Meat+Poultry - March 2021 - bacon - 14

COMPANY PR OF ILE

Getting
creative
Walke Meat Co. broadened
its appeal by adding a
full line of bacon
By Steve Krut
m e a t po u l t r y@ sosland.com

Walke Meat Co.
produces nine different
types of bacon on
a regular basis.

Walke Meat Co.

acon creativity can come from many
sources, but the venue for bacon
dreaming that stands out at Claremore,
Okla.-based Walke Meat Co., is the
break-room table.
" We've come up with some of our
best ideas at that table, " said Lyndon
Walke, son of owner John Walke, and the driving
force behind this meat company's push into new
frontiers with its bacon producing prowess.
The bacon master at Walke's came on board
after a stint in the Air Force. It was 2008, and
Lyndon noticed that the family-owned and operated former locker plant was doing a booming
business in custom processing for livestock owners and was turning out a mighty tasty bacon for
those customers.
" But we weren't making any for the customers
in our small retail sales area, " Walke said. " After
Dad agreed that we should pursue bacon for our
own retail shop, we went into it full tilt. There
were times when we came up with as many as
16 different styles of bacon but didn't offer all of
them at once. Now we produce nine flavors of
bacon regularly. Bacon is king around here. "
Among the bacon tastes offered: regular, jalapeño, coffee, beef, apple cinnamon, honey bourbon and raspberry chipotle.
" There are some items that we make like beef
bacon and cottage bacon, " Walke explained, but
the thrust is on hickory-wood smoked, thicksliced bacon. " We went from about 50 lbs of that
a week for retail to over 700 lbs. "
Walke said the company buys large pork bellies on the commodity market. That way they can
square them to their standards and use the fat
trim for summer sausage, smoked sausage and
ground meat patties and still have a ready market for bacon ends and pieces for use in baked
beans and other side items. Walke Meats, which
operates under federal inspection, also produces,

smokes and slices bacon for two custom plants
in the area.
A testimony to the flavor of the company's bacon is the stack of 15 plaques that the
firm has won in cured meats competition at the
Oklahoma-Texas Meat Processors Association
events, and that's just for their bacon.
Walke said he learned from his dad that you
have to keep experimenting and dabbling with
something until you get it as perfect as it can be...
meaning it meets Walke family standards.
The company, which expects to complete its
plant expansion to 12,000 square feet this March,
has grown to 22 employees, with four of them,
including Walke, assigned to bacon production.
That close-knit bacon crew is the group who conjured up their popular coffee bacon, a tasty treat
that combines coffee grounds, brown sugar and
paprika into a pork belly rub that you won't find
in most specialty meat shops. Still, everything
must be right before bacon hits the sales counter
at Walke Meat Company.
" We tried a honey bourbon bacon flavor that
tasted great, " he said. " It looked great sliced
and on the tray in the counter. However, when
it was packaged it just didn't pop in appearance.
We've got a new Rollstock machine that gives us
extremely faster and more durable packaging.
It's a new tool to make sure our bacons have the
presentation to match their quality and taste. "

Bacon is king
around here. "
Lyndon Walke

2021 BACON TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY MEAT+ POULTRY

Bacon_MP_0321.indb 14

3/2/2021 1:41:06 PM

Meat+Poultry - March 2021

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