Meat&Poultry - February 2011 - 24

PROCESSING I.Q.

made in 2007 to ensure sanitation standards were keeping pace with the growing production. This project included building a wall about halfway down the parallel 120-foot-long production lines to accommodate more thorough cleaning of the processing portion of the plant. “This allowed us to use highsteam, high-pressure sanitation using caustic soaps and rinses on the food side,” which the equipment on the labeling and packaging end of the line couldn’t withstand, Chas says. The more delicate packaging and labeling equipment is now able to operate more effectively and for many more years thanks to its separation from the sanitation rigors on the processing side. The company also had to invest in faster and more sophisticated equipment to keep up with the growing production demand. Dual-head labelers and automated tapers and boxers were among some of the technology Armitage adopted to keep pace. From an operational standpoint, the company is fortunate because its plant is strictly a fresh pork sausage processing facility. “I don’t have different species I have to keep track of;

The company has been able to avoid bidding wars with larger competitors by sourcing pork from smaller, leaner hogs.

Beyond working smarter in the processing plant, Uncle Charley’s has also succeeded by utilizing marketing and merchandising smarts.
I don’t have any smoked or cooked products being made at this plant, so operations here are fairly simple,” he says of the plant’s three processing lines. In the name of keeping it simple, Uncle Charley’s contracts with Leidy’s in Souderton, Pa., to process its smoked products, including boneless ham, cubed ham, kielbasa and sausage. The success of the relationship with Leidy’s is based on the firms’ shared approach to business, which stresses the importance of putting the product and the customer fi rst. Four other meat companies are do-

ing private-label processing for Uncle Charley’s branded products. Pioneer Packing Co. and Calihan Pork Processors supply the Uncle Charley’s plant with daily shipments of pre-rigor pork, where 20,000 lbs. of product are made four days per week by 25 line workers. Beyond working smarter in the processing plant, Uncle Charley’s has also succeeded by utilizing marketing and merchandising smarts. One successful venture has been its participation in what many retailers in the Northeast call the “Pick 5” program, which offers shoppers any five items in a designated meat case for $20. “The stores challenge processors like us to come up with some products that matches that price formula, which means I have to sell it to them for $3 and they sell it for $4,” which allows for about a 30 percent mark-up for the retailer. “And it’s a bargain for the consumer because most items in the meat case are marked up by 35 to 40 percent,” he says. The Pick 5 program, which many of his retail customers now offer, has been the company’s biggest growth area for the past three years. To be able to offer Uncle Charley’s products at that price, Armitage says he went back to the drawing board to develop less expensive packaging for products in that pro-

gram, including the company’s bacon. Sticking to a business model based on a high-end food product has its challenges, especially during an economic recession. In terms of the sausage segment in general, Armitage says growth over the past couple of years has been minimal at best for Uncle Charley’s, while others in the segment have seen sales ebb by 20 percent or more. “For whatever reason, sausage seems to have fallen slightly out of favor,” compared to just three years ago, he says. “It’s nothing we’ve done. It’s just that something has changed out there.” Fortunately, the company’s increasingly diverse products have carried the day. Meanwhile, Uncle Charley’s Sausage products maintain an enviable retail presence with customers ranging in size from small independents to WalMart stores in the Northeast. Since its founding, Uncle Charley’s has sourced its pork from smaller, leaner hogs that the Johnsonvilles and Bob Evans of the world didn’t utilize. By targeting hogs weighing between 425 lbs. and 450 lbs., the company has been able to avoid bidding wars with the juggernauts while accessing much leaner raw material for its sausage. About five years ago, Armitage decided to bring this attribute to the attention of consumers by including a starburst on

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Meat&Poultry - February 2011

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