By Adelia Ladson

adelia.ladson@gaflnews.com

“Down-home cookin’ make’s you doggone good lookin’,” is something Lauri Jo Bennett of Norman Park hopes people can identify with her green tomato pickles, salsa and pepper jelly. This clever saying is part of her Lauri Jo’s Southern Style Canning, LLC. logo, along with her two English bulldogs, Mack and Sarge, and her husband’s grandfather’s restored 65 Chevy truck.

This kind of “down-home” feeling portrayed by the label on her products, she believes, has helped her to have success, so far, with attracting customers to her booth at various food shows; this coupled with the fact that her husband, Mike and two children, Mikelyn and Hal are also on-hand to help out. She said, in the midst of all the larger corporations, her “mom and pop” business seemed more appealing to people. And staying a “mom and pop” business is just how she wants to keep things.

“We’re definitely family owned and operated,” she said.

Bennett was born and raised in Norman Park and is living in the same house she grew-up in and her husband was raised in Omega and attended school in Tifton. She is now, teaching special education at Colquitt County High School, after teaching gifted reading at C.A. Gray Middle School for seven years. The couple own a trucking company, which Mike runs.

“I started going to the canning plant with a friend,” said Bennett.

She said she started going about eight or ten years ago and started with salsa, spaghetti sauce, peas and corn, and jelly. She said she would do about 2,000 jars of salsa or spaghetti sauce, at a time.

“It was just something I lived for every summer,” she said.

“The canning plant was like a drug to her. She lives for the summer to go to the canning plant,” Mike chimed in teasingly.

She said she would just give the jars away to family and friends but then, about a year ago, a few of her friends encouraged her to sell her products. She added that the Ag teachers at the high school were also really encouraged her to give it a try.

“The first place I started with was the Colquitt County Extension Office,” she said.

She said former extension agent, Debbie Purvis, told her everything she needed to know to get her started with the business end of things. She said the extension office was also able to provide her with names of certified kitchens that she could use to make her jellies and pickles. For her salsa, she uses a co-packer, which is a place that takes her recipe and produces and bottles it. She said the co-packer gave her the name of a label company.

“Doors just kept opening for us,” she said.