Meat+Poultry - March 2021 - bacon - 7

going at first, we were 70% to 90% foodservice
depending on the time of the year and 10% to 30%
retail. The pandemic hit and everybody knows
what happened and we went all-in on retail. So,
now we're probably 70/30 retail/foodservice, and
we've got the biggest of the big. We're mostly
on the West Coast, but we just started our East
Coast push this year and things are going well. "
Tender Belly bacon is now available in five
regions of Whole Foods, three regions of Costco,
multiple Safeway divisions, a division of Kroger
and a multitude of mom-and-pop type retailers.
Tender Belly devised a clear and strategic plan
to move into retail before the coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic hit. Duffy uses a famous quote from
Mike Tyson to describe the pandemic hitting.
" 'You know, everybody has a plan until they
get punched in the face,' but
the pandemic and our ability to
shift as a small company moved
the progression a ton quicker, "
Duffy said.

CHANGES AND CHALLENGES
Once Duffy and his executive
team understood how COVID19 would impact the foodservice
business for the remainder of
2020, they made the decision on
Friday, March 13, to budget for
zero foodservice sales until Oct. 1.
The following Monday, the leadership team and board cut the staff by
approximately 35%.
Tender Belly realized around April
1 that retail was set to really take off.
The company went to Costco, went to
Whole Foods and all the other retailers it sold to and told them it had the
raw material necessary and it had
the line capacity necessary to deliver
product. Tender Belly's small SKU
count and nimbleness made it able
to ensure the delivery of product
to its customers.
" Then we locked up our supply and
made commitments to our copackers, "
Duffy said. " And we made some bets with Costco
for what they were going to need, and the bets
paid off. We put more down and started making
more product than we had orders for, based on
what we thought was going to happen at retail. "
Trusted partnerships with raw material suppliers and co-manufacturers gave Tender Belly

Tender Belly prides
itself on the highquality ingredients and
flavor of its bacon.

the credibility needed to complete the significant shift from foodservice to retail production.
Retailers wanted more product from processors
and processors needed more raw material to
produce.
" It was a big web of talking
to everybody and getting on the
same page, " Duffy said.
With retail packaging running
slower than foodservice packaging, the amount of production
and the time necessary to produce changed. With all the players in the same predicament and
co-manufacturers only able to do
so much in a day, " ...there was
the jockeying for position and
planning so we could get the line
time, " Duffy said.
He added, " It's pretty obvious
that we're not the only
one that did well at retail
during this time. It's just
that the size of us, the
scrappiness of us and
how our total business
mix shifted so much. The
big thing is how we did
it, how fast we did it and
how well it worked out for
us and that we got it done. "
There was no real
change in cost to make
bacon once the pandemic
hit. As pork prices went
down, it got harder to process because of plant
shutdowns and dwindling labor. Tender Belly
ended up paying a little extra to get line time,
thus negating the raw material price decrease.
" I would say it was basically steady with normal times, it just took a lot more work to get it
done, " he said.
MEAT+ POULTRY 2021 BACON TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY

Bacon_MP_0321.indb 7

3/2/2021 1:40:55 PM

Meat+Poultry - March 2021

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