They’ve Got the Beef

It’s quite likely that J&B today might be a large but mostly anonymous meat-production company if it weren’t for the next big development. In 1993, Mike Hageman initiated the purchase of the No Name Steaks brand from a South St. Paul retail meat company that made its product from a cut of beef called a “bottom butt flat steak.” J&B began manufacturing and marketing No Name Steaks from its St. Michael plant. It would soon expand the No Name line to include other meat and poultry products. J&B also developed a line of products under the Midwest Pride label.

Today, J&B has some 400 employees, nearly $450 million in annual sales, a fleet of more than 100 trailers serving nine states in the Upper Midwest, and cold-storage facilities in St. Michael and Detroit Lakes. But while it has expanded its facilities and technological capabilities, the company strives to maintain a small-company culture. J&B’s ordering system does rely on computers, but some 90 percent of orders are still taken by a person over the phone. This allows retailer-clients not only to talk to a live sales associate but get instant answers about whether a particular product is available and in what quantities, and what alternatives might be on hand if it’s not.

“The fact that we work off a live inventory is one of our biggest selling points,” explains Kurt Anderson, J&B’s vice president of retail sales. “Generally, if you buy from another wholesaler, you don’t know if you’ll get your order until the truck backs up to your door.”

J&B’s automated system kicks out a detailed tracking form that follows an order from raw product to finished cut to warehouse pallet. If the order comes from one of J&B’s food-service customers or a high-volume restaurateur like the Timber Lodge Steakhouse chain (one of the company’s newer clients), it’s sent to the plant’s custom-cutting line.

“Our tracking cards have an order number and cutting specifications, but also information on who cut the product, who packages it, what raw material was used—which means if there ever is a recall, we can trace the shipment right back to the vendor,” says Russ Sjoquist, J&B’s vice president of production and food-service sales. J&B’s system allows the company to provide a wider range of individual cuts and products than its larger competitors. On any given day, Sjoquist estimates, J&B may produce up to 300 different varieties of products.

J&B procures “raw product” from more than 100 different vendors across the country. Some of its top vendors are Minnesota companies—Cargill (beef, smoked meats), Hormel (turkeys), Gold’n Plump (chicken), and Morey’s (seafood products).