They’ve Got the Beef

Customer Customized

“What J&B offers that is unique is the convenience and quality the consumer is looking for—and quality is the operative word,” says Jamie Pfuhl, executive director of the Minnesota Grocers Association. Quality “drives their sales.”

Nine months ago, the Bloomington-based Timber Lodge chain switched its $5-million-a-year order from the beef vendor it had worked with for 14 years to J&B. “My peculiar need is that they cut our steaks to spec, both in the way the steaks are trimmed and how much marbling each contains,” says Pete Bedzyk, president of the mid-range steakhouse chain. Once a week, at each of Timber Lodge’s 15 restaurants, one case of each cut is opened, and the product inside is weighed and measured to ascertain whether the shipment meets the restaurant’s requirements. “They’re phenomenal,” Bedzyk says. “In the last four months, I don’t think there’s been a single week when they were out of tolerance.”

One key way J&B ensures quality is through speedy delivery—a critical factor in the perishable-food industry. J&B’s fleet of trailers operates by means of a relay system, with trucks leaving the St. Michael plant beginning at five in the evening, driving to one of four offsite shuttle locations in Omaha, Nebraska, Madison and Antigo, Wisconsin, and Detroit Lakes, where fresh drivers come on board and deliver products to customers’ loading docks by three or four the following morning, less than 12 hours after they’ve left St. Michael.

The Kowalski’s chain now purchases all of its beef—which represents between 35 and 40 percent of the chain’s meat sales—from J&B. In a typical week, Kowalski’s receives its beef, including No Name Steaks, a variety of frozen red-meat and fish items, hot dogs, Midwest Pride chicken breasts, as well as smaller supplies of products such as corned-beef briskets and soup bones all from J&B. “We made the move because we believe they are going to manage that area of our business better than anyone else,” says Boyd Oase, Kowalski’s director of meat and seafood.

Research chef Frank Petersen is one reason Oase feels that way. He challenged Petersen to develop a new line of marinated chicken breasts, which will be marketed under Kowalski’s house brand; Petersen recently came up with 10 new products unique to the chain, including chicken mole and Thai curry pesto. “We essentially gave [Petersen] a general direction,” Oase says. “We wanted a clean product, no preservatives, with unique flavors. Frank not only developed our new line [which will be rolled out in the next few months], but he went off and sourced the raw chicken product to meet our specifications.”

Oase says that J&B’s approach to business “is very similar to ours. We’re providing a point of difference that nobody else is offering, and that seems to be their philosophy, too. They operate their production and distribution business in a way that larger warehouse operations just can’t—which is to provide a higher service level with a willingness to look at product lines and tailor them individually.”