Made in Montana– Meat

The Sysco food show is coming up here in Billings in a week or so. I get to go as part of my job. Its great to go around and talk to all the reps and try new food products. I thought I’d put in a plug for Montana companies that manufacture meat products as an “eat Local” option. There has been a lot of buzz lately about eating local food, carbon footprints, food miles and all that jazz.
Anyway, Daily’s from Missoula has an applewood smoked bacon that is tasty. Their peppered bacon is good too.

Stampede Packing Company from Kalispell will be there also. T.S. Laurens and his wife are nice people who put out a very good product under the “Redneck” label. I’ve used Prairie Fire (jalapeno), Chedder Dawg, Linguica, Sports Dawg, Reggiano Italiano, Andouille, Hot Hen, Bockwurst, Swiss Bockwurst, Polish, Garlic and Old Fashioned franks at work. I use Redneck breakfast links at home and find them milder that other brands. Less sage I think. Their hot Italian bulk sausage is great in spaghetti and lasagna. For home I get their products at Albertsons.

Montana Range Brand is an outfit from Forsyth MT that uses Piedmontese cattle. They can be found on the internet.

Miles City Packing has a good variety of beef cuts, also on-line.

When you are in the grocery store look for Cloverdale brand. Even though they are based in Mandan ND they could be considered local for eastern Montana.

Pat Seder at Seder Ridge Turkey Farms in the Huntley/Ballentine area east of Billings has some good products that are sold in the local IGA stores. I don’t know if they are state wide or not. The fresh turkey is a lot more flavorfull that frozen.

Local options make sense to me.

Posted in Beef, Chicken, Ingredients, Pork | 3 Comments »