Last week, B&E Meats Owner Brent Epema traveled to St. Cloud to partake in the 81st Annual Convention of the Minnesota Association of Meat Processors, where they won several awards for their meat products against over 200 other meat packers around the state.
The convention is a way for meat packers across the state to come together to discuss each other’s businesses, the industry and test their products against each other in a friendly competition.
“We’re all members of the Minnesota Association of Meat Processors. We have roughly over 200 members that we all get together, go over all of our businesses, we have scholarships, we do a lot of stuff for changing the industry, and doing rulings and all that fun stuff that you want to go and go to legislature with,” Epema explained. “But a big part of our show is that we have our project judging where we compete against each other. Between 200 of us, anybody can bring different things of 26 different ranges of categories, from smoked salmon to your whole bone-in ham, to just your normal jerky or a seasoned steak. Most of it has to be already cooked as they just warm it up in a microwave because they don’t have a whole day of barbecuing they can do.”
The convention brings in meat packers of all different sizes, from large multistore packers to small packing plants like B&E Meats, to see where each packer’s product stands in the entire state, with expert judges from around the country judging all of the products.
Of the 26 categories, B&E Meats entered into 19 of them and placed in nine of the categories, with four of them being Grand Champions.
“The judges can be from Iowa Tech or Florida. They’re experts in the field, not just somebody off the street. They cut them apart, take one bite, and taste for the flavor, one bite, and look at what it looks like inside your sausage. They’re looking for what it looks like on the inside of your sausage to make sure there are no air pockets, and you’re using quality meat, using quality smoke, you need to be perfect,” Epema explained. “We competed in 19 that we brought down, placed in nine, and brought home seven awards from Grand Champion, to reserve Grand Champion, and a couple of 5th place showings, which was awesome for us. Out of 26 categories, placing out of that is pretty impressive for a small meat shop in northern Minnesota.”
B&E Meats were named Grand Champions in the Specialty Flavor Whole Muscle category with their “Damn Hot” Jerky, the Specialty Summer Sausage category with their Cheddar Green Olive Sausage, the Specialty Whole Muscle category with their “Damn Good” Pastrami, and the Smoked Turkey competition where they were only five points away from a perfect score. They were the Reserve Grand Champions (2nd place) in the Prepared Food Item category with their Ed’s Trapper Dish (a prepared sausage with sliced onions and peppers with cooked baby potatoes), took 3rd place in the Sausage category with their Cajun Dirty Rice Sausage, 4th place in the Non-Specialty Flavor Whole Muscle category with their Grand Champion jerky, and 5th place in the Dried Beef and Whole Ham competitions.
With the high placings in several categories, B&E Meats can participate in the American Meat Processors Association competition to put them up against other meat shops around the country and even parts of Canada.
“Depending on how dates line up and everything goes, being a small plant, it’s tough to get away to do this. This is only our second year of competing. I’ve been down to the meetings before, but to be able to compete and get away while having enough employees to run the shop is the hard part,” said Epema. “We’ll see when it comes up, but we’re qualified to go into the AMP competition, the American Meat Processors Association. They have their competition in the mid-summer, which can be anywhere in the United States. In the American one, they actually get people that come from outside the country to come to that one. This gives me an idea to go in that direction, and if we decide to do that, we’ll let you guys know.”
Epema wants to thank all of the workers at B&E Meats for their work in the store and for helping them achieve these awards.
A picture of the workers at B&E Meats with the awards can be seen below-
