Meat+Poultry - September 2022 - SUPP5

time. Working with the right partners and having
a consistent superior product has allowed us a
lot of new opportunities in the last few months. "
GROUND BEEF BUILD
Starting in 2019, Todd Hertzog traveled throughout
the United States visiting new processing
plants and learning about technology and innovation
before building Hertzog Meat Co. on land
connected to his family's cattle farm. The travel
and visits paid off with an award-winning beef processing
plant that opened doing custom processing
in May of 2021 and went to federal inspection in
June 2021.
Todd Hertzog acted as the general contractor
on the build and construction was finished
in seven months. He accounted for every detail
on the build and hand-picked every sub-contractor.
The attention paid off with an award-winning
design and facility.
" The contractors we hired and the way we
wanted it built, we didn't know we were building
a state-of-the-art facility, but we did, " said Jim
Hertzog, owner of Hertzog Farms, the family cattle
company, and Todd's father. " We just did it
the way we wanted to based off what we learned
from the best. That was our plan. "
Through its partnership with US Foods,
Hertzog Meat Co. serves the foodservice segment
almost exclusively for now. When the company
first opened, it custom processed a lot of other
peoples' cattle, but once restaurants started calling,
foodservice became the priority.
" We got busy all at the same time with restaurants,
folks reaching out for custom processing,
and trying to get our online shop built that we
decided to stop doing custom and focus on foodservice
until we could get the online business up
and running, " Quick said. " The fact that we are
an hour south of Kansas City makes it hard for
folks to drive down here during normal business
hours. So, everybody wants us to ship to them,
which we're doing, but it's been mainly handled
over the phone. Now that the website is up and
rolling our customers can get exactly what they
want, when they want it. "
GROUND BEEF BUSINESS
Hertzog went the traditional retail route in a few
stores early, but the partnership with US Foods
and the foodservice model made more sense. US
Foods provided Hertzog the ability to get product
in more places while the traditional retail business
was more up and down with orders fluctuating
Hertzog's ground beef
comes from whole
muscle blends only and
never incorporates trim.
significantly in size. The distributor partnership
also provides opportunities like the 12,000-lb order
to the burger restaurant in Kansas City.
" It just keeps the line moving, allowing our
premium steaks and cuts to be purchased in
store or online, and keeps our chefs and restaurant
owners stocked up at places like Big Cedar
Lodge, 3rd Street Social, Red Door, and many others, "
Quick said. " We're in conversations with
some of the top restaurants across Missouri and
Kansas. So, a lot of ground beef is moved to the
restaurants, a lot of the steaks are going direct
to the customer and steakhouses, so it's working
out really well at this point. "
Todd added, " You've got to have a partner like
US Foods. They value us for what we can do for
them, and we value them for what they do for us.
It's a perfect local partnership. We can show off
MEAT+POULTRY 2022 GROUND BEEF TRENDS + TECHNOLOGY
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Meat+Poultry - September 2022

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