is hopefully going to be the springboard.”