Sometimes successful small meat businesses are defined and remembered by the variety of quality products they produce, their outstanding service or even by a picturesque landmark building. But there is one shop in Summersville, Mo., that staked and earned its reputation by putting a team of clear thinkers from many disciplines together and really understanding what potential customers wanted and deserved.

It began when Ernie Zimmerman moved into a small existing meat shop in 2003. He opened the enterprise under the name of Zimmerman Meats, with an eye to learning and serving the needs of his community, eventually selling the state-inspected plant to brothers Jon and Josh Cartwright in 2015.

Jon was introduced to the trade working in the processing facility on the campus of College of the Ozarks, in Hollister, Mo., when studying business as a student there. Brother Josh came to the business with several years of experience in food distribution at Kraft Foods. Both had first-hand knowledge of the customers’ needs from having built livestock production operations of their own. In 2021, they brought Isaac Keene, a friend and business administrator, on board as general manager.

‘Guess you could say they thought things through. The Summersville plant was expanded to provide a total of 19,000 square feet and came under USDA inspection, which brought the opportunity to serve a broader market. The plant retained its small retail meat shop and continued its focus primarily on slaughter under inspection and custom processing.

In the meantime, the company built and opened two other retail meat shops in Marshfield and Salem, about 100 miles apart and both in rural communities. Each of the new stores has a small footprint, ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 square feet.

“Our retail stores have standard grocery items and bulk food items in addition to our meats,” Keene explains. “The retail store in Salem features a small deli with handmade sandwiches. All of our slaughter and most of the cutting and processing is done at our plant in Summersville. This better utilizes the equipment and resources at our plant, which is a central location where we break down carcasses and make bratwurst, jerky, summer sausages and other cured or cooked meats. It also helps keep our retail locations clean, reduces storage problems and simplifies the job for employees at those locations.”

Zimmerman's One Chop meat snacksThe "meat plank" format distinguishes Zimmerman's One Chop product from the myriad of competitors in the meat snack space. (Source: Zimmerman Meats LLC)



New opportunities

This is where the real traction for Zimmerman Meats is found: leveraging existing resources and processes to develop new opportunities. For example, producers and customers who might never have considered a 200-mile round trip to the original Summersville location to drop-off their livestock and pick-up their meats are now able to deliver those live animals to drop points near each of the retail stores, and the finished products are returned to the retail location for pick-up — which has significantly expanded the plant’s service area. They are currently booked about two months out for custom slaughter and processing.

A second example of this application of existing resources to meet a broad range of customer needs is found in the array of private label and co-packing clients that Zimmerman Meats serves.

“We provide private labeling for the inspected processing of over 50 livestock producers who can then take those products to market under their own name,” Keene noted. “As we invest in layout, processing, and packaging improvements for our retail and wholesale products, we do our best to make those options available for our private label and co-packing clients as well.”

In a more recent strategic move, Zimmerman Meats has started to focus development efforts on further processing opportunities they’ve seen steadily growing stronger. It began just over a year ago with the launch of a new ready-to-eat brand, called One Chop, with its own website. The first One Chop product was a ground and formed “meat plank:” the planks measure 4½ by 1 inch, and are packaged two per pack. Keene said they selected this format in part because it could easily be differentiated by customers amid an increasingly competitive array of other jerky snacks and brands. The next One Chop product will be traditional snack sticks in individual packaging, with other products to follow.

“Some brands aim for a premium price point, and stack claims on their labels in an effort to justify that position; at the other end of the spectrum are brands that follow a model of commodity pricing and quality,” Keene said. “In contrast to these extremes, Zimmerman Meats is working to provide reliable mainstream products with down-to-earth formulations and outstanding flavor. It is a very competitive market. Our future in further processing depends on building sustained credibility with our customers — both the retail consumer and the co-packing client.”

And there’s another group of retail and co-packing customers who are also looking to Zimmerman Meats for value-added solutions: pet owners and brands.

“We began co-packing a cooked human-grade pet treat for a company with national distribution in 2022,” Keene said. “While working on that project, we also developed some in-house pet products we can produce in compliance with FDA without compromising our USDA food safety. Bones and other slaughter and processing by-products can be put to good use when they are unwanted by livestock producers.”

Zimmerman Meats’ raw pet blends are marketed under the label Lions Prime, which includes varieties with beef, pork, and chicken. While co-packing is an option for both human foods and pet products, Keene notes that the manufacture and sale of pet products have some additional state-level reporting requirements that can be burdensome to producers who want to have their harvest made into pet products.

In the wild

Zimmerman’s also has a booming custom game processing business that handles 2,000 to 3,000 wild animals a year, everything from deer, wild hogs and even bear. During the respective seasons, they accept whole carcasses and quartered or boneless meats and offer finished products ranging from breakfast sausage and bacon to summer sausage, bratwurst and three styles of snack sticks, in addition to their whole muscle jerky. All of the company’s product details are available on the company’s websites: www.zimmermanmeats.com and www.onechopmeatshop.com. It’s a nod to the days when craftsmanship and quality mattered.