This transcript accompanies the audio from our conversation at a place that offers fantastic hickory-smoked country ham and bacon. You can see photos and video of the smokehouse, the process they undergo to make some of Kentucky State Fair’s blue ribbon hams, as well as hear audio of it at the link above.
36:49
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
ham, business, smoke, people, country, grand champion, piece, derby, kentucky, ronnie, year, eat, cure, bacon, sell, cook, big, sausage, tradition, biscuit
SPEAKERS
Ronny Drennan, Grounded by the Farm, Beth Drennan
Grounded by the Farm 00:03
Food is more than just what’s on our plate. It’s the places where it’s grown. It’s the people who grow it and so much more. Join me, Janice person, your host on grounded by the farm every other week as we talk about the foods we love. This week, we are in Kentucky, and we’re talking to Ronnie and Beth Drinan. And I gotta tell you, folks, this was an interview. I was like, so anxious to get booked. That I was like a little school girl, I think as I contacted their website, and I was trying, like, how do I convince these people? They want to spend time talking to me about what they do when really what I’m thinking is my family is all gonna love this episode more than any episode I’ve ever done. Because I’m at Broadbent, ham, it’s ham and bacon that to my family sets the standard. It’s like the 10 on the scale. And anything you get somewhere else is going to be judged against knowing this exists. They have country ham, we’re Southerners. So we love country ham. So we’re going to talk with Ronnie and Beth about all those kinds of things. And I’m going to start out with a simple question about what’s the country ham versus ham? That’s probably what you’re best known for. Is that right? Yes, ma’am. All right, so Ronnie, why don’t you tell me what what is the difference of fresh ham versus a country ham?
Ronny Drennan 01:27
Well, country ham is salt cured you may have some sugar in in the cure mix but you know usually it’s either Salt Sugar, sodium nitrate, maybe sodium nitrite to some people may put some brown sugar in it and some people may not even put no sugar at all. Okay, but country ham is it’s aged it has to be aged to water activity has to come down whether they will not spoil you know you see them hanging in grocery stores and people think that they’re going to spoil well you know they’re not going to because the water activity is down to where it can spoil. And then the other ham is water added you know it’s had it might have sugar and salt in it but it’s got a lot more water added to it and it will spoil outside of refrigeration. And that’s the difference between a country ham and city hams. A green ham is just a ham that’s fresh off the home
Grounded by the Farm 02:29
right so for me country ham has a different flavor a different a little bit texture is different when I usually country him is that right?
Ronny Drennan 02:39
That’s right you know when you dry it you’re taking country ham you’re taking water out you’re driving so it gets drier and it you know if you slash it real thick and cook it Yeah, it’s hard in chewy you know. And then of course city ham and you know it’s moist and got a lot of water in it. The fact they can add about 10% water to city ham. You know in country ham, we have to lose 18% Yeah. And so
Grounded by the Farm 03:09
even the packaging looks so different, right? So for a city ham, as we’re calling it, it’s all it’s it’s got so much liquid when you open it up, it is all in that plastic wrap that’s absolutely airtight. And a ham that you’re talking about the country hams usually have kind of a netting or something that they’re hanging in
Ronny Drennan 03:30
the hole ham. Yes. It’d be wrapped in paper or cloth sack and in a netting hanging, you know in the store somewhere.
Grounded by the Farm 03:38
Yeah. So how would you prepare country ham? Does it depend how you want to do it?
Ronny Drennan 03:45
It depends upon how you want to eat it. You know? You don’t want to overcook it. Yeah, that’s the biggest thing most people overcooked country ham and it’s tough. Some people eat it row slash it perfectly seeing and eat it row. Really? Yeah, that sounds just like Bushido. You know, it’s aged in it. You know, and some people eat it that way and some you know, don’t
Grounded by the Farm 04:11
pan out seasons come in soon. So I can see myself now trying something different with cantaloupes and country ham. And so it really is similar to the European press utos and some of that it’s summer.
Ronny Drennan 04:25
Yes, yes.
Grounded by the Farm 04:26
Okay. Is you mentioned earlier when we’re just chatting that you you have sometimes people come in that are buying it because they like that kind of smaller, smaller business. The model is different for you guys and you have a different level of care and and personal attention to the hands pursued the biggest differences that can be that it sliced a lot thinner or is it a different curing process
Ronny Drennan 04:55
or they basically use the same curing process They may for the Europeans, I thought I don’t think they smoke. True. A true prosciutto ham. I don’t believe he smoked. I’m not 100 Yeah, but in the curing process, and then they let it mo different times in some of the mode processes, but as far as the curing, and of course, the length of time, you know, you’re looking to go well over a year to a year and a half to two years on a true pursuit. Oh, type. How
Grounded by the Farm 05:28
does somebody become an expert in ham and stuff like that, Ronnie?
Ronny Drennan 05:33
I don’t know. I guess I just study it and learn
Grounded by the Farm 05:37
to say you at least have a lot of expertise if you’re not willing to say you’re an expert, but But seriously, how did how did you guys come to be in the business of hams and bacon?
Ronny Drennan 05:49
Well, I was raised on a dairy farm. Yeah. And my dad cured hams when I was kid, you know, because we had there were six of us and he we killed homes and he cared a few hams but he always sold them to the grocery store. So I was grown and married before I ever ate country ham because he sold the hams and we he could get cash for that. Well, he got cash about cheap bacon, if we’re up to feed us instead, because he could get a lot more for the hams.
Grounded by the Farm 06:17
But, but so you’re in a part of Kentucky where a lot of people probably used to smoke hams at home,
Ronny Drennan 06:23
all the farmers and we still have a lot of farmers in in Kentucky that still, you know, especially in Western Kentucky that still cure their own hams in their little smokehouses. You know, back, you know, in January, we have I got a list of farmers that I call when I get fresh hams in so they can you know, care for the years. So it’s a you know, it’s a tradition, it’s, you know, it’s a lot of businesses that 20 years ago are not in business like they were you know, some of them have gone to the quicker care hams. And there’s not as many of us long aged still out there as there used to be.
Grounded by the Farm 07:04
So let’s talk about all the different things that you do to age and cure a ham and get it from when the hams come in the door like you say, to where it’s gonna go out. And you may be able to shorten it in some places, or you may want to go in full depth, but you bring in a ham from an animal that’s recently been slaughtered for use in this way you bring in bacon, which is the bellies. And then what do you start doing first.
Ronny Drennan 07:34
The first side when we bring them in off the truck, we start hand rubbing each ham with a mixture of salt, sugar and sodium nitrate, okay. Then we stack them on shelves or in combos and put them in a cure room at around 38 to 40 degrees. They stay there for approximately 12 days 10 to 12 days. We bring them out, rub each ham again, it’s the same mixture. Yeah. And then we put them back in the cure room. And after they’ve been in the cure room from the day I get them 38 to 42 days, we bring them out or shoulder salt off of them any excess off of them, wash them down, put them in a stockinette and hang them on racks and I take them to a nickel equalization room that starts out at about 50 degrees somewhere in I usually leave them in there about three weeks. And then I’ll move on out of that room to another room that are usually it’s between 60 and 65 that I’ll leave them in there for maybe a week to sort of get them where they’re dragging down and pulling all the salt towards the middle of the hand. And then after that week I’ll move them to my aging room which is around anywhere from 75 to 85 degrees and then we start aging and then after they get dragged we then we start smoking them. And you know smoke is more for cosmetic than anything it really don’t change the flavor of a country ham is
Grounded by the Farm 09:03
it really not. You know, there’s not the colors. It makes the caller richer.
Ronny Drennan 09:09
It gives it that brown pecan looking color but yeah, there’s probably not one in 10,000 people that you could cook a piece of smoked and smoked ham and they can tell you the difference. I love it and then of course then you know we we like to age our hands to over six months before we start selling Okay, between six months and a year and we do do some of the Berkshires that we age up for 18 months. It’s the purebred and free range that we do a lot longer for certain markets and our bike and we do the very same thing we bring it in. We take a mixture of salt, sugar and sodium nitrite and hand rub each belly and then we stack it on chef we put it in a cure room for We’re one week and then after that week we bring it out, wash it off, hang it up, let it dry and and we put it in the smoker and smoke it for about a week or two we get the color we like and now it will change the smoke will change the flavor of baking. Okay, you’ll
Beth Drennan 10:16
taste tasted
Grounded by the Farm 10:18
a couple of different types of smoke. You have a hickory smoke. See I’ve obviously it knows you’re baking and applewood smoked. And a maple and a maple. I love though the pepper bacon. Yeah, so. So do you do all those smokes in the same smoke room? And you just change up the kind of woodchips the reason? Yes. So for the country, ham doesn’t matter what kind of wood you’re using.
Ronny Drennan 10:47
Usually I use hickory. Okay, you know, first some apple or maple left in it when I start, you know, but most the time I smoke the I am an apple. I mean,
Grounded by the Farm 10:59
I agree. I agree. I understand. So this business, you’re relatively well established in it, but it’s been going way before your family. So it started in the early 1900s Robins did with the Broadbent family,
Beth Drennan 11:17
they started selling their products from their farm in 1909. Yeah. And then, in 1965, Smith Broadbent, the third, he and his roommate, his college roommate decided they were going to open a country and business that they could sell mail order and start a mail order division. And at that time, it went under USDA inspection. And so that allowed them to sell wholesale, if they wanted to, it allowed them to ship it. And so that’s when the mail order division came to life was was in 1965 66.
Grounded by the Farm 11:51
That’s amazing. Because seriously, I can imagine this stuff gets sent anywhere around the country pretty quick.
Beth Drennan 11:58
It does, if you if it goes out on Monday, it’ll be anywhere in the United States by Friday. So being in the middle of the United States is really an advantage as far as being in the mail order business.
Grounded by the Farm 12:10
Yeah, I think this whole corridor was that a lot of interstates y’all are right alongside one too, right? That’s distributions pretty easy between all the different service providers and some of them major hubs. Right, your your state that’s right. Can you tell me is there like an area that country that is most into your market? Like I mean, where where can you find Broadbent hands most I saw last night it was on the restaurant menu, right house, I think it was.
Beth Drennan 12:41
We were in a lot of restaurants. Across the South and across the Northeast, yeah, that’s where the biggest part of our business is. But we’re also with quite a few customers in California, as well
Grounded by the Farm 12:54
as expanding on your website, I kept seeing a lot of people in places like Florida that were like, well, I moved down here and I’ve got all these friends from up north and they don’t know what a country ham is. So I always have your sit down, and it’s always a big hit. So you guys are a smaller player in a market with really big companies and corporations. How many small players or mid sized players or how to yell even describe what Broadbent is, because I’m not sure that people outside of Kentucky know the name very well, unless they’ve had a connection to you for some reason.
Ronny Drennan 13:32
You know, yeah, we are very small. And there’s probably in Kentucky, and probably Tennessee, there’s probably four or five of us. It’s some of it’s a little smaller. And some of this may be a little bigger than we are. Yeah, that’s, you know, the smile. Like we are that’s and then you got some that’s up the next level. That’s that’s pretty good. It’s pretty big in the grocery industry, that pretty much goes to the Kroger or Walmart’s and, and but you know, we just sort of found our niche. Yeah, you know, years ago, and you couldn’t compete with the big guys. So you just sort of had to figure a way to a market today that day, you weren’t looking at it that time,
Grounded by the Farm 14:28
right. So where you can put your focus that they might be overlooking. Find that niche that really works for your business. So when you look at, I guess, how do you start thinking about getting into the ham business? You said you were you were raised on a dairy farm? What did you study? That peer Did you study business or agriculture?
Ronny Drennan 14:51
No. I didn’t really study it. Just to be honest That was the furthest thing from
Grounded by the Farm 15:04
appreciate that.
Ronny Drennan 15:06
When we were when we were 21, we started a service station, okay, didn’t have a job and was married and had a young child and needed to go to work. So I bought a service station that was our first job. So we bought a service station and just two or three years later, we bought a boat plan you know, just distributed the gas to farmers. And then about two years after that, thanks to the Uncle Sam, they come up with satisfied programmer they took a whole chunk of our business away because the farmers quit farming you know, so. So after a few years, we went into woodworking. So
Grounded by the Farm 15:50
doing business. So what
Ronny Drennan 15:53
we just had the microwave and then the woodworking, we did it for about 15 years, and then it along with part of the gas that time and a good friend of ours had this business for sale, he was gonna he was the broker. And he was telling us we ought to look at it. So. So you know, when we looked at it, and then the rest is history from there, we would business sort of fizzled out, but we were like doing it that time. Yeah, two years. And so we started in the country ham business. Well, the
Beth Drennan 16:25
truth is Ronnie fell in love with it. The first day he went looked at it. It took me a little longer, but I got on board, but he it had him the first day he looked at it.
Grounded by the Farm 16:38
Well, I mean, it seems like if you’ve done several different businesses at different times, then you’d know what you want when you see it. Right. Like, you know, sort of what interests you and things like that?
Ronny Drennan 16:50
Well, it was interesting, but it was I don’t think anybody starting out would have a clue what he’s getting into
Grounded by the Farm 16:59
that I think that’s the same with almost every small business, you have no idea what you’re getting into at least you’d run other small businesses. So you know, some of those things. Yeah.
Ronny Drennan 17:10
And then of course, you got the, you know, the USDA, you know, regulation, you know, so it’s a at times it’s challenging. Yeah. And, but it’s it’s been good to us. So we’ve been very blessed at it.
Grounded by the Farm 17:24
So how much of it do you think is is still relying on tradition and then how have some of the technologies changed because I’m going to show pictures of the smoke room and stuff and that looks like maybe that’s not the way your dad smoked hams but it’s it’s really closely related like the process is all similar so Is it is it a traditional business with some technology that helps make it easier to do a bit more ham or
Beth Drennan 17:53
when the beginning we have the luxury of electricity to control the temperatures of those rooms we still mimic the temperatures the farmers want to die off yeah, to cure a ham but we have the luxury of being assured it’s gonna stay at that temperature. Yeah. Oh, that’s
Grounded by the Farm 18:08
a that’s a really good point.
Ronny Drennan 18:10
We can cure you around because you know, you got to have the shoulder the wintertime the 38 and 40 degrees for certain length of time and then you got to have the 50 to 60 degrees for a certain length of time and then the hot weather to really cure you know, so you know using refrigeration does that but as far as the smoker, it does. It’s a lot safer. Yeah. You know the smoker we got that. It doesn’t ever create a fire just create smoke in it you know we do use wood dust and chips to make black in it you know but it has water that will put it out and it just blows smoke you know we’re he was set up little turbo sawdust and get it to smoke your Smokehouse and at the old place when we was at Cadis you know I cooked several 1000 pounds with no smoker would make a fire that it catch on fire or that I cook several 1000 pounds sausage to no grease left in it caught on fire so it is it’s a lot safer the technology is it makes it a lot safer in the risk of burning down the building or kitchen it on fire is a lot less Yeah. And then wrote in the product by getting too hot is a lot listed.
Grounded by the Farm 19:35
Yeah. And obviously you’re you’re focused on safety for your employees. When I was walking around. I noticed there’s there’s a good bit of safety involved in food safety and you got to make sure you’re crossing all those kinds of T’s. Well, you guys have a team of couple of dozen or so people that looks like and do keep employees a good long time. Do you have some employees that stay with you?
Ronny Drennan 20:01
We have some I’ve got some that’s been here, probably 10 years. Yeah. Yeah, you know, and most of most everybody has been here two or three years. I mean, you know, some of our offices has changed. Some of them retired and did some things. But I had, you know, a couple that worked for us for 1012 years. That had worked in the business when we bought it for, you know, she had a stroke and wasn’t able to work and another guy had some heart issues that he had to that’s part of town work anymore, but they had worked with us for years and they might have still been with us had they not had health issues that kept them from work.
Beth Drennan 20:49
And he came back one day last year during December just one day, but he just came back and worked with us one day when we were
Grounded by the Farm 20:55
he just wanted a little bit of that rush of the holiday. So the holiday season is your rush period. So you mentioned bringing in hams in January. How long do you bring in hams to keep adding it up?
Ronny Drennan 21:09
I will bring in hams basically all year long. Okay, up till I try not to bring any in in November in December, just for the fact of the being some hectic shipping. Okay, but you know, we try to keep him so that you know when Christmas is over before you know what you’ve got. Easter and Derby we come in. So you’ve got to have hams ready. Before so you’re always it’s just
Grounded by the Farm 21:36
you forgetting Kentucky Derby week. Everything Kentucky is is on the line for Derby week. That’s right. Very much Local Foods, Local drinks, lots of bourbon, lots of country ham.
Ronny Drennan 21:50
country ham was a big tradition for Kentucky Derby. Yeah, yeah. It’s Derby has probably got bigger than Eastern now.
Grounded by the Farm 21:58
Has it?
Beth Drennan 22:01
That’s amazing. All over United States want that traditional, even if they’re not used to it. They want to try to do that tradition at a derby party. So the we’ll have people all over the United States order the cook slice country. And that’s that’s what the premium is for that?
Grounded by the Farm 22:14
Well, yeah, that’s funny, because I’ve actually been in Arizona and now the Think about it to watch derby. And I had to have the drinks, I had to have a ham. Because they were people who used to live in Kentucky. And so they host a big party every year for Derby Day and expose people to Kentucky culture and foods and stuff like that. So that’s amazing. One of the things that I caught that caught my eye with Robin is you guys have had the grand champion. Ham at the state fair. I’m not sure a lot of people understand how you grade or how you judge a ham to decide what makes something so perfect that it becomes a blue ribbon winner or grand champion you get you get like awards for that right?
Ronny Drennan 23:04
Well, the grand champion that came about in the 60s, okay, the Farm Bureau had a breakfast at the Kentucky State Fair. So they decided to have a ham auction to raise money for charity. And I think it started in the early 60s. And so you know, when they started the ham thing they the state has a state fair has, you know its conformation, the color of the ham, the to fat to lean, different things. aroma, aroma is number one,
Grounded by the Farm 23:41
I gotta say walking through this place aroma. I can see why you do well,
Ronny Drennan 23:44
but you got to probe it, stick it but the grand champion ham after that was actually whoever won the producer that won grand champion I am it was auctioned out there for Kentucky Farm Bureau Ham Breakfast they have every year and all the proceeds went to charity. And I think Smith when he started I think 1967 was the first year Smith entered the State Fair in if he said he wanted that year, and he had won it seven times when we bought a company in that in there. And since 99 We have won 13 times so the company has wanted 20 times all together. That’s where
Beth Drennan 24:32
we bought the company Smith pretty much told us you know, we had to keep up that tradition. We we had to win the state fair. So the first year we went, I don’t know we got maybe one second or third. We didn’t do very good. Maybe a fourth, but he just wasn’t very good. And so Ronnie asked the judge, Dr. Curtis Milton was the judge that year and Ronnie asked him said now what are you looking for? Wow, how did you judge this Sam so Dr. Milton took a good little while or Several meats are just getting zactly what he was looking for when he judged the ham. And so Ronnie went from that and went on. And I got an email yesterday that Dr. Milton passed away. But he was so he was part of our beginning of our tradition,
Ronny Drennan 25:14
you know that, hey, I’m a you know, the shape of it. To me, it’s like a beauty contest, you know, or, if you see a pretty woman, the first time you see her, you think she’s pretty, she still, if you see a pretty have the first time you see it, you still think it’s pretty,
Grounded by the Farm 25:31
I think a lot of people wouldn’t know what to look for to make to decide if I am pretty or not.
Ronny Drennan 25:39
That’s probably what you know, is the shape of the pump, and they don’t have a lot of wrinkles in it. Right, different things. You know, we, I guess after we had the first grand champion, we sort of knew what we were looking at. Yeah. And we always sort of went back over that. And
Grounded by the Farm 26:03
it’s a nice, it’s not just nice to get awards, but it also gets your name heard by more people, right?
Ronny Drennan 26:10
It does, you know, I guess in the ham business, and it’s often the Kentucky producers get to go to the state fair. So it basically gets, I guess, if you win, you gives you the sort of the bragging rights for the year. But, you know, the ham producers are a great bunch of guys, you know, they’re all you know, we’re all friends. And really, it’s just, you know, it’s good. It’s good for the ham industry as a whole because it does get a lot of publicity, you know, sometimes with the price it brings right. And you know, it’s sometimes just amazing what they bring.
Grounded by the Farm 26:50
Yeah, there have been some big prizes on Sunday.
Ronny Drennan 26:53
But a lot of people still still saying that we get part of that money, but it all goes to charity and you don’t even get your ham. But you do get to advertise it’s worth it. But no, we don’t.
Grounded by the Farm 27:11
Well, I think I think that happens with a lot of state fair things, right? Like my grandma used to enter cakes or pas or some of that stuff and I’m not sure we ever got anything back from it right like that’s judges get to eat whatever they want. And then somehow it disappeared before it got back to us. Something like a ceramic piece you get back but I am. Yeah, somewhere. It’s just
Ronny Drennan 27:34
we get to ash bucket.
Beth Drennan 27:37
That trophy trophy trophy.
Grounded by the Farm 27:39
Yeah, have to take pictures that up on the website with some of the videos showing how you guys do your business.
Ronny Drennan 27:48
You know, it’s an honor to win the state fair. It you know, we all sort of poke fun at each other the producers but it is an honor to be able to win the Kentucky State Fair.
Grounded by the Farm 28:01
Yeah. Do you mind telling me how you guys like to eat ham the most? Like is it a like a ham steak at dinner? Or do you have breakfast for dinner? Or do you have
Beth Drennan 28:13
now every every now and then I’ll take like the breakfast steaks and they’re thinner cut that way down. And I’ll fry those for supper. Oh, and I also like them on the grill. I’ll put them on the grill and grill them. And a lot of people ask how we cook them? Well I like to once that fat gets translucent where you can see through it, it’s time to flip it over and then it just didn’t take a minute or two because like I said earlier over cooking is one of the main things people do. But if you’ll it doesn’t take long at all those breakfast and dinner steaks to cook about us because they’re thinner slice and that’s that’s the main way we like we also a lot of the cooked ham now every church function we have if I don’t show up with cook everybody’s like well where’s the ham today?
Grounded by the Farm 28:55
That would become your trademark.
Ronny Drennan 29:00
Most of the ham I eat ish when we cook them. Yeah, when you bring them out of that hot water and you pull that bolt out and there’s little slivers of ham on it you cut a little piece off that bone or something and eat it when it’s hot it’s that’s when it’s the best director and you know I don’t get a whole big piece but you just Yeah, just a little bit here and there you budget I’ve had people that come in and say they don’t like talking to him and then they met here six months or a year and when you’re cooking ham you see some of the people chew it all the time. Like you liked well I’ve started the life in one way slash the cook country ham. I’ll either pick up a slice and eat it then as we’re slashing it. Just call that I guess quality control. Yeah.
Grounded by the Farm 29:50
Well, I noticed as we were walking through I’ve got some video from some of the processing side of things of and I noticed your order Unlike biscuit slices today which I immediately knew were biscuit slices because I love getting those my cousin of mine I guess it’s you know in the south everybody’s COUSINS It was probably my mom’s cousins or something but she used to make Canvas cuts all the time so from childhood on ham biscuits have been some that have been like a cornerstone and I have bought God knows how many of your biscuit slices but I noticed on some of the machinery there were small pieces that were not fitting the special need that you had. Those are like trimmings or things like that. I’ve noticed y’all actually sell that stuff.
Ronny Drennan 30:39
Yeah, you know a lot of times you get a piece that’s too small for a biscuit, but you don’t want to throw it away so we put it in a package and sell it for seasoning meat. Yeah, you know, it makes a great season meat. You don’t want to overseas and it with Caterham. I know who are the girls here said she made a pot of beans and put a whole pound of that country ham seasoning in a pot of beans which made it just a little too salty
Grounded by the Farm 31:09
might that might might change the flavor the beans a lot
Ronny Drennan 31:13
you know you could put some in it but you don’t want to put quite that much in
Grounded by the Farm 31:17
right. But I love how that works for you know the question of food waste and things like that and making sure you’re using what’s viable and and things like that. On the bacon Do you have similar kinds of pieces,
Ronny Drennan 31:29
the small ends and paces we package them and sell them for season and make on the country ham, we actually take the little pieces of it take the fat out of it in the land and we will run it through a sausage grinder and might ground ham or that you can make ham salad. Wow. Man I either pickles or whatever, but it’s ground real fine. And in Miami. So love. We take all the little pieces like that of the cooked ham and grind it through the sausage grinder and then bagging up and sell it that way. And then of course when we take the skin off the country ham, we sell the skins for seasoning or whatever they want to do with them. And then we have the same way with little pieces of the meat that you know you get to skin in a chunk. Sometimes it’s leftover we sell it all for season.
Grounded by the Farm 32:20
I don’t know if it’s because we’re southern or what but you make use of everything you possibly can when it comes to this stuff. My mom’s dad was a butcher. So that was certainly her her way of doing things. Well, that gets like the primary questions I had down here to ask you about. I know I’d love to ask you if there’s something I was missing.
Beth Drennan 32:42
Now the sausage is another forget the sausage another sound guys making tradition that we stuff it in the cloth sack and we hang it up to smoke it so that smoke goes to that cloth sack and it really has a good smoky taste. And it’s different. It’s different from like grocery store sausage, you know, it’s it’s called as country smoked sausage. But it has a lot of flavor. Anything you put it in, it’s going to add a lot of flavor. If it’s something you add sausage to sausage a recipe it’s really going to add a lot of flavor to it. Sausage great
Grounded by the Farm 33:15
I didn’t want to have that on my shopping list for today. And now I’ve got yet another thing just keep going. I end up going out of here with bags and bags. Like the gentleman when I came in, there was a gentleman walking out with as many bags as he could carry in his hands of different bacon and ham and stuff that he’d gotten. You guys sell her locally, but you also sell online, you sell through a variety of retail and restaurants and stuff.
Ronny Drennan 33:46
We do we mail order and then we have our wholesale division that we sell to you know, some small, small mom and pop grocery stores, farm markets of restaurants. And just you know, pretty much whoever I asked we just don’t we have never been you know, we’re different than so many other companies that the big, big change, you know, we’re just not a fit for them for some reason.
Grounded by the Farm 34:19
Right? Right. Well, it’s okay. Yeah, it’s okay to fit everywhere. I don’t know everywhere either. Right?
Ronny Drennan 34:25
I’ve always said I’d rather have a $10,000 customers then 110 $1,000 lacking lose one and I still got 9000
Grounded by the Farm 34:43
That’s a great way to look at it. Balance that business outside.
Ronny Drennan 34:47
We’re not you know, we you know, we don’t feel like anybody, any wholesale customers too small for us.
Grounded by the Farm 34:54
Yeah, they don’t. So if somebody has a food shop and they wanted to start this Selling your hams in their shop, they could get in touch. And if folks want to buy it online for their own home or a chef that’s kind of wanting to try said that a little bit different and bring some of that Southern piece on, then get in touch with you guys. Y’all are pretty easy to find you put in broadbill ham in Google, and it brought me straight to you guys and cue answering on emails. It’s is it Robin hams.com? That’s right. Yes. So folks are welcome to get in touch with you here. You got social media. Does your daughter do social media for you guys are
Beth Drennan 35:36
both of them in the office. Take care of that.
Grounded by the Farm 35:39
I love it, because I’ve got some great shots of things. Well, I really appreciate your time today. Thank you. Thank
Beth Drennan 35:46
you for coming.
Grounded by the Farm 35:50
That finishes out our episode. As I mentioned during the show, we’ve got video of a lot of these kinds of pieces of their production practice and really encourage you to go check that out on the website grounded by the farm.com also hit up Broadbent hams, find him on Instagram, Facebook and their website where you can order stuff and have it shipped directly to you. I had a friend Milton and Connecticut has been looking forward to this episode because after it as I told him about it and showed him a few pictures, he had to have some ordered. So I hope that you enjoy your next BLT or ham sandwich or whatever it may be. And now you have a little more insight into how it’s smoked and Dan will talk to you again in a couple of week
