Where There’s Smoke, There’s a Licensed Product

Barbecue restaurants, celebrity barbecue experts, and barbecue lifestyle brands have been particularly active in collaborations and brand extensions over the past couple of years, jointly creating new menu items, retail sauces and seasonings, and related products:

• This past August, Memphis barbeque restaurant Rendezvous, a favorite of Elvis Presley, paired with the singer’s estate for an Elvis Week-timed range of limited-edition Elvis-branded sauces, seasonings, and ribs. They were available at select locations, including the restaurant itself and through its delivery partner Goldbelly. Three sets of products encompassed seasonings (Nick’s Salt & Pepper Blend and Rendezvous Greek Seasoning); Charlie Vergos’ Rendezvous Original Barbecue Sauce and Dry Rub; and a Rendezvous Two-slab Rib Box, consisting of cooked dry-rub ribs, bottles of sauce and seasoning, and a bag of Rendezvous popcorn. All featured Elvis-branded packaging. 
• Maryland-headquartered restaurant chain Mission BBQ partnered with McCormick in March of this year to launch a line of barbecue sauces. The four regional recipes, including Blue Ridge Smoky Mountain, Memphis Belle, Texas Twang, and KC Classic, are available in grocery stores across the U.S. and represent a selection of the most popular sauces in the restaurants. Mission BBQ has more than 150 locations nationwide and is known for its 16-hour oak-smoked barbecue, its support of the military, and for playing the National Anthem at noon every day. 
• Meat Church, a global barbecue lifestyle brand and seasoning company founded by Texas-based pitmaster Matt Pittman, paired with the grill company Traeger in August 2025 to release Holy Cola BBQ Sauce, available in Traeger Grills stores and retail chains such as Scheels. The line has since expanded to include a second sauce, Sizzlin’ Salvation BBQ Sauce. In 2021, Traeger and Meat Church had released a limited-edition hickory and oak pellet blend to fuel a barbecue grill, which it brought back in 2024 and 2026, as well as a pecan and cherry version released alongside the most recent sauce. Pittman first paired with Traeger in 2018 to serve as a brand ambassador and help develop new products. Separately, in February 2026, Meat Church launched a line of lump charcoal, charcoal briquets, and three varieties of Chips & Chunks (Post Oak and Pecan, Hickory and Cherry, and Bourbon Barrel Blend, the last made from Buffalo Trace bourbon barrel staves) exclusively at Ace Hardware stores.  
• In May 2025, Terry Black’s BBQ, a restaurant with five locations across Texas, collaborated with Komodo, a high-end pan-Asian restaurant with locations in Dallas, Miami, and Las Vegas, for a limited-edition menu item consisting of Terry Black’s signature beef rib, served with Terry Black’s signature sauce, a custom Miami Gold barbecue sauce, spicy pickles, and mala salt, served in a bento box-style configuration.
• Rodney Scott, a James Beard Award-winning barbecue pitmaster, worked with Target’s Good & Gather private label in May 2025 for a collection of Carolina-style barbecue sauces, seasonings, cornbread mix, snacks such as fried pork rinds and trail mix, sides including mac and cheese and baked beans), and lemonade. The limited-time Good & Gather Collabs + Rodney Scott range included a total of 12 items inspired by the flavors of Rodney Scott’s Whole Hog BBQ restaurant in Charleston. 
• AC Barbeque, the barbecue-centric lifestyle brand founded by actor/comedians Anthony Anderson and Cedric the Entertainer, paired in April 2025 with quick-service roast beef sandwich chain Arby’s. Select locations of the restaurant introduced menu items including 13-hour hickory-smoked brisket and six-hour hickory-smoked pulled pork sandwiches paired with AC Barbeque’s Cedric’s Sweet Bussin Brown Sugar Sauce and Anthony’s Spicy Chipotle Smoke Sauce. 

The world of barbecue has long had a presence in the licensing landscape, of course, with collaborative items from barbecue sauces to tailgating supplies popping up regularly, especially in the U.S. market. It should be noted that barbecue is not just a distinctive cooking technique and flavor profile, but also an event that creates community among family and friends — something that has been particularly resonant post-Covid. 

A reminder that Raugust Communications’ monthly e-newsletter comes out tomorrow, Tuesday, October 20, 2026. The Licensing Topic of the Month examines the diversification of experiential initiatives tied to licensed properties, while the Datapoint research spotlight considers the outbound licensing and collaboration activity of food and beverage brands. If you do not yet receive this free publication in your inbox, you can subscribe here.