Meat + Poultry - November 2016 - 35

Nueske's works to grow conservatively
while preserving the dedication to quality
the company was founded on in 1933
BY J O E L C R E WS a n d B O B S I M S | j c r e w s @ s o s l a n d.c o m, b s i m s @ s o s l a n d.c o m

or more than 80 years, Nueske's
Applewood Smoked Meats has produced
high-quality smoked meats. The
company continues to modernize the plant
and make improvements to processes in areas
such as equipment, packaging and custombuilt smokehouses, but the recipes have not
changed. Customers will never find binders,
fillers, extenders or added water in Nueske's
products, a point of pride for the company's
family and leadership.
The dedication to quality doesn't come
exclusively from the original recipes. Nueske's
recipes, leadership team, raw materials, and
especially the employees on the floor from
top to bottom, all contribute as a whole to the
premium-quality the company provides to its
customers and consumers nationwide.
In an interview with MEAT+POULTRY,
Nueske's discusses the ways tradition,
production and its people come together to
provide marketplace premium-quality products
from its current 45,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing
facility with an expansion planned for
completion in mid-2017 and in its retail store.
MEAT+POULTRY: What are the different
categories of SKUs Nueske's offers and what
channels are used for distributing them?
NUESKE'S: Nueske's sells through both
ecommerce, www.nueskes.com, our company
store in Wittenberg, Wisconsin, and through
distributors to foodservice and retail channels,
and each channel has generally the same core
Nueske's products, although often in pack sizes
unique to the channel. Bacon makes up the bulk
of our SKUs, with ham and sausage coming just
behind bacon, as far as product and pack variety.
M+P: What's been the best-selling item
historically and what's the fastest-growing item?
NUESKE'S: We are best-known for our classic
Applewood Smoked Bacon. It's one of our
original products and is truly our signature flavor:

sweet, rich, and robustly smoky. Over the past
decade, bacon sales have steadily increased.
M+P: What was the chronology of the nonbacon product lines and who usually initiates
and develops new products?
NUESKE'S: Products, other than bacon,
that are part of our core offerings are ham,
sausage and poultry. We don't come out with
new products as often as many companies
do, largely because we are so deeply focused
on our current consistency and quality of our
classic products. Roughly every five years we
might have a new product launch, with some
of our most recently added products (added
in the last 10 years) being Wild Cherrywood
Smoked Uncured Bacon and our newest
product, Applewood Smoked Jalapeño Bacon
Cheddar Bratwurst, which was introduced to
foodservice and retail this fall.
We love being able to add new products but
we take time to make sure the products are
right for us, are the best-tasting, most consistent
specialty meats that they can be, all the while
maintaining our focus on our core products.
Much like our stance on being the best rather
than the biggest, we want to produce the best
products, not the widest variety.
M+P: What distinguishes Nueske's bacon from
others in the market?
NUESKE'S: Nueske's uses custom
smokehouses, designed by the family, and that
design is not shared with anyone. Our bacon
is smoked over glowing embers of sweet
applewood logs for a minimum of 24 hours.
Over the years, we've seen bacons labeled as
double-smoked, and sometimes that bacon
might have seen the smokehouse twice for 2
hours at a stretch. Twenty-four hours, minimum,
gives us a nice slow smoke time and the way our
meats are infused with natural smoke during
this process is what gives us the flavor we are
known for; Nueske's signature smoke.

"We don't come
out with new
products as
often as many
companies
do, largely
because we
are so deeply
focused on
our current
consistency
and quality
of our classic
products."

Bacon makes up the
bulk of Nueske's
product mix, followed
by ham and sausage.

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Meat + Poultry - November 2016

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