85 Years Old & Still Smoking Hot!
LIKE THE TANTALIZING AROMA OF ITS SMOKED MEATS, WORD OF NUESKE’S KEEPS SPREADING
There is a shelf that wraps around Megan Dorsch’s office holding affirmation that Nueske’s bacon has indeed become a fixture in American culture over its 85-year history.
Dorsch, the marketing manager for Nueske's Applewood Smoked Meats, displays a collection of over 100 books that mention the famed meats within their covers.
“It was always great to show up in a cookbook, but when we started seeing ourselves in fiction, too, that’s when it really got interesting,” she said. Two novels detailing nonchalant characters eating Nueske’s bacon for breakfast during their not-so-ordinary days are The Whispering Room, a recent best-selling conspiracy thriller by Dean Koontz, and Dead Hot Mama, a murder mystery by Wisconsin author Victoria Houston.
There is no mystery why Wisconsin families make pilgrimages to Nueske’s Applewood Smoked Meats, located just an hour west of Green Bay in the small community of Wittenberg. They come to stock up on the applewood smoked line of bacons, beef, hams and more. It is the same product that chefs across the country are seeking out for signature dishes to put on their menus.
While Nueske’s acclaimed Applewood Smoked Bacon is a product seared into the hearts of bacon lovers across the nation, other standouts include its smoked beef, smoked pork chops and smoked duck breast.
A young Bob Nueske, son of founder R. C. Nueske, looks over an invoice sitting on the edge of a 1940s International Harvester company delivery van. Contributed photo.
Along with cookbook and novel references, Dorsch notes Nueske’s receives an average 100 mentions per month on social media. She says while they don’t pay for these product mentions, the company certainly has a great appreciation for their zealous fan base that is eager to lure in even more bacon lovers.
R.C. Nueske, who founded the company in 1933, just might have had difficulty wrapping his mind around this modern-day Nueske Nation.
But for a man whose goal it was to find a way to support his family during the Great Depression, you could say mission accomplished. Not only did R.C. Nueske begin a company that would go on to support three more generations of his family, but also support more than 200 employee families as well.
CEO Tanya Nueske, granddaughter to R.C., says the company has gone from her grandfather selling his “fancy meats” out of just one truck 85 years ago to a national award-winning smoked meats giant selling in all 50 states. Nueske’s line of smoked meats can now be found in specialty grocery stores and from top restaurants to mom-and-pop delis.
Over the past 16 years, the Specialty Food Association, a national organization with over 3,500 members, has honored Nueske’s with a total of nine gold, silver and bronze awards for its smoked bacon, ham and poultry products. In 2017, it received the association's best new product award for their jalapeno bacon cheddar bratwurst.
MEAT TRENDS
For a company that is at the top of the smoked-meats food chain, it doesn’t move very fast, says Tanya. “We get asked all the time, ‘Do you have vanilla bacon? Do you have cinnamon bacon?’ The answer is no,” she explains.
“What we do have is a research and development process that is focused on making products that hold up to Nueske’s standards.”
“Everybody kept asking us for uncured bacon,” she adds. “It took us five years of research to develop our Wild Cherrywood Uncured Bacon. We don't have varieties that are a flash in the pan.”
Part of that product’s development was finding the right wood for the smoking process. They knew that applewood had served the company well as the gold standard for smoking their other meats, so it experimented with another local fruit wood found in abundance in northern Wisconsin – wild cherrywood. “The West Coast loves our Wild Cherrywood Uncured Bacon and it’s catching on in other regions,” Nueske said.
Braising bacon and using bacon in desserts were other trends the company has seen start on the East and West coasts before gaining popularity in Wisconsin. But Tanya says make no mistake about it, Wisconsin has always been the leader in brats.
“The East Coast markets were like, ‘What is bratwurst?’” she stated. “You have to turn them onto a meat like bratwurst. Then you give it to them and they do something odd like cut it up and put it on pizza.”
BACON STEAK AND LANDJAEGER
Another trend the company sees rising is bacon steak – an extra thick slice of bacon that can become its own main entree for lunch or dinner.
“When it comes to bacon, thickness makes all the difference,” says Dorsch. “When you taste the regular cut compared to our Triple Thick Butcher Cut, it tastes like a completely different product.” She says their regular cut averages 18 slices per pound. The bacon steak variety averages 4-6 slices per pound.
“We also have a ton of chefs using the Triple Thick cut for appetizers,” she explains. “The bite is different. The chew is different.”
The popularity of charcuterie boards built around artisan meats has also brought new interest to many of their smoked products, including landjaeger.
Landjaeger is a hunter-inspired meat stick – thicker, more dry, with tougher bite that appeals to more carnivore types.
Tanya Nueske
REFLECTIONS ON SUCCESS
Tanya Nueske bets that when her Mom rocked her as a young babe, she never looked down at the child cuddled in her arms and thought to herself, “Oh honey, you are going to grow up to be in the meat business one day.”
But that is the life that has played out for this Wittenberg-born woman who took the helm of the company in 2015 when her father, Bob Nueske, died.
Tanya Nueske speaks with almost parental pride of the job her employees do and their dedication to creating the high-quality product that Nueske’s has become renowned for.
“Our real job at Nueske's? We raise people who make really good bacon,” she said. “Technically, I have five salespeople by title. In reality, I have 200 salespeople and they work in housekeeping to I.T.”
Tanya calls the company's employees she has known all her life her “family.” As a young girl, she remembers visiting the business attached to their home and having employees put her on the meat scale to announce how much she had grown. Once older, Tanya took her own place among the company employees.
“I started out in the back packing bacon with an employee named Goldie,” she said. “Goldie had worked both with my grandpa and my dad.”
Tanya went on to work as a receptionist. “I bought the company's first computer and I still remember all those old codes. Because it was in the Rolodex days, I can even remember the addresses of many of our old customers then.
“Dad liked my handwriting, and back then he wanted a handwritten card included with every order we sent out,” she said. “So I was the one who signed every card. I remember going to the store to buy cards for customers and I would come out with a shopping cart full to the top with cards that I would sign in the evenings.”
“Back then I was very shy,” Tanya explained. “I was scared of people. I was scared of sales. But somewhere along the way, Dad began to see a level of professionalism in me that he pushed to develop.”
That development eventually led to her position as national sales director and executive vice president and finally CEO.
A few years ago, Tanya’s younger brother, Nathan, moved back to Wisconsin to immerse himself in the family business and he currently serves as supply chain manager.
Nueske's Applewood Smoked Meats completed an expansion of their plant in the fall of 2017 that positions it well for future growth, Tanya said. The new addition also includes a chef’s kitchen, a concept that was their Dad’s pride and joy. The kitchen was recently used in an Iron Chef-style competition where company sales team contestants were presented with mystery boxes of food to prepare.
Tanya said the professional kitchen is also used for research and development testing, enabling new product discoveries that will uphold Nueske's 85-year-long tradition of quality smoked meats and that would make the Nueske ancestors proud.
