Meat+Poultry - January 2018 - 93

Ted Wampler Jr. is moving his family
owned sausage company off the grid
BY B E R N A R D S H I R E | m e a t p o u l t r y @ s o s l a n d.c o m

"

Environmental responsibility" and
"sustainability" are trendy catch
phrases that tend to get thrown
around a lot by food companies these
days. Wampler's Farm Sausage Co. is
not just talking the talk when it comes
to energy generation. It has committed
the resources and implemented the
level of sophisticated technology that
is rare among most family-owned, midsize sausage producers.
Wampler's, based in Lenoir City,
Tennessee, is using advanced science
and technology to not only take giant
steps toward removing itself from the
energy grid, but also operating in a way
that allows it to put even more energy
back onto the grid than it takes off to
run its operations.
And while innovative technology
today has a lot to do with how
Wampler's is running its business in
an environmentally responsible and
sustainable way, a lot of this has to
do with the Wampler family itself
-- the people who run the company,
including third-generation president
and CEO Ted Wampler Jr. In fact, it's
not surprising at all that Ted Wampler
Jr. would get involved in taking steps
to moving his company off the energy
grid. It's also not a surprise that he
would put energy-saving technology to
work, technology that he believes can
"change the world."
There's no doubt that Wampler's
Farm Sausage has come a long way
since 1937 when it got started in a small
tin building by the creek in rural east
Tennessee. Riley Wampler, Wampler's
grandfather, was a farmer who started
slaughtering hogs and then selling
his pork products door-to-door. After
World War II, he suggested to his son
Ted (Sr.), joined by family member
Harry, that they re-open the slaughter

house, with money raised by picking
blackberries and selling fish bait. They
began selling their pork to mom and
pop stores.
Today, the privately held company
has annual sales of $50 million and
about 180 employees. President and
CEO Ted Wampler Jr. expects the
company will quadruple the current
numbers. Wampler's makes awardwinning, whole-hog sausage products,
including sausage rolls, patties and links,
and grillers.
Wampler had earned a degree in
business management from Tennessee
Tech Univ., a logical educational step
to prepare to take over his family's
meat processing business. But as
he says, when he finished school he
was not at all sure he was going to
follow in his grandfather's and father's
footsteps and run the company - or
even be involved in it.
"It was not a foregone conclusion
for me at all," he says with a laugh.
"Actually, I was going to be a builder - I
worked with my Mom's brother a lot in
construction." His cousin had a fast-food
restaurant and Wampler worked at the
restaurant to help. With the restaurant
business growing 10-fold over the
next four years, suddenly everything
changed. Wampler knew he would be
involved in the family business.

SEEKING OUT SOLAR
But there's a lot more to Wampler than
that. Eight years ago, in 2009, Wampler,
his wife Sherri and their children -
(Sherri and son Trae [Ted III] work
for the company) -- began thinking
about what they could do to make the
business more energy-independent.
At the time, there was a lot of interest
in solar power. "We installed a 30
kilowatt (kW) rooftop solar panel array

as a pilot project, and right away, our
energy costs started dropping," the
elder Wampler says. "It was successful,
so we expanded on that with an on-site
500 kW five-acre site that just dropped
our energy costs tremendously. Today,
that power output (530 kW solar panel
array) feeds clean, renewable energy
back onto the grid, and the company
is being reimbursed by the local utility
board for green power generation. In
this case, the company is producing
energy, not using it.

"We owe it to all our
customers to make
our products in as
sustainable way as we
can. We must do this
for our children, our
grandchildren, and
beyond."
- TED WAMPLER JR.

But that's not the end of the energy
innovations. Today, Wampler's Farm
Sausage is now home to the very first
commercial installation of Proton
Power's revolutionary cellulose-tohydrogen power (CHyP) clean energy
system. How does this work? To
explain it very simply, the system will
power the net zero grid connected
company with hydrogen made from
biomass - natural material like
switchgrass, sawdust, forest waste - all
natural. This new equipment is being
joined by even more solar power with
a new solar installation over the next
three months - a 101-kW operation that
is actually "behind the meter," meaning
every kilowatt hour generated reduces
the amount of electricity Wampler
Sausage pulls through their meter,
and as a result, reduces the company's
electric bill.
The company now has more
than 2,000 solar panels. But the new
cellulose-to-hydrogen technology now
generates most of the energy consumed
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