Every month, Independent Processor’s Prime Cuts will be delivering exclusive stories, editorials and expanded interviews from some of the people and companies featured in our print magazine.

The meat snack sector has seen an unprecedented popularity boom in recent years, and as the market has grown, more companies have jumped into the fray.

One of the leading producers of country ham in the U.S. is Goodnight Brothers, a Boone, N.C. company that started when five brothers got into the food distribution business.

A growing economy and increased interest in the foodservice sector are two of the biggest strengths that pork has at the moment, according to the experts assembled by the National Pork Board as part of a “state of the industry” teleconference.