Meat + Poultry - February 2010 - 38

TRIPP COUNTRY HAMS

Country hams are hand-rubbed (right), cured using Tripp's family recipe (center) and aged for three to four months (bottom).

operation started by his father, a circuit-riding minister
who founded the fi rm in 1962 as a hobby. Charlie and his
two younger brothers worked in the plant after school.
The plant itself was a 1930's meat-locker facility
built by the founders' father and country hams were
hand-rubbed, laid in salt bins and, when ready, sold
as whole hams.
Not much changed until 1982, when Charlie Jr. and
his wife took over. He had an accounting degree from
the Univ. of Tennessee in Knoxville, but saw some opportunities in his father's former hobby shop.
"Probably the first thing we realized was that the family size of our customers had gotten smaller and that,
except during holidays, people didn't want to buy the

"There was a fellow near Memphis
who sold his own country hams at
a roadside stand. When he ran out
of his own country hams, he bought
ours and sold them."
entire ham," he recalls. "We began selling slices for a
meal. Then we moved to sandwich-size slices and later
into biscuit-size slices and things began taking off. These
smaller portions were vacuum-packaged and people liked
the convenience. Nearly every convenience store in the
region began selling country ham biscuits.
"Things took off and we had to expand," he adds. "We
were in one of five old buildings near the railroad depot
that my grandfather had built and we began a process
of redoing one at a time and making our plant larger to
keep up with growing demand and still satisfying USDA
for inspection requirements."
The family curing recipe, consisting of salt, sodium
nitrate and sodium nitrite, along with some brown sugar, produced some of the country's most award-winning
country hams.

Also makin' bacon
At about the same time, Charlie got into the bacon business. Far from the dime-a-dozen varieties, his was bona
fide country bacon, dry rubbed and aged.
"There was a fellow near Memphis who sold his own
country hams at a roadside stand," Tripp says. "When
he ran out of his own country hams, he bought ours and
sold them. Later, when he was closing shop because no
one in his family was available to take it over, he gave
me the bacon recipe, noting it was 'too good to be lost.'
"It was made with sodium nitrite, salt, sugar, red
pepper and cinnamon," he continues. "It was one of the
best bacons I'd ever tasted and it remains a rarity today."
But back to the country-ham story. The conveniently
38 * Meat&Poultry * February 2010 * www.MeatPoultry.com

sliced and packaged country ham he produced took flight
and is today found in Kroger, Publix, Piggly-Wiggly and
SuperValue supermarkets throughout the region, even
into Mississippi. He avoided most wholesalers and distributors (except for Sysco, which brought his product
to restaurants) and used his own trucks and personnel
to take his products to the stores.
"There is a certain amount of care and attention you
need to pay when it's your own product," Charlie says.

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