Abrian Clay, founder of Clay’s Smoked Tuna, now has one of his other creations — smoked chicken salad — in Kroger stores.
“We’re working to get the smoked buffalo chicken dip and smoked tuna salad in Kroger, too,” Clay says.
The smoked chicken salad is in 87 stores. “What they call the Mississippi Delta region, which includes Missouri, Arkansas, and Mississippi,” he says.
And yes, this is the same guy you used to see manning the Clay’s Smoked Tuna food truck on the corner of East Parkway and Summer Avenue.
A lot of his success has to do with prayer, he says. “A prayer I prayed since I was an adolescent. The same prayer. ‘God, increase my territory.’” And, “Assist me in operating in the Holy Spirit.”
By “territory,” Clay means the span of what he could achieve in life. “I prayed that for so long,” he says. “I’m not shocked that it’s manifested.”
Clay wasn’t thinking about tuna when he prayed. “I didn’t know what it was going to be. I just knew once I found it, I wanted to reach masses of people. I consider myself more of a businessman than a chef. This could have been anything.”
Clay, 41, who is from Memphis, went to work when he was nine years old. “I think they call this the ‘hustle city.’ Everybody has a business. They’re trying to make things happen.”
He raked leaves, sold candy, and helped his dad. “I remember he’d get me on the weekend and we’d go to people’s houses and cut branches off the tree that was hanging on their roof. He would cut it down and have me drag it to the street. He would pay me $5 a house.”
“I’ve always been ambitious. I remember one time my dad asked if I prayed for a lot of money and did I believe I’d get it. I said, ‘Yes.’ And he said, ‘Well, go and pray.’ I got on my knees and asked God for a ‘billion billion guadrillions’ dollars.”
Clay didn’t think he was going to get all that money right away. “I knew it wasn’t going to come out of the sky for me.”
But he believed, and he worked.
Clay got the idea to make his own smoked tuna salad after he tried some at a restaurant in Orange Beach, Alabama. Nobody, to his knowledge, was making it in Memphis, so he went home and made his first batch. He marinated yellow fin, aka ahi tuna, in white wine and smoked it. He chopped up the ingredients for the salad and added mayonnaise. He gave out free samples. And it was an instant hit.
Like he still does, Clay used his Facebook page to get the word out. He also began selling the tuna as well as his smoked chicken and hot food plates at a commercial kitchen, which has a drive-through pick-up window.
In 2021, Clay opened his food truck.Three years later, he decided to have his products USDA-certified so he could sell them “anywhere in the United States.”
“The commercial kitchen can serve food trucks and retail to the public, but you can’t wholesale to other places,” he says. Clay found a USDA-certified co-packer in Tupelo, Mississippi. “You give them your recipe and they mass produce your product.” He also found a certified company to mass produce his containers.
About three years later, Clay got his smoked chicken salad in Kroger stores. “I reached out to the regional director,” he says, adding, “He was familiar with my co-packer and gave me the green light.”
Clay’s smoked chicken salad is a “spin-off” of his smoked tuna. “They taste kind of similar. The only difference is we marinate the yellow fin tuna in white wine, and the chicken, we don’t.”
His chicken salad is more popular, Clay says. “Being down South, chicken is a lot more popular than tuna.”
Clay is thinking about branching out with other products he sold on his food truck. “Like smoked salmon,” he says. “I can see myself going down the line packaging the salmon and selling that as well.”
He still has his food truck. “But it’s kind of rare when I operate it,” he says. “Maybe once or twice a week.”
Clay also thought about maybe one day opening a lounge, where he’d sell his products. But, for now, he’s just “thinking of sticking with the food business. Now that I’m aware of how the USDA works, opportunity is limitless, man.”