Ohio State’s Barbeque Qlub is preparing for a new special sauce. The club’s Grillteam members recently partnered with the Food Industries Center and developed a new sauce that is to be taste-tested by students during the first week of December.

“The OSU Barbeque Qlub is inviting the entire campus out to the sensory panel evaluation,” said Alex Gardner, founder of the club and a senior in finance.

“We want you to give us feedback on our sauce, so that we can develop the Barbeque Qlub’s first official sauce,” he said.

The plans are still being made; however, the Barbeque Qlub is setting up specific times for an evaluation lab.

The club urges students, faculty and staff to give their opinions on the sauce, and help with a taste analysis.

“We have always wanted to have [a sauce] available for commercial sale, as a product of the Barbeque Qlub,” Gardner said. “It has been a club-wide goal.”

Funding for their club goals has not been a problem so far. “The majority of our funding comes from membership fees, events, T-shirts and student programming fees from the Union,” said Faraz Khan, another founder of OSU Barbeque Qlub and a senior in finance and marketing.

“It is mostly Alex’s sauce, and we want to get it on campus dining, and eventually put it in stores,” said Ben Bracy, a junior in marketing and president of the Barbeque Qlub. Bracy said the sauce is a good way to get the club’s name out and work with OSU.

“The people at Food Science and Technology are working with us, hand-in-hand, to design the sauce and get the science aspect of it,” Bracy said.

To fund the club, the members participate in catering services for other clubs and have developed a barbecue apparel line.

“Hosting our own clothing will hopefully generate some revenue from the people that are interested,” Khan said. The T-shirts read “I Heart OSU BBQ.”

The Grillteam includes 25 of the club’s 325 members and is responsible for the actual cooking. They decide what to make for each event and prepare the food. “They have had to pick up 20 bags of charcoal from Lowes,” Bracy said.

The club membership fee is $20 a quarter, and the club is only active fall and spring quarters. For more information, visit www.osubbq.com.

Abby Hooper can be reached at [email protected].