Brim’s Snack Foods is brimming with ideas for new products.
The company, known to many for its pork rinds, recently introduced four new potato chip products: Memphis Style BBQ Rib Chips, Formula 901 Memphis Mojo, Cheddar Sour Cream, and Buffalo Ranch.
Potato chips will always be a staple item in stores, says Luke Brimhall, 31. But, he says, “People are tired of their grandma and grandpa’s flavors. They want to try new things.”
Brimhall, Brim’s brand development manager, and his brother Nick, who is plant manager, are part of the second generation of the Brim’s family business.
It began with their parents, Terry and Becki Brimhall. “My dad was a student at Memphis State. And to pay for his tuition there, he would sell MoonPies and those little miniature pecan pies. He used to sell those to grocery stores.”
Like Luke’s grandparents, Paul and Joyce Brimhall, the couple began by selling other people’s products — “from bread to cookies and chips” — to grocery stores.
Luke’s grandmother was quite an entrepreneur in her own right, he says. “Even though she was a homemaker, she always had something she was selling on the side. My favorite one was custom-fitted brassieres.”
After a man in Arkansas told him in the late ’70s how much he made selling pork rinds, Luke’s dad realized that was three times what he made selling MoonPies and pecan pies. “So, he looked around and found somebody’s pork rinds to start selling.”
In 1979, the Brimhalls began making and selling their own pork rinds. The people who supplied them with pork skins helped them get their fryer and taught them how to use it. The Brimhalls “rented space in an old smokehouse off Highway 70 and started making it themselves.”
Pork rinds begin with “pig pellets,” Luke says. The raw pig skin arrives frozen. “They cut it into pieces and render it down slowly in an oven until it becomes a pellet. Super hard. Shelf-stable. You can’t eat it. It’s hard. You fry it until the moisture evaporates and causes the pork pellet to expand into that puffy thing that we call ‘pork rinds.’”
The business began as “Brim’s.” When they were growing up, “Brim” was the nickname for Terry and his brothers.
His dad had “a sales network in place” from selling other people’s pork rinds to stores, Luke says.
Several years later, they added popcorn to their line. This was followed by cheese puffs, onion rings, and cheese curls. “Over the years, we added on other items we have partners make for us.”
In 1987, they moved to Bartlett Corporate Park, where they now have about 200,000 square feet. They have another factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Brim’s, which now sells more than 50 snack items, began making its new line of chips in June. “We have had some potato chips over the years, but never really pushed it very hard.”
Seven years ago they came out with the Memphis Rib chip. “We sold a ton of it.”
But sales fell off when they introduced a Memphis Heat chip, so they discontinued Memphis Rib.
“I think we made the bags too similar and people couldn’t distinguish them in the stores.”
But now Memphis Style BBQ Rib Chip is back.“Most of your barbecue chips are based on what barbecue sauce would taste like. Really sweet. Candy-like. This is more of a dry rub.”
It has “a meaty taste to it. It tastes like you’re biting into a pork rib. It’s not just a barbecue chip. It’s its own animal.”
The Formula 901 Memphis Mojo is a combination of chip flavors. “The idea is to take your different chip flavors — sour cream and onion, dill pickle, salt and vinegar, barbecue, all traditional flavors — and blend them together. Then add in some more barbecue because we live in Memphis.”
The result is a “fine, tangy barbecue and something else I can’t describe. Just the blend from everything in there.”
They added Cheddar Sour Cream and Buffalo Ranch because they’ve never offered those potato chip flavors.
Brim’s, which doesn’t add new items very often, introduced a kettle corn a few years ago.
The company introduced a churro item called Cinnamon Twists at the end of 2023. Twist-shaped corn pellets are fried until they puff up; then the pellets are drenched in cinnamon sugar.
Luke’s parents are “pretty much retired. Dad still comes in to sign checks. I say he comes in to shake hands and kiss babies.”
As for upcoming products, Luke says, “We’re working on revamping our hot fries line.”
They try to keep all their product lines “fresh and up to date with new packaging and new flavors.”
Brim’s sells other flavors of pork rinds, including plain, hot, and sweet barbecue. They also sell salt-and-vinegar-flavored pork rinds, which aren’t popular in the South, but are on the East Coast.
Brim’s also features “a lot of crackling flavors. Essentially pork rinds, but they have a layer of fat attached to the skin. They tend to not pop out as much. They can be a little bit harder than pork rinds.”
Diversity among Brim’s items is literally the spice of life. “People don’t want to eat chicken fingers and hamburgers at every meal of their life. And they don’t want to do the same thing in the snack world.”