Shownotes
The principal focus of this podcast episode revolves around an in-depth discussion with David Ehart, the Senior Director of Communications and Brand Marketing for Seaboard Foods, known for its Prairie Fresh brand. We delve into the intricacies of the pork industry, addressing the significant role of ethical practices and animal welfare in contemporary agriculture. David, drawing from his extensive background in agricultural journalism and public relations, elucidates the profound connection between barbecue culture and high-quality pork production. Throughout our conversation, we explore the evolution of consumer expectations regarding meat sourcing and preparation, as well as the emerging trends in the culinary landscape. Our discourse not only highlights the technical aspects of pork production but also underscores the community spirit prevalent within the barbecue world, establishing a dialogue that fosters understanding and appreciation of this vital industry.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Seaboard Foods
- Prairie Fresh
- Weston Kia
- Heritage Steel
- Oregon Dungeness Crab
- Smithfield
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcripts
It's time for Barbecue Nation with JT So fire up your grill, light the charcoal, and get your smoker cooking.
Speaker A:Now from the Turn It, Go Burn it studios in Portland, here's jt.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker C:Hey, everybody.
Speaker C:Welcome to the nation.
Speaker D:That's Barbecue Nation.
Speaker D:I'm JT along with my hall of Fame co host Leanne Whippen, coming to you from our Turn It Don't Burn it studios, respectively, in Portland and Tampa.
Speaker D:We hope you're all having a great day out there.
Speaker D:Before we get into the show, we'd like to thank the folks at Painted Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker D:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker D:Well, today's guest is one of those folks that has a lot of influence and effect on the food world and the barbecue world, but you don't hardly ever see them.
Speaker D:It's David Ehart, the senior director of communications and brand marketing, or Seaboard Foods.
Speaker D:You might know that better as Prairie Fresh.
Speaker D:And, David, welcome.
Speaker B:Well, thank you, Jeff.
Speaker D:It's a.
Speaker D:It's a pleasure to meet you finally.
Speaker D:Um, I think we've passed.
Speaker D:I won't say we've passed in the night, but we've passed some somewhere along the way like that.
Speaker B:Yeah, we have.
Speaker B:And I had the good fortune to hang out with Leanne several times at several events, but, yes, I recall.
Speaker D:Well, you guys want to talk about that?
Speaker D:I mean, go ahead.
Speaker D:You know, it's.
Speaker D:It's kind of a fun thing.
Speaker D:I feel left out here.
Speaker D:So anyway.
Speaker E:Well, obviously, it crosses the path of barbecue, which, you know, that's my life, so.
Speaker E:Yeah, and Prairie Fresh is a big part of barbecue.
Speaker E:The competitors almost exclusively use the product and win a lot of money doing it.
Speaker B:Good, good.
Speaker D:So, David, how did you get into doing this?
Speaker D:Get a little background on you here?
Speaker B:Well, it started at a pretty young age for me.
Speaker B:I actually grew up on a pig farm in central Missouri.
Speaker B:So I have never not had pigs and pork in my life.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And my career actually started out as with some pork clients as well.
Speaker B:So my background is I grew up in the pig farm in central Missouri, went to the University of Missouri, majored in agricultural journalism, and went to work for Successful Farming magazine as a livestock editor, then went back to school, got an mba, and then worked for a public relations firm that had the National Pork Producers Council as its client.
Speaker B:And from there, I then went to work for Farmland Industries, ended up at Seaboard about 23 years ago in a company that specializes only in port.
Speaker B:So all those career moves led to that, and over the time, I started dabbling in Barbecue had some really good friends that competed.
Speaker B:One of my coworkers, her parents had a barbecue competition team.
Speaker B: So in the late: Speaker B:And then it kind of just evolved.
Speaker B:I don't know if I made it happen or not, but now I have barbecue pretty much every day in my life, along with some great pork products.
Speaker D:Oh, wow.
Speaker D:That's a great story.
Speaker E:It is.
Speaker D:When you were cleaning out the.
Speaker D:The pig pens on the farm you grew up on, did you ever think you would end up someplace like this?
Speaker D:Was that your desire?
Speaker B:No, because actually, this type of model that Seaboard Foods has and the industry's changed so much that I didn't really envision a company like this because it didn't exist at that time.
Speaker B:I was on a family farm, very traditional.
Speaker B: But it was back in the: Speaker B:We had a lot of row crops and livestock as well, with cattle.
Speaker B:And so it was just a whole different model.
Speaker B:I knew that I wanted to stay in agriculture and food.
Speaker B:That was my one goal.
Speaker B:So my careers followed that.
Speaker B:But I never dreamed that I would actually still be so closely tied to farm operations and also then get to have the experience on the food side of it as well.
Speaker B:For me, it's a perfect blend because I get to deal with farmers every day, but I also get to deal with those that are involved in cooking food and preparing it, from restaurants to actual competition barbecue teams.
Speaker D:Wow, that's a great story.
Speaker D:What does your day look like?
Speaker D:I mean, when you say you're senior comms director.
Speaker D:I've worked in the ag business and also the media business for a long time.
Speaker D:I can just see, like, my inbox fills up with probably a hundred PR requests every day and stuff, you know, And I just got one for Thanksgiving already this year.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker D:Know.
Speaker D:Do you want to tell stories about our turkeys?
Speaker D:And I'm like, call me in six months.
Speaker D:You know, I got to think of that for you.
Speaker B:It varies every day, but I like, today, I'll kind of give you some examples of things that I've worked on.
Speaker B:I've had requests, done some media.
Speaker B:I'm working on some website content for us.
Speaker B:One of our processing plants is getting ready to sponsor a benefit that is in Sioux City, Iowa, that actually has a competition barbecue component to it.
Speaker B:So I've been coordinating those efforts with them.
Speaker B:I think I've had Three or four teams request this today by email, asking about either product availability or what we might be doing at a couple of competitions.
Speaker B:And then I also do a lot with our customers.
Speaker B:So that can be our retail food service customer, barbecue stores.
Speaker B:We get a lot of questions asked about how we raise the animals, how we process the pork, what are some of the things from a quality factor that we have.
Speaker B:And so from a communications perspective, I'm dealing with the media requests, but I'm also dealing with customers and answering and helping educate them on the processes that we do that makes our product unique within the marketplace itself, too.
Speaker E:That's kind of a prairie is prairie fresh.
Speaker E:Like, what's the ratio of pork to chicken?
Speaker B:So we only do pork.
Speaker E:Only pork, yeah.
Speaker B:So we're what we call a connected food system.
Speaker B:So there are actually six producer owners within our system that own all the animals.
Speaker B:And so Seaboard Foods is one of those.
Speaker B:We have a partner company called Triumph Foods.
Speaker B:There's five producers that own that company, but Seaboard Foods does all the marketing and sales of the product.
Speaker B:So we own everything from the breeding stock to the farms to the processing plants, and it's 100% all pork products.
Speaker D:You know, that's become a big deal.
Speaker D:You touched on it just a second ago about the care, custody and control of the animals.
Speaker D:You know, 25 years ago, nobody thought about that very much.
Speaker D:You know, there was a rack of ribs or a, you know, a frying chicken in a package at your store and that was it.
Speaker D:But now it's like, what do you feed them?
Speaker D:Are they free range, if you will?
Speaker D:Are they humanely treated?
Speaker D:Are you injecting them with hormones and steroids and that?
Speaker D:Do you think that came out of a social consciousness or just people more concerned about what they're eating?
Speaker D:Or maybe both?
Speaker D:I don't know.
Speaker B:I think it's a little bit of both.
Speaker B:Some of it, to be candid, is a little bit activist driven that may not have the same beliefs and values and opinions about eating meat products.
Speaker B:And we believe everyone should have a choice in what they choose to eat.
Speaker B:And we're okay if you decide not to eat pork, but if you're going to eat pork, we want everyone to know that we're doing all we can to, first of all, from a food safety standpoint, produce it wholesomely, but also the animals are taken care of properly.
Speaker B:And we actually.
Speaker B:Our consumer data shows that consumers actually want to know where their food comes from.
Speaker B:They may not necessarily want to know every detail, but they do want to Know that it's wholesome, that if it's an animal based product, that it was raised properly.
Speaker B:And so having that story to tell and it's, you know, always cautious about the word story because sometimes that to mean that it's not necessarily something we made up, but it's actually, it's what we do.
Speaker B:We're telling that story.
Speaker B:And as an industry, we're trying to do a better job of that so that consumers and customers actually understand where their pork comes from.
Speaker B:The reasons why we do that, because it really all comes down to the product itself.
Speaker B:You know, we want every rack of ribs to be as close to the next one, one right after the other as it can be.
Speaker B:And that comes from what's happened within the industry because we have so much more control of where the genetics that go into the animals, the feed programs and the way that we actually handle and the processing part of it.
Speaker B:I mean, there's a tremendous amount of research that happens within our own company that's proprietary to us.
Speaker B:But also as an industry that we're doing to make improvements so that ultimately the consumer has a better eating experience.
Speaker B:Because you probably remember 20, 25 years ago, the industry went super lean.
Speaker B:Pork started to get a bad reputation, right, because it was really hard to cook, especially like the pork loin.
Speaker B:And so that's what really have been focused on bringing back that quality and that great eating experience back to the consumer.
Speaker B:And you know, we hear that even from competition barbecue today too, that that's what they really appreciate about our product is the consistency of it.
Speaker D:You know, it always kind of stuns me.
Speaker D:And, and we've all done this, we've been in stores, we've done, been around demos, done demos, what have you.
Speaker D:One of my favorite things to do is when somebody walks up and says, I'm a vegetarian, I look at them very sincerely and say, I can fix that.
Speaker D:You know, and it's always kind of a little tongue in cheek thing.
Speaker D:But I do believe that, and I think Leanne would agree with me that people are concerned about what they're consuming.
Speaker D:It's nice to know.
Speaker D:And like you said, David, they don't want to get down and say, you know, we clean the, we clean the pens three times a day or something like that.
Speaker D:But they want to know that they're not.
Speaker D:That they have.
Speaker D:For a hog, they have a fairly comfortable life.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's.
Speaker B:It's a very cushy life.
Speaker B:I say I go out on the farms fairly often, partly because just growing up on a Pig farm.
Speaker B:I just like time spending with the pigs.
Speaker B:For me, it brings back good memories.
Speaker B:It's a fun time.
Speaker B:But also I see what, you know, for me to be in the marketing position and communications position for the company, I really need to see what's happening, understanding out there on the farm.
Speaker B:And, you know, it is, I mean, compared to when I grew up on a farm, the way that our animals are treated today, it's vastly different.
Speaker B:And I say it's a cushy life.
Speaker B:It is because they're, you know, basically in a climate controlled barn.
Speaker B:You know, we have strict biosecurity so that disease doesn't come in and wipe out the herd, partly because we don't want to be giving them a lot of extra medications.
Speaker B:And the best way to do that is to keep them healthy from the beginning.
Speaker D:Right.
Speaker B:You know, they're comfortable.
Speaker B:All they do is sleep and eat all day.
Speaker B:It's a pretty good life.
Speaker D:I could do that.
Speaker D:I could do.
Speaker D:We're talking with David Ehart, senior director of communications and brand marketing at Seaborn Food, Seaborne Foods.
Speaker D:Excuse me.
Speaker D:Which is Prairie Fresh.
Speaker D:And we're going to learn more about hogs in just a minute and the way they come to market it.
Speaker D:And you know, there's a lot of hogs out there and you guys control a lot of them.
Speaker D:So I'm really fascinated with this.
Speaker D:Anyway, we're going to take a break.
Speaker D:We're going to be back with David and Leanne.
Speaker D:Just a second.
Speaker D:Don't go away.
Speaker D:You're listening to Barbecue Nation.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker D:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker D:I'm jt, along with Leanne Whippen.
Speaker D:You can find us on Facebook and Twitter or X, you know, Instagram, all those.
Speaker D:All those places were pretty easy to find.
Speaker D:So if you have a question or something or want to reach out to us, just use one of the platforms and it'll get right to us.
Speaker D:We're talking with David Ehart, the senior director of communications and brand marketing for Prairie Fresh, that is Seaboard Foods.
Speaker D:So you went to.
Speaker D:You went down to the Royal, had a little competition barbecue.
Speaker D:You got hooked.
Speaker D:Easy to do, I must say, very easy to do.
Speaker D:What was it like?
Speaker D:Do you remember when you put that first piece of competitive barbecue in your mouth?
Speaker B:It was.
Speaker B:It was a different experience than what I ever had before with regular barbecue.
Speaker B:Yeah, I grew up, obviously, on a farm, but we did what I consider to be grilling.
Speaker B:We didn't really ever smoke any meats.
Speaker B:My parents didn't.
Speaker B:So for me, as a kid was going into town, a lot of times there was this little old house that had a restaurant in it.
Speaker B:I don't remember what the name of it was, but that's where we went to get barbecue.
Speaker B:And that was like one of my favorite things to do as a kid.
Speaker B:But when I actually got to taste true competition barbecue, it, you know, there's just something about probably the atmosphere as well, helps with it, the smells that come with it, but just enjoying something that was perfectly tender and juicy and the bite of it just.
Speaker B:It left the lasting impression.
Speaker B:And I enjoy it still today, partly because I think part of my experience growing up with a kid was that grilling experience.
Speaker B:My dad liked things well done.
Speaker B:So my experience, what I thought barbecue up until that time was something you take a bite of and then you chew and you chew and you chew and you chew because it was just.
Speaker B:Was tough and dry and you smother in sauce trying to get it down.
Speaker B:And I really had not had that experience until I actually got to my, you know, one of the first competitions at the Royal.
Speaker D:Well, do you think that came from, I mean, my.
Speaker D:My.
Speaker D:Our barbecue experiences on our farm when I grew up, Same thing.
Speaker D:I mean, if it didn't come out like shoe leather, it wasn't done.
Speaker D:So you think that came from the.
Speaker D:The old kind of wives tale adage, and there was some truth to it, but, you know, you just got to cook the hell out of the pork because you might get trichinosis or something.
Speaker B:You know, I'm sure that was part of it for my grandparents.
Speaker B:You know, my dad was a generation that, you know, when he was a kid, probably you did have a chance of getting it if you didn't.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:You know, but, you know, the US has been free of that.
Speaker B:Herds have been for years now.
Speaker B:So fortunately, we can cook pork to the right temperature now.
Speaker B:And, you know, if you're doing a pork loin to the 145 and have a great experience.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:Now, Leanne, she wears Durock number five as far as cologne, but what kind of hogs are you raising back there?
Speaker B:So it's a crossbred market hog.
Speaker B:So on our female side or the south side, it is a crossbred between a land race and a large white.
Speaker B:And then our sire lines are all draw, Leanne.
Speaker D:There you go.
Speaker E:You know, I have a funny story.
Speaker E: , I don't know, it was around: Speaker E:In the restaurant, I would usually get Smithfield ribs, and they were out and they subbed with Seaboard.
Speaker E:And I was like, I never heard of these guys.
Speaker E:And I cooked them.
Speaker E:And I was like, these are fantastic.
Speaker E:They were, for a time there, my, like, secret weapon, you know, and ribs and I'm.
Speaker E:And they've even come further now.
Speaker E:I mean, obviously you can look at the teams that are, you know, mentioning your name and everything, but.
Speaker E:Yeah, I remember back in the day, but I thought they were owned by someone else or have they always.
Speaker E:They've always been on their own.
Speaker B:Yeah, we've always been on our own.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker E:Okay.
Speaker B: n an agribusiness since about: Speaker B:They started as a flour milling company in the United States, but now it's a global international company.
Speaker B:They don't have flour mills in the United States any longer.
Speaker B:Seaboard Foods, the pork division, is actually the largest division for them, but it's all US Based.
Speaker B:We do have a.
Speaker B:We have a processing plant in Mexico that we actually process and bone hams to sell to the Mexican market.
Speaker B:But all our operations are here.
Speaker B:All of our farms and all of our processing plants are here in the United States.
Speaker D:David, did you bring the barbecue?
Speaker D:Were you the guy that was the impetus of getting Prairie fresh in the barbecue world, in the competition world?
Speaker B:Yeah, it started when we started building.
Speaker B:I mean, we started really as a.
Speaker B:In my brand for a long time was Seaboard Foods or farms.
Speaker B: , acquired a Bacon company in: Speaker B:But we started really working on the brand in earnest probably about 10 years ago.
Speaker B:And so and as we, especially on the food service side, we started to grow that business.
Speaker B:And we started getting, just like Leanne mentioned our name out there, restaurants started realizing the quality of the product.
Speaker B:And so it kind of started.
Speaker B:We're like, what do you do to build a brand?
Speaker B:And we're like, well, can we build an ambassador program?
Speaker B:Because we didn't have huge marketing budgets at that time and started kind of discovering that all of a sudden we had some fairly well known barbecue restaurants that were using our products.
Speaker B:And so we started that.
Speaker B:And one of the.
Speaker B:And that really we came into the competition, Barbecue World, even a little bit differently.
Speaker B:So that was happening the same time, and then Operation Barbecue Relief had started, right?
Speaker B:And so there was a tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, which is outside of Oklahoma City.
Speaker B:And we had a couple of employees that had family members that were impacted by that tornado.
Speaker B:And so the grapevine.
Speaker B:We talked to OBR a little bit prior to that, but realized that there was an opportunity for us to give some product.
Speaker B:And with that, that relationship started with obr, and then we discovered we even had more teams that were starting to use the product.
Speaker B:And we realized this is a great way for us to basically go out and build the brand, because people trust, even if it's competition barbecue or the backyard barbecue, they're going to ask their neighbor or if they have a neighbor that's a competition team, what products do they use?
Speaker B:And really, that's how we got slowly involved into the barbecue world and then really started promoting it here several years ago, probably six, seven years ago.
Speaker B:I was charged with that.
Speaker B:I had a personal passion for it, so it was a fun thing to do.
Speaker B:And that's kind of how we ended up in this through Operation Barbecue Relief and some of our key food service customers, and then how we build out relationships from there and then really got ourselves ingrained in competition barbecue.
Speaker D:And sometimes I found out that it's kind of hard to say no to Stan Hayes.
Speaker D:I found that out personally, I think Leanne would back me up on that.
Speaker B:But, yeah, great organization, and it sure is.
Speaker B:You know, we're.
Speaker B:We're so grateful that we get to be part of that.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And it's been fun to see the organization grow over the years.
Speaker D:There you go.
Speaker D:We're going to take another break.
Speaker D:We're going to be back with David Yard from senior director of comms over at Prairie Fresh and Leanne and myself, and we're going to find out about David's cooking prowess when we return here on Barbecue Nation.
Speaker C:Hey, everybody, It's JT and I have eaten.
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Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker D:Welcome back to the nation.
Speaker D:I'm JT along with Leanne Whippen, hall of Famer, of course.
Speaker D:Again, we'd like to thank Painter Hills Natural Beef.
Speaker D:Beef the way nature intended.
Speaker D:And that's.
Speaker D:That's your cue, Leanne.
Speaker D:Pig powder.
Speaker E:Pig powder, yes.
Speaker E:That is the rub that me and my sister distribute, and it has won many awards, including best rub on the planet.
Speaker E:And a lot of competition cooks use it.
Speaker E:One I know got a perfect 29 pork recently.
Speaker E:So it's good on pork, chicken, french fries, baked beans.
Speaker E:It's very versatile.
Speaker E:So go to pigpowder.com.
Speaker D:Have you ever given David some?
Speaker E:I have not.
Speaker E:I'm trying to think.
Speaker E:I think the last time I saw him was in Kansas City in the snow.
Speaker B:Oh.
Speaker B:Oh, yes.
Speaker B:The only time I've ever had to shuttle snow to actually.
Speaker E:That was awful cooking in that.
Speaker E:I remember that well.
Speaker D:Well, maybe you guys can.
Speaker E:I'll have to get swap something.
Speaker E:Powder.
Speaker E:Yes.
Speaker D:Yeah, some pig powder.
Speaker D:We're talking with David Ehart, senior director of communications and brand marketing over there at Seaboard Foods, I. E. Prairie Fresh.
Speaker D:So, progressing on your life timeline, David, you started farm dad cooked, you know, your chops or ribs or whatever, down to the consistency of, you know, red brick, so to speak.
Speaker D:But if I'm.
Speaker D:If I'm.
Speaker D:If I'm saying it wrong, you let me know.
Speaker D:But now that you've been around the.
Speaker D:The competition, barbecue and stuff for a number of years and Operation Barbecue Relief, how have your cooking skills progressed?
Speaker B:Significantly, because I have had the good fortune to be in the trailers of some world champions many, many times.
Speaker B:So I take a lot of those techniques.
Speaker B:I do.
Speaker B:You know, I have my own smoker at home, so I do a lot of stuff for family and friends when I have time, if I'm not out on the barbecue trail following around all the teams.
Speaker B:So it's really expanded.
Speaker B:I also had the good fortune that Seaboard Foods put me through culinary school 15 years ago.
Speaker B:So that is when I really.
Speaker B:I had a Passion for food prior to that.
Speaker B:But that's when I really developed a lot of my skills.
Speaker B:And one of my culinary instructors loved to smoke meat.
Speaker B:So we obviously had a bond there that.
Speaker D:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Expand on from there.
Speaker D:Well, I noticed on the website, I was looking at some of the food pictures and stuff, and it wasn't all barbecue.
Speaker D:You had some very high end, like images.
Speaker D:If you went into a four or five star restaurant, you would look at that and go.
Speaker D:And they were, they were beautiful images.
Speaker D:It made my, you know, mouth water.
Speaker D:Did you do those?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So my side hobby is I do food sport as well, but I typically don't do barbecue.
Speaker B:I got into pie baking and with that, I've been in the national pie championships and won that once.
Speaker E:And then what kind of pie did you make?
Speaker B:Oh, so it's an interesting pie.
Speaker B:It has a little story to it.
Speaker B:They always do a whimsical category.
Speaker B:There's always the traditional categories in it.
Speaker B: But in: Speaker B:And so it was based off of some rye bread ice cream I had in Iceland on a vacation.
Speaker B:So it was a toasted cinnamon rye bread cream pie.
Speaker B:So it was pastry cream rye bread in it.
Speaker B:And I had a Swiss meringue and a rye bread crumble on the top of it.
Speaker D:Leanne, you gotta swap out your picture to your pecan pie.
Speaker E:I have.
Speaker E:Yeah, I know.
Speaker E:I've never heard of a pie with rye bread in it.
Speaker E:That's amazing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker E:Well, congratulations.
Speaker D:Yeah, congratulations.
Speaker D:One day when you were over there, what'd they give you?
Speaker D:A lefse or something if you did it over there across the pond.
Speaker B:Well, the contest was here in the US the ice cream that I have is a rye bread ice cream in Iceland.
Speaker B:Nicely.
Speaker B:I had some interesting food, some delicious food, and then some that was not so delicious.
Speaker D:Did you eat this little sidebar question, but did.
Speaker D:My wife's part Norwegian and she's been up there a couple times and.
Speaker D:But I told her, do not bring me back a can of Viking fish.
Speaker D:I don't know, there's a name for it and it evades me right now, but it's.
Speaker D:There's a product that they actually manufacture there, but it's fish the way the Vikings used to eat it.
Speaker D:It's in a can and if you open the can, it damn near knocks you off your feet anyway with the odor.
Speaker C:But.
Speaker D:And I've seen some guys on TV try to taste it and I'm pretty.
Speaker E:Taste it's an acquired taste.
Speaker B:Fermented.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's fermented.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:I will try anything once.
Speaker B:That was more than enough.
Speaker E:Back to the hods here.
Speaker E:I have a question.
Speaker E:You know, I've been to quite a few butchery classes and they talk about different cuts that you can get out of the animal and what's trending.
Speaker E:Is there anything trending right now?
Speaker B:Probably not surprising.
Speaker B:I mean Port Belly has been really hot food service but we're starting to get see increased demand of that at the retail level because people are having that experience at a restaurant and wanting to replicate it at home.
Speaker E:Right.
Speaker B:So we are actually just getting ready to launch what we call a quarter belly.
Speaker B:So it's going to be more manageable for consumer.
Speaker E:That's great.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Coming out this summer.
Speaker B:So you don't have to do the whole, you know, 13 pound belly at once.
Speaker B:So that's probably one of the biggest things.
Speaker B:The other thing is trending cuts.
Speaker B:Anything to do, we're seeing a lot more smaller cuts.
Speaker B:So the way people eat and cook now, especially at the consumer level, when they're buying retail, that they don't necessarily want the whole pork butt, even though it's a great value for them.
Speaker B:They want something that's more manageable and easier for them to cook.
Speaker B:So anything we can do to simplify.
Speaker E:That and cooks faster too.
Speaker E:So I recall, didn't you come out or don't you have a product that you identify as prime?
Speaker B:Yeah, so we have a prairie.
Speaker B:It's called a brand name is Prairie Fresh USA Prime.
Speaker B:We've had that out for about two and a half, three years probably now.
Speaker B:So we actually have a proprietary process that after the it's almost immediately when the carcass is on the rail.
Speaker B:We have a process where we can actually some technology that measures the intramuscular fat of the carcass and then we segregate those out to our Prairie Fresh USA prime line.
Speaker B:So on average you're going to see marbling scores that are about three and a half and above if you look in the loin eye.
Speaker B:We also validate on the cut forward with the loin.
Speaker B:But that way we can have a consistent product.
Speaker B:It's been very successful for us, very successful in the competition world.
Speaker B:The port bets.
Speaker B:I've seen teens post pictures on Facebook and every once in a while I'm like, I think they Photoshop that.
Speaker B:I mean that's how much marveling is.
Speaker B:And it's consistent.
Speaker B:That's the thing is that it's consistent.
Speaker B:So it's taking the best of our best product.
Speaker B:USDA doesn't have grading, but they do allow grading terms and product brand names.
Speaker B:So I'm always very careful to tell you that as a brand name only.
Speaker B:But we are measuring the marbling within that carcass.
Speaker E:So what do you think it is?
Speaker E:2% Of what you put out, it fits into that category.
Speaker B:I can't share the exact numbers, but I can tell you it's a little bit higher than that, actually.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:The neat thing about it is kind of one of the next steps we want to take with that is now can we, because of our connected food system, can we go back and look at those farms that are producing those carcasses?
Speaker B:What can we do to get a higher population of that, those highly marbled carcasses?
Speaker B:Because in theory, the genetics, the feed programs are pretty similar, but there still are differences because our geography, where our pigs are raised are from Texas to Minnesota, Colorado to Illinois.
Speaker B:So you have some environmental factors.
Speaker B:So there are some differences in the feed ingredients just from energy.
Speaker B:Is that impacting it?
Speaker B:We don't know yet, but that's one of the research projects that we would like to see happen.
Speaker D:Now you said you, your Prairie Fresh seaboard, that you own all the hogs or do you have feeder farms that meet your requirements in the breeding aspects and, you know, no injectables or anything like that going forward, do they come into the program and then come under the umbrella?
Speaker B:So, so the, all the, the market pigs that are raised are from one of the six producer owners within our system.
Speaker B:We do have some contract owners that we will provide them with the nursery pigs and they'll finish them out to our feed ingredients and animal welfare requirements.
Speaker B:But the animals themselves are all owned within the ownership of our, our system.
Speaker D:So when you feed them out, is it similar to what they do with cattle?
Speaker D:I mean, you heard me a couple of times mentioned Painted Hills, which is a beef company that I've worked with now for a number of years.
Speaker D:They have their own feedlot.
Speaker D:Their certain, you know, the cattle they bring into the system have to meet certain requirements.
Speaker D:There are no hormones or antibiotics, and I always say no styrofoam, that type of thing.
Speaker D:But you know, when you're feeding mount, when you're trying to get them finished so they can go to the plant and be on the rail.
Speaker D:What's the time frame for that?
Speaker D:I mean, with cattle it's three, four months.
Speaker B:So yeah, so it's going to be the entire from birth to the time that they go to the processing plant is about six months.
Speaker B:So they'll be and it varies a little bit because we have some farms that we call they actually go from the nursery into the same barn that they will actually be finished out.
Speaker B:Some of our operations have when they go from and they're about 21, 22 days on average when they're weaned and then they go into a nursery and then they'll stay there to about 40, 50 pounds and then move over to finishing.
Speaker B:So it varies a little bit but the entire process is about six months from from birth to processing.
Speaker D:That's, that's very quick in comparison to I mean I think chickens are faster but that's about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, you know it's pretty fast.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker D:How much you get two cycles a.
Speaker B:Year a little over that out of a sow.
Speaker B:It's like two point something another.
Speaker B:So yeah.
Speaker D:Interesting, interesting.
Speaker D:We're been, we've been talking to you and we'll continue to talk with David Ehart, Scene senior director of comms and brand marketing over at Prairie Fresh and that and David's been very kind to take time to be with us today.
Speaker D:So we will not abuse him until the after hours segment.
Speaker D:I promise that any listen to Leanne's little giggle there.
Speaker D:She knows, she knows what's coming.
Speaker D:Anyway, we're going to take a break and we're going to be back and wrap up the regular show.
Speaker D:David and Leanne right after this.
Speaker D:You're listening to Barbecue Nation.
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Speaker C:Hey everybody, J.T.
Speaker E:Here.
Speaker C:I want to tell you about the Hammerstahl knives.
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Speaker C:They're part of the Heritage Steel Group which also does their pots and pans.
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Speaker C:If you're really into cooking, I think.
Speaker D:You're really going to like them.
Speaker B:This is an encore.
Speaker D:Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
Speaker D:I'm JT along with hall of famer Leanne Whippen and David Ehart to talk about hogs today.
Speaker D:David is the senior director of communications and Brand marketing over at Prairie Fresh.
Speaker D:Also real quick, we'd like to thank the Oregon Crab Commission.
Speaker D:You know, from sea to plate there.
Speaker D:It's good stuff.
Speaker D:If you've never had Oregon Dungeness crab, or actually Dungeness crab from up and down the West Coast.
Speaker D:But I think Oregon's chunk of the ocean is pretty cool.
Speaker D:So you can check that out online in Oregon crabcommission.com so, David, we've got about six minutes, seven minutes here before we wrap this part of the show.
Speaker D:What's the biggest thing you think you've learned about not only your job, but dealing with people in the ag world and specifically in the hog markets?
Speaker B:I don't know if I probably reaffirmed.
Speaker B:What I have always thought is, especially in this part of my job, getting to deal with the barbecue world is that the kindness and the generosity of people.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's a competitive world, but people thrive off of that.
Speaker B:I personally do too, but still, people are willing to help out each other and it's just fun to see the community that's built with that.
Speaker B:It doesn't make any difference.
Speaker B:If I go to a part of the country that I haven't been to very much and don't know anyone, you're almost immediately embraced.
Speaker B:And I see that obviously, since I'm supplying a lot of the product or that I have a little different perspective on it, but I see it with new teams that are up and coming and how they're being coached and, you know, it's.
Speaker B:It makes me feel good to know that there's still good people out there and there's this whole group that's really encouraging each other and it's just.
Speaker B:It's a great community to be involved in.
Speaker B:That's probably the thing that made me.
Speaker B:Makes me feel the best.
Speaker B:And I don't think I realized that until I got involved in this.
Speaker B:The side of it.
Speaker D:Are you guys doing work with the.
Speaker D:The junior or the high school or the youth?
Speaker D:You know, there's different titles from different parts of the country.
Speaker B:Have some.
Speaker B:And so we do quite a bit of work with Melissa Cookson and her World Junior Barbecue League.
Speaker B:So we have some activities planned with her this year and done some things with MBBQA as well as they've done some stuff with their Future of Q program as well, and a little bit with the high school barbecue associations as well.
Speaker B:Because for us, there's a couple of reasons why we love to support youth, but we also recognize that we need more youth to understand career opportunities that are involved in agriculture and food production.
Speaker B:And so that's why we really want to support that.
Speaker B:It's One of our, actually our pillars within our community relations is fueling education.
Speaker B:So that's why we're out there not only looking more trade skills, but also just getting people, especially at that level, younger generation, to recognize that there's an opportunity in, whether it be on the farm level, the processing level, or, you know, food service, retail.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:There's a lot of opportunities, no matter what your interest is, that probably can be connected to food.
Speaker D:So how do you deal with.
Speaker B:People.
Speaker D:That, you know, they don't eat meat, they think it's a horrible thing.
Speaker D:Commercial farming.
Speaker D:You said it right off the top of the show.
Speaker D:Some activism.
Speaker D:I'm being very kind in my descriptive words here, but as a senior comm director, how do you deal with them?
Speaker B:So I think a lot of times for us, we're willing to listen.
Speaker B:If someone treats us with respect, we're going to treat them back with respect and give us an opportunity.
Speaker B:And I've dealt with some people that have been definitely on the opposite side of the fence where I stand, but I've had some really good conversations with them.
Speaker B:And our position is that everyone should have a choice.
Speaker B:That's what part of living in the United States is.
Speaker B:We're lucky we can have choices.
Speaker B:And so I'm willing to listen to your viewpoint.
Speaker B:If you're on the opposite side of Vince, I just ask that you listen to my viewpoint, too.
Speaker B:I'm not going to necessarily probably change your mind.
Speaker B:If you're an activist, you're probably not going to change my mind either.
Speaker B:But I'm willing to listen and address those things.
Speaker B:And there's a lot of people that are on the middle of the road that just really want to know things too.
Speaker B:They've heard things.
Speaker B:So we just really try, first of all, be very transparent.
Speaker B:We want to share what we do.
Speaker B:So you go to our website, you're going to see a lot of pictures of inside barns and on the processing floor, because people typically are fearful of things that they don't know or they don't have access to.
Speaker B:So that's really the key, is to explain to them if we can get that opportunity and show and be transparent.
Speaker D:It always kind of amazes me, and I know I'm probably speaking for Leanne here, but she can chime in on this.
Speaker D:It always amazes me how people will stand there at the meat counter in Safeway and not understand how it got there in the.
Speaker D:In the shrink wrap right in front of them.
Speaker D:You know, that's just something that's always kind of Perplexed me.
Speaker D:I guess growing up on a farm, you know, you take it for granted and all three of us grew up on farms at one point or another.
Speaker D:But the point is it's like, yeah, started on four legs and now it's on your plate.
Speaker D:How do you think it got there?
Speaker E:Yeah, I definitely think that a lot of people don't think about that.
Speaker E:I mean, it even boils down to most products, you know, even Oreos.
Speaker E:Do they really think about what goes into the process of making an Oreo?
Speaker E:No, they want their Oreos.
Speaker D:It's kind of like the old saying, you never peel the skin off a hot dog, you know, type thing.
Speaker D:And.
Speaker D:But I'm just, you know, like you said, David, it's transparency.
Speaker D:I think personally think people should know for their own benefit, their own health and welfare and safety and that, but also how things are made.
Speaker D:And you know, I think all of us sitting on this show today were furious from a young age.
Speaker D:You grow up on a farm, you're curious, you know, you're curious how the, how the little eggs turned into little birds and then the little birds got to bigger birds and sitting in the trees or whatever.
Speaker D:That's a very simplistic example.
Speaker D:But I, I just think people should know, you know, for their own, for their own reasons.
Speaker B:Yep, I agree with that.
Speaker B:And there's also a certain amount of respect when you really understand it, you know, you're taking a living beating to actually provide sustenance to us.
Speaker B:So there, you should respect that piece of meat.
Speaker B:And I had a culinary instructor tell me that in culinary school and I remember that to this day.
Speaker B:So we're going to do everything, you know, to make sure that we aren't wasting it, that we're making, that we're creating a great experience from it.
Speaker B:And if you, if you understand the process, you can have that respect for it.
Speaker D:Yeah, and I think that goes too, for I used to do a lot of hunting and fishing.
Speaker D:Always respected the animal, never tried to over harvest anything.
Speaker D:You know, all the things that people kind of talk about today.
Speaker D:But that was just the way it was when we grew up.
Speaker D:I mean, you learned that our parents, our grandparents, aunts, uncles, whatever taught you those things.
Speaker D:So anyway, I think it's good we got to get out of here, at least for this part of the show.
Speaker D:David E. Hart, senior director of communications brand marketing for Prairie Fresh I E Seaboard Foods.
Speaker D:Thanks, buddy.
Speaker D:I appreciate it.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker D:It's been a pleasure.
Speaker D:And David is going to stick around for after hours.
Speaker D:Hahaha so for Leanne and myself, we'd like to thank you for listening.
Speaker D:We'll be back next week with.
Speaker D:I think Meathead is next week.
Speaker D:Oh, boy.
Speaker D:There you go.
Speaker D:That's always a fun one.
Speaker D:But we'll be back.
Speaker D:And until then, remember our motto.
Speaker D:Turn it, don't burn it.
Speaker D:Take care, everybody.
Speaker A:Barbecue Nation is produced by JTSD LLC Productions in association with Salem Media Group.
Speaker A:All rights reserved.
