Meat+Poultry - November 2018 - Bacon - 16

BA C ON OPE RATIONS

BACON MANIA:
A PROCESSOR'S PERSPECTIVE
Steven Burger,
president of Burgers'
Smokehouse in
California, Missouri,
knows his bacon.
He recently discussed
his perspective on
why bacon continues
to be in such high
demand among
today's consumers.

"It's kind of an
enigma when you
think about the way
bacon exploded at a
time when, in general,
there was more
concern over health
and healthy eating,"
Burger says. "So,
bacon was kind of a
sub-trend. I think as

more efficiently and more safely.
"It's sobering to see our friends and competitors in the industry have their plants totally
destroyed by fire," Burger says. "Next year we
will seriously consider a new bacon press."
While Burgers' continues to grow both in
sales and physically, "Dry-cured bacon requires
more space than pumped bacon because of the
additional time it takes for the cure to naturally absorb in to the belly. If you grow bacon
sales you have to grow the plant," Burger says.
It remains true to its niche in retail, foodservice and co-packing. Despite the new equipment,
Burgers' understands what makes it special
in the marketplace and works to maintain the
balance between the modernity it needs and
sticking to what it takes to make great bacon.

people gave up some
things to get healthy,
bacon became an
indulgence.
"If you go back to
the beginning it was
driven by foodservice. At the time, foodservice almost turned
bacon into a condiment and put bacon

Bacon is one
of the most
popular items
offered in
our catalog
and on our
website
with sales
growing over

14%
in the
business to
consumer
space last
year."
Steven Burger

"It costs more to dry cure bacon, we can't
automate ourselves out of that," Burger says.
"Only time will create the flavor development we
are looking for; however top-notch bacon slicing
systems are a must in order to slice efficiently

2018 BACON PROCESSING TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY MEAT+ POULTRY

on sandwiches, particularly," He says.
"That feeds back to
the indulgence thing.
As people had this
desire to eat healthier, in order to get the
flavor into the product, you put bacon
on the chicken sandwich or the turkey

sandwich as a way
to deliver more flavor.
That really became,
I think, the genesis of
the bacon boom. And
at the time, bacon
was cheap. They were
looking for ways to
sell more bacon and
it found a home in
foodservice."

and control yield regardless of how the bacon
was processed."
As of late, Burger doesn't see the popularity in
bacon waning anytime soon, especially premium
dry-cured in the restaurant channel.
"We are seeing growth in higher-end foodservice as operators are looking for better quality
alternatives to commercially pumped bacon and
retailers are looking for a more distinct differentiation in the meat case," Burger says. "Bacon
is one of the most popular items offered in our
catalog and on our website with sales growing over 14 percent in the business-to-consumer
space last year."

MAKING IT HAPPEN
Burgers' specializes in dry-cured craft bacon.
While considered a medium-sized company, its
success in the bacon market has been to take its
craft bacon to the mainstream. The key to Burgers'
success lies in its size. There are many craft bacon
producers, but none have achieved the scale that
Burgers' has. The company's middle market position allows it to get into the mainstream with craft,
dry-cured bacon. With success and growth though,
comes the need for flexibility.
Burgers' growth in bacon means scheduling
production runs of different flavors for different segments and different customers, which can
become logistically complex.
"The operation has certainly become more
complex with the expansion of SKUs in recent
years," Burger says. "It's forced us to rethink our
minimum runs in order to operate efficiently and
effectively. We try hard to work with customers
up front to create win-win situations that allow
us to serve the customer yet stay within our new
'rules of the road.'"

Meat+Poultry - November 2018

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