Meat + Poultry - October 2009 - 64

VIENNA BEEF

Whole meat and fresh trimmings
are ground and mixed for sausage and
undergo fat analysis before final processing. This meat is emulsified using
bowl choppers. "We get
a better extraction and
it makes a better product," Bodman says of
the equipment.
Different linkers are
required for natural
and non-natural casing
products. "This process
Eirinberg
still requires a lot of labor, but now they're able to make
a much more consistent product,"
Bodman says.

RTE processing
Eight smokehouses using hickory
hardwood smoke separate the raw
from the RTE side of the plant. The
RTE side handles all sausage that
is peeled and packaged and all deli
meats, which are either trimmed,
sliced or packaged whole. Most foodservice product packaging is gas
flushed, while retail products are
vacuum packaged.
Other than using more premium
raw protein ingredients, deli meat
manufacturing is pretty basic at Vienna, Bodman claims. "We want
quality products made the same way
they've been made traditionally. We
try to avoid adding ingredients that only help
yield."
Bodman pointed out
a roast-beef product that
was injected, tumbled, a
rub placed on it, netted,
hung and cooked in the
smokehouse. "We do
Bodman
quite a bit of vat curing," he adds. "We'll inject the product and then cover it with brine and
let it sit three or four days depending
on what you're trying to do. Vat curing is better for pastrami and products we're going to ship pickled."
Vienna's soup processing room
makes almost 70 different flavors of
soup and chili. "We make foodser-

Vienna's deli-meat operation includes a butcher room where skilled cutters debone
briskets and navels for some of its deli meats.

vice soup almost exclusively, but we're
starting to get into some retail packaging - primarily 16 oz. cups," Bodman
says. "Soup is made fresh and then it
is frozen. The consumer or restaurant
will heat [the full strength] soup and
serve. We offer anything from chicken
noodle to chili to split pea with ham
or sausage. We also make custom flavors for restaurant chains."
By investing in new automated case
printing technology recently, which
streamlines the process, Vienna also
reduced its case sizes - which trimmed
its corrugated use by 15 percent.
Vienna has assembled a wellstaffed quality assurance department and a detailed HACCP plan.
"We have two people on staff who
monitor the performance of sanitation...this is basically where most of
our time is spent from a food-safety
standpoint," Bodman says.
"We have a Listeria program we
follow for sliced products at retail,"
he adds. "We have some products we
test and hold as a requirement of the

64 * Meat&Poultry * October 2009 * www.MeatPoultry.com

vendors - and we're getting more requests like this."
"Food safety is more top-of-mind
in the industry today, and as a result,
it is top of mind in everything we do
here," Eirinberg says. Vienna dedicates considerable time ensuring it
has a clean production facility. "We
break down and clean our RTE area
four times each day," Bodman says.

New products
Introduced in 2008, Vienna Jalapeño
Cheddar Franks are the company's
newest product. It was developed
to address demand discovered from
consumer research investigating what
shoppers would like in a new sausage
item, says Keith Smith, director of
marketing. Smith is also responsible
for promoting Vienna's on-line store,
Web site, sponsorships, the new Hot
Dog University initiative and the promotions for Vienna's national and local sales departments.
Consumers wanted more fl avor
and spice, Smith says. "Our New

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Meat + Poultry - October 2009

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