Main Street Wholesale Meats maintains two aging rooms, which require daily attention and expertise learned over the past 70 years.
 

Besides the premium whole-muscle cuts, the plant’s ground products, including beef, pork and veal, are all produced on site. One of Main Street’s signature ground beef products is a custom-made mixture known as the “1946 blend,” an upscale product made with ground Wagyu brisket, boneless short rib meat, Angus chuck and prime-aged rib cap. “It has a different fat content and a different kind of fat and it’s at a higher price point,” Lee says.

The company also produces fresh hamburger patties every day, in up to 10 different sizes. The expertise in producing these products is just as vital to maintaining the quality and reputation of the company as its high-end, whole-muscle cuts.

“We also do custom blends for probably 20 different customers,” Lee says. Requests range from blending ground pork with beef to mixing in bacon and special specs for the coarseness of the grind.

The operation is small enough that many of its workers wear several hats, such as an order picker working on the packaging line. Likewise, delivery drivers are expected to ensure their trucks are loaded properly while administrative personnel facilitate logistics and ensure accurate billing and pricing of products.

Stockers work in the background, checking incoming raw materials and outgoing products for proper weights. Lee is quick to accentuate the value of the sanitation shift at the plant, calling those workers “the unsung heroes.” US Dept. of Agriculture inspectors are on hand at the plant each morning at 2:00 to perform pre-operational inspection to ensure on-time production start-up that is scheduled to begin at 3 a.m. sharp.

The company has staked its reputation on production of whole-muscle products and doesn’t dabble in manufacturing value-added, seasoned or breaded products for wholesale customers from the processing facility. The company does market a variety of sausage utilizing third party co-packers and distributors.

High-quality, raw product used by Main Street is another key to its success. For its beef supply chain, it relies on Greater Omaha Packing for quality and reliability. “They have the most consistently trimmed, excellent product in the market,” Kent Seelig says. The plant receives fresh poultry every morning from several local suppliers, while relying on longtime partnerships with Atlantic Veal, Catelli Veal, Superior Farms for lamb and G&C Foods for boxed beef, among others.

“We like to stay with our suppliers,” Kent says, “we’re very loyal,” a characteristic he says was maintained since the days when his father founded the company.

While catering to its customers is a top priority for Main Street and Farmingdale, Kent’s son points out that perhaps just as important is for his company to be a good customer.

“One of the things my father has taught me is that paying our suppliers is one of the most important things,” Lee says. “Paying our payables very promptly is something we take very seriously and I think that has a lot to do with the great relationships we have with them.”