Chicago craft sausage company to soon use only Iowa pork

by | Feb 20, 2017 | 5 Ag Stories, News

LISTEN: Money Matters 2-21-17

A Chicago-based craft sausage company owner and Iowa native prides himself for using only Iowa-raised pork.

Hundreds of bacon-lovers descended on downtown Des Moines Saturday for the tenth annual Blue Ribbon Bacon festival. It covered four floors of the Iowa events center.

One of the vendors, Lance Avery with Big Fork Brands out of Chicago, says he?s attended each festival from the beginning.

?Between year one and today it is definitely beyond the numbers. It is also just the amount of different creative sides of bacon you can see. What I did when I was at the first bacon fest was a bacon maple pumpkin cheesecake but everyone else had a bacon-wrapped scallop or a piece of bacon. Now you see a ton of stuff.?

Avery says he?s always had a passion for bacon and with the quality of sausage declining he saw an opportunity.

?We cram as much bacon in every encased meat that we do. You know how they say bacon makes everything better? We?re making sausage better with bacon,? Avery says.

?I?m and Iowa boy myself. I grew up in Spencer. I?m going to meet with a processing plant in Webster City soon. They are going to start making our sausage too and it?s going to be hogs are raised in Iowa, bacon is made in Iowa and sausage is made in Iowa too. It is going to be an all Iowa product very soon.?

Avery adds next time you pull out the frying pan try using bacon as a substitute for butter or oil and you?ll be surprised by the difference of flavors.