Meat+Poultry - March 2018 - 74

PA C K A G I N G S O L U T I O N S

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MEAT+ POULTRY | 03.18 | www.meatpoultry.com

is fast. The company has created versatility in
its packaging - like 215-, 255-, 280-, 320- and
400-mm. cutoffs - all assorted sizes that can be
put in the machine.

"Americans spend more
money on meat snacks
than they do on cheese
snacks, popcorn or chips."
- EMILIE DORON

But not everything is automated - there is
still some hand labor involved. "We feed the
packaging machines by hand," Western says.
Meat is put in the pockets by hand. While
automation is a desirable choice for large
companies in the meat processing industry,
it creates problems for smaller companies
like Western's. "The big challenge for us with
automation is that we make so many varied
sizes of meat snacks, with assorted sizes of
packaging, so it would be difficult to use,"
Western points out. "For large companies
making one size of a product, automation
works great."
But an advantage to the packaging
Western's uses is shelf life. "We get 13 months
of shelf life, plus our products are processed to
be shelf-stable," he says.

NEW PRODUCT AND PACKAGING
Mitch Berliner, one of the principals of
MeatCrafters in Landover, Maryland, near
Washington, D.C., and a 40-year veteran of the
food business, recently rolled out a new line of
meat snacks he calls "Skinny Salamis" under
his MeatCrafters brand. There are six varieties
of the salamis. And while pork is the normal
ingredient in salamis, Skinny Salamis make use
not only of pork, but beef and lamb as well.
"Salami is made in a two-step process," Berliner
explains. "First, we do a cold fermentation. And
then, the curing and aging. In fact, the culture is
a lot like what's used in beer.
"Three years ago, the meat snack category
exploded," Berliner says. "You had jerky and
cooked products before this, but our product
is different. We decided to make a meat
snack from salami, a great specialty meat that
people really love. And we wanted to make
our product exciting to both retailers and
consumers. So, we thought we should put them

Western's Smokehouse

Western's has both a 4-in.
meat stick and an 11in. product, which can
be challenging when it
comes to packaging.

The opportunity is there because Western's,
which was founded in 1978 by Sam Western as
a butcher shop and local retail store, has now
become a leading processor of meat sticks.
The challenge, according to Kevin Western,
Sam's son who joined the business in 1992
and today runs it with his father, is that the
company makes so many different meat sticks.
Western's retail store is still operating, but
the company gave up its custom and deer
processing, as well as its catering business.
"That's pretty typical for a small meat
processor," he says, "to offer a lot of products,
and there's no exception when it comes to
meat snacks and sticks." And while Western's
has won awards at both the national and state
levels for all its products, including smoked
and fresh meat, over the years the company
began creating their own smokehouse flavors
for jerky, sausage and barbecue sauces.
Sixteen years ago, Western's Smokehouse
began making meat sticks. In 2006, Western's
launched a unique smokehouse meat snack
product that's distributed nationally. Three
years ago, Western's opened and moved
into a new meat snack production facility,
still in Greentop, population 500. "For our
size business, to be successful, you need a
niche, and meat snacks are the niche for us,"
Western says.
Today they have a catalog of meat snack
products. The meat stick lineup - Western's
doesn't make jerky - contains everything
from grass-fed beef, jalapeño, barbecue,
buffalo wing flavor, chicken, sweet and sassy
with turkey, hickory smoked, pineapple
pork, mandarin teriyaki, and bacon varieties
including hickory smoked, sweet maple and
peppered. Western's ties the popularity of
meat snacks to their search for clean, healthy
protein they can eat on the go. Western's is
not a small meat processor anymore - the
company has both small and large customers.
"Packaging challenges include justifying
the cost of new packaging to get it in place,
including changing the size for a rollstock
package," Western says. Other challenges
include changing the cutoffs, when moving
from a 4-in. meat stick to an 11-in. stick. When
the length of the stick is changed, and the
shape of the packaging is altered, the dies
must be changed as well, he says. But those
die changes can be made in 30 minutes, which
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