Meat&Poultry - February 2012 - 36

HOLMES SMOKEHOUSE

The 21-ft. mobile smokehouse trailer travels year-round to grocery stores, sporting events, state fairs and other specialty events giving customers a chance to taste Holmes’ products. (Photo
courtesy of Holmes Smokehouse)

“My goal is to continue to put this brand on the map,” Roth says. “We have distribution all over the state of Texas and we’re getting into parts of Oklahoma and Louisiana. I want to continue to transform this company from a regional company to a super regional company, and potentially go even further than that.” which will bring the product into other southeastern states such as Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, the company sells a lot of its products under privatelabel brands, which allows even more consumers to enjoy Holmes sausage. Football fans during the 2011 NFL season also got the chance to enjoy Holmes sausage when visiting Arlington’s Cowboys Stadium. Holmes became the exclusive sausage purveyor at the stadium this fall. “Cowboys stadium called us looking for a high-end regional sausage to offer at their stadium,” Roth explains. “They were looktured five different smoked sausage varieties, but now offers much more. Their line now includes a selection of smoked sausages (including jalapeño, green onion, pork and venison and Andouille), Cajun-style boudin varieties, as well as bacon, hot dogs and jerky. Holmes is now working on a line of gourmet smoked chicken sausages. “We needed to have a breadth of product so that we could be attractive outside of Texas, so we developed an extensive line with different fl avors that would attract different consumers,” Roth explains. “First, we looked at the states contiguous with Texas, and we found out there was a shortage of good local sausage brands – all they ever saw in their meat cases was the national brands.” Holmes has been working to fill that void. In addition to partnering with chains such as Winn-Dixie, ing for something different so we developed a jalapeño and cheese variety that you can only get at the stadium.” The call from the Cowboys wasn’t the fi rst time Holmes had been approached with a special product request. Holmes sausage was also selected to be served at the Presidential Inaugural Ball in 2005 as a part of the ball’s Texas-food theme for Texasborn George W. Bush. addition to being BRC (British Retail Consortium) and Steritech-certified in food safety. Its 25,000-sq.-ft. processing and packaging plant in Burton, Texas, was the former home of the Schultz family-owned Burton Sausage company. Holmes bought out Burton Sausage in 2008, kept the 30-year-old Burton brand and its products and brought in production operations of the Holmes products as well. “The plant was in great shape when we purchased it – all we did was add some new stuffers and packaging equipment, and now we can produce 10 times more than we did at our old facility,” Roth explains. Roth is hoping an expansion will be necessary in the future as the Holmes Smokehouse brand continues to grow. “We’re going to keep promoting our product and see where that takes us. We’ve already gotten a lot of people to try it and they love it,” he says. When Roth took over Holmes Smokehouse at 34 years of age, he had a dream: “I had this vision that this company could be the next Oscar Mayer, but that doesn’t happen overnight – slow and steady wins the race,” he says. “We’ll continue to come out with innovative, different products that customers can’t fi nd anywhere else – and people will keep trying them and loving them.” ■
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Something for everyone
In order to branch out beyond the Texas borders, Holmes needed to expand its product line. In 2000, Holmes fea-

“I had this vision that this company could be the next Oscar Mayer.”

Dreaming big
Though being No. 1 in Houston, served at Cowboys Stadium and having been chosen as the food served at a presidential Inauguration are all accolades to be proud of, Roth says he’s more proud of his state-of-the-art facility, all-star R&D and marketing team and exemplary food-safety certifications. Holmes received recognition from Walmart for its food-safety systems in

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Meat&Poultry - February 2012

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