Meat+Poultry - January 2018 - 68

S M A L L B U S I N E S S M AT T E R S

BY S T E V E K RU T
m e a t p o u l t r y @ s o s l a n d.c o m

Allan Benton remains humble as his
country hams find their way to highend restaurants around the country

I

68

MEAT+ POULTRY | 01.18 | www.meatpoultry.com

guidance counselor earned his master's
degree, he was given a $500 raise, but
almost immediately he resigned from
his position, believing that he could
employ what he learned as a Virginia
farm boy about curing meats to make a
better income.
"Every Thanksgiving was hog
butchering time," he recounts. "We
cured our hams and bacon and made
some sausage for our winter food
supply. When I came to Tennessee
years ago, a dairy farmer named Albert
Hicks cured dry-rubbed and smoked
country hams. Our family even bought
some ham from him. When a visitor
from the Northeast tried one of his
hams, he wanted to buy some more...
like 100 of them. So, Albert went
door-to-door trying to buy fresh hams
to fill the order.
"A week after I resigned the school
position, Albert's business was slated
to close and I asked him about leasing
the facility," Benton notes. "It was
more primitive than anyone could
imagine. It had an outhouse and no
inspection. I wanted to make a go of

START SPREADING THE NEWS
Benton remembers his first piece of
equipment, an old rotary dial phone he
still uses today.
"I wasn't going to sell much being
way out of town and a quarter-mile
off the road," he says. "So, I got on the
phone and started calling high level
chefs in the cities. I talked very slow
with this Southern accent and they
were talking very fast. They lost their
patience with me and most of them
hung up.
"Then I would send them a
handwritten letter with a sample of
my country ham and bacon and asked
them to try it alongside of the meats
they were using in their cooking and
see if they could discern the difference.
I wrote my phone number and told
them how to order more. But I also
advised them that if they didn't think it
was good product, I would not bother
them again. Most called back and
placed orders."
Today Benton's Smoky Mountain
Country Ham is on the table at high-end

stock.adobe.com, Benton's Smoky Mountain Country Hams

n the meat industry there are many
people that are simply legendary.
Some tell the stories about products
and others tell stories about the people
who make those products. At Benton's
Smoky Mountain Country Hams, you
will find both.
Seventy-year-old Allan Benton, who
owns and operates the Madisonville,
Tennessee-based business about 45
minutes southeast of Knoxville, is as
modest and unassuming as the call of
a whip-poor-will. He describes himself
as a hillbilly and his business as a little
bitty hole-in-the-wall.
Others who've met him know better.
He's been described as everything
from the King of Country Ham for his
products, the High Temple of Pork
for his business to the Mother Teresa
of Meats for his unpretentiousness
and sincerity. Indeed, one famed food
writer labeled him "perhaps the nicest
man on Earth."
Accolades like that, and the moniker
"Willy Wonka of meats," don't just drop
by accident. He is the real deal.
After the former high school

it and began by buying 200 fresh hams
from packers to get enough product
to make it a viable business. I cured
my first hams there in the fall of 1972.
Farmers and people stopped by the
shop which was behind the house to
buy real country hams."
http://stock.adobe.com http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - January 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Meat+Poultry - January 2018
