Hofmann Sausage Company recently started selling summer sausage and three new flavors of jerky. In-spite of their renowned hot dog business suffering from less food service sales in the  COVID-19 pandemic, the chief marketing officer for the 142-year-old company, Rebecca Baker, says their diverse product lineup and a large network of customers along the east coast keep business going strong. Austin Keating, Multimedia Specialist for BNP Media and the National Provisioner magazine, chats with Baker to find out more.

Francisco Najar-Villarreal and Dr. Phil Bass return in this week’s MeatsPad podcast to talk with Dr. Dustin Mohrhouser, associate pork quality manager with Smithfield Foods. He talks about the work he does with Smithfield in terms of animal health and meat quality. You may never think about guacamole the same way again after hearing Dr. Mohrhouser discuss abscesses.

This week, MeatsPad features Dr. Amilton De Mello of the University of Nevada. One of Dr. De Mello’s many areas of research involves nutrigenomics. The benefits of eating meat for its nutrients is well known, but there may be more benefits that can come from meat consumption, down to the nucleotide level.

Dr. Gerrard, department head of the Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences, discusses the factors that determine meat taste, tenderness and quality.

Do you know why a chicken has both white meat and dark meat? Do you know the factors that affects the tenderness and taste of red meat? This week, Francisco Najar-Villarreal talks with Dr. David Gerrard of Virginia Tech about some of the basics behind the meat we process and eat on a regular basis.

Andy Hanacek, editor-in-chief, gets an update from Evan Inada, Columbus Craft Meats, on how COVID-19 affected demand for charcuterie and high-end deli proteins, as well as some of the company's business approaches and tactics.

Evan Inada, Columbus Craft Meats, talks with Andy Hanacek, editor-in-chief of The National Provisioner, about the ways in which charcuterie has grown over the years and how it is driving new customers to the deli today.

Andy Hanacek discusses the trends driving charcuterie with Evan Inada, Columbus Craft Meats, and how the processor has been developing products to support consumer demand in the segment.