Pederson’s Natural Farms has been pleasing meat lovers for many years with its smoked sausage, hams and especially its uncured bacon. The Hamilton, Texas-based processor is expanding its expertise into a new retail category by introducing a new line of deli meats.
The line of deli meats include smoked chicken breast, Black Forest ham, smoked turkey breast, roasted chicken breast, smoked ham and roasted turkey breast. All of the meats come from vegetarian-fed, humanely raised animals that have been raised without antibiotics. In addition to those attributes, all products are minimally processed, gluten-free, casein-free and contain no nitrites, nitrates or preservatives.
The launch of these products marks the company’s first foray into sliced deli meats. It has taken approximately one year of formulation and packaging configuration development to get the line ready to launch, with involvement from the company’s entire executive team and vendor network, says Neil Dudley, vice president of sales. It was a task the team was glad to face, he says.
“We want to be a solution to our core consumers and in turn offer a more comprehensive product line to our customers. As we grow we challenge ourselves to press the boundaries of the market,” he says. “We have also begun raising our own pork supply, and with that comes a layer of responsibility for those animals that in turn pushes us to develop and innovate with our items!”
The company has a skilled workforce that produces its bacon and sausage items. As the deli meats are outside of its core competency, it elected to partner with another processor. The attributes of the deli meats, though, fit right in with the rest of Pederson’s product line. The deli meats contain no sugar, no nitrites, no antibiotics and no animal byproducts were used in the feed. The animals were all humanely raised, in keeping with Pederson’s philosophy.
“I am not aware of a product in the market that can claim all of these attributes,” Dudley says. “The cherry on top is we have been able to develop the line and keep costs down so we can offer retails between $3.99 and $4.99 per 7-ounce unit.”
As the six new deli meats will soon reach grocery store shelves, Pederson’s is hard at work for the Phase Two line extension. Roast Beef, Salami, Prosciutto and Calabrese are targeted to reach the market in 2019.
For more information, visit www.pedersonsfarms.com.
