Meat+Poultry - October 2022 - 65

Tommy G's Meat & Sausage
embraces quality and community
BY STEVE KRUT | meatpoult r y@sosland.com
F
or three decades Tom Gross operated TJ's
Land Clearing, a company that opened
ground for power lines and subdivisions
throughout the state of Alaska, but in his heart,
he always wanted to be a butcher and run his
own shop.
Then at the age of 58, his dream came
true, and the owner of Tommy G's Meat &
Sausage opened its doors as a world-class
" neighborhood " meat shop and Italian Grocery
store in Fairbanks on July 4, 2021.
His story is almost like the fable of the
amateur golfer who entered the U.S. Open
and hit a hole-in-one on his first shot off the
tee. More to the point, Tommy, as he likes to
be called, went to the national convention of
the American Association of Meat Processors
(AAMP) in Des Moines, Iowa, in July, and
entered a ham in the commercial class and
earned a Grand Champion award in the
American Cured Meat Championship held in
conjunction with that event. Not a bad start,
but was it luck or something else?
STUDENT OF 'GAME'
His story starts when the former North Dakota
native became interested in meat. His father
was serving in the U.S. Air Force and stationed
at Minot, ND. He was an avid hunter who knew
how to process game animals to help feed his
family of seven children.
" Dad did that kind of work and I helped
eat the meat, " Tommy reminisced. " When I
went hunting in Alaska while stationed in the
U.S. Army, I shot my first caribou with a bow.
I didn't have a place to process it but found a
young man with a mobile processing unit who
agreed to take care of my kill. Then he got an
emergency call from someone over 100 miles
away who had taken a bison and needed help
quickly since it wasn't field dressed and when
checked out, had souring down to the bone. It
was loaded onto the same mobile processing
unit as my caribou and ruined my meat.
" The operator said he would make it up by
giving me a half beef to cover my loss. I told
him that I did not need half a beef as I lived
in the barracks but would take payment in
education in meat cutting. He told me I had
to learn to wrap meat properly and learn cuts
before I could touch a knife. "
Fast-forward to March of 2021 when Gross
undertook renovating a 4,500-square-foot area
of a building he owned in Fairbanks. He had to
redo the water and sewer lines and deal with
other sanitation issues first. Then he called
Jon Frohling, operator of Scott Pec Industries,
who he purchased equipment from and gleaned
knowledge in all things sausage. Frohling and
Gross worked together to build a plant and
shop layout designed for product flow.
Two weeks before opening, Frohling and
Handtmann's Jay Wenther, PhD, made the
trip to Fairbanks to fabricate products and
fill the cases for the grand opening. Together
they trained Gross and his " right-hand man, "
Benjamin Jamie Stewart.
" Jon gave us our recipes and formulations
for most of our products, " he said. " I was
lucky enough to find Jamie, a pipefitter who
had a lot of on-call time available when he
was not repairing or replacing heating systems
in the sometimes minus 40-degree weather
we experience here. Jamie was a stickler for
details and took on the curing and smoking end
of the business. I was content to cut meats. His
title is right-hand man. "
GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS
When the shop opened in July, it was a
showpiece - 16-foot-high ceilings, special
design and painting, open spaces, a window
behind the 1,500-square-foot retail area where
customers could see the meat cutters and
processors at work, a full-service counter and
merchandiser bins that displayed some of
the most remarkable products. Above all, the
cleanliness and transparency of the shop were
unrivaled, said Mackenzie Smith of Mountain
River Marketing, who runs all of Tommy G's
social media advertising and overall online
presence. Smith also developed the new
www.meatpoultry.com | 10.22 | MEAT+POULTRY
65
" There is
something
special about
food. When it
is consumed
at the dinner
table with
family, or even
in the form
of a snack
stick, there
is something
about it
that brings
everyone closer
together. "
- TOM GROSS
Photos courtesy of Tommy G's Meat & Sausage
http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - October 2022

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