Ed Mitchell & Sons

Growing up in small-town Wilson, North Carolina, Ed Mitchell learned how to smoke whole hog barbecue while helping his parents, Willie and Doretha, run their grocery. School, the military, and a career with the Ford Motor Company took him away from Wilson for years, but after his father became ill in 1990 he returned back home to help his mother run the store. This homecoming rekindled his passion for smoking pork, and the grocery soon morphed into a full-fledged BBQ stand.

Recognition from influential food authorities including Calvin Trillin, Peter Kaminsky, and John T. Edge brought Ed’s cooking to a wider audience, as did appearances at New York’s renowned Big Apple Block Party (for which he served as a founding pitmaster) and the opportunity to cook at the city’s James Beard House. Ed was featured in Michael Pollan’s best-selling “Cooked” and its accompanying Netflix documentary, and today Ed is one of the country’s most beloved and influential pitmasters and a BBQ Hall of Fame inductee. Along with his son and business partner Ryan, Ed sources all of his meat from some of the best farmers across North Carolina, and carries on the tradition of slow-smoking free-range pigs raised using traditional farming practices, just like the family matriarch Doretha used to.