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A HISTORY OF INNOVATION Winter 2007

We sat down with Farmland’s Business Manager of Fabricated Pork, John Zabel, to discuss Farmland’s exciting new stuffed pork chops.

How did stuffed pork chops come to fruition?
Well, as part of the Smithfield organization, we have opportunities to utilize the resources of some of our sister companies. One of these companies is RMH in Illinois, which specializes in pre-cooked entrées. We realized that we could combine some of their expertise with our raw materials to create unique foodservice solutions — like the stuffed pork chop — to be distributed exclusively by Farmland.

How did you pick the fl avor profiles?
Bert Lawson, our in-house research chef, spent a great deal of time researching the perfect flavor trends to match with this particular product. Through both in-house trials and extensive dialogue with our customers, we settled on five flavors that we think will really resonate with the consumer.

Tell us a little bit about these five flavors.
Some are more mainstream, like Traditional and Apple Cranberry Sausage, and some are a bit more diverse in their flavor profile, like Tropical, Southwestern and Italian Style. Understanding that a lot of operators would want to create their own unique entrées, we also developed a stuffable chop that can be customized by individual operators. We also make the VersaChopTM, which is a fully cooked three ounce, unstuffed chop that’s perfect for all three day parts and can be deep-fried, oven-baked or grilled.

What foodservice operations do you see the stuffed pork chop fitting into?
Certainly a wide variety of operators can use this product line. Initial sales have shown that this product has been very successful in the hotel and casino business. In addition, it’s been very well-received in the catering business. As this is a fully cooked, pre-stuffed, individually packaged item, many operators have been excited about the convenience of the product — the price point per unit has been bringing in raves as well.