It started with a promise: Hampton man’s sauce hits 70 Food Lion stores

Six years ago Tahjere Lewis tasted the sauce his aunt made, and he knew:

“We need to turn this into a business.”

This month, Aunt Carol’s Sauce hit 70 Food Lion stores in the Hampton Roads area, including in Carrollton, Poquoson and Williamsburg.

The tomato-based sauce comes in mild and spicy and is used as a marinade and dipping sauce for meats, vegetables, and seafood such as shrimp, oysters and crabs.

In a phone interview, Lewis, of Hampton, described Aunt Carol’s as sitting between a cocktail sauce and a barbecue sauce.

He grew up in Hampton using his aunt’s sauce — never butter — on his blue crabs. In June 2018, he recalled, he asked her where he could buy it. She told him she made it. He reacted in wonderment and promised to turn her sauce into a business after he graduated from college.

That October, his aunt — Carol Ann Morgan Scott — died of breast cancer.

A year later, Lewis, then a sophomore at Virginia Tech, re-created her sauce, or a version very, very close to it. Family, friends and students loved it. Aunt Carol’s Sauce was born and Lewis sold about 4,000 bottles in two years.

The young entrepreneur, with a college degree and some business experience, approached Food Lion about stocking his sauce. The company agreed. Customers can find 12-ounce bottles in the local section, and online .

Lewis kept his promise.

Rekaya Gibson, 757-295-8809, rekaya.gibson@virginiamedia.com ; on X, @gibsonrekaya