Back in 1928, Herb Albers Sr. started farming in the northeastern corner of Nebraska, six miles from the community of Wisner. Soon thereafter, he built livestock pens and began grain-finishing cattle. Nearly 100 years later Blake Albers, representing the fifth generation of the family, is in the midst of bringing many of those animals and those of a few other livestock producers to market through a combination of wholesaling, co-packing and retail creativity.

Blake, at 34 years of age, handles the marketing and sales for Albers Craft Meats. The meat packing and retailing aspect of the enterprise is now located in nearby Norfolk, Neb. The feedlot in Wisner has a capacity of 20,000 head.

“Two years ago, our family signed a purchase agreement for a 24,000 square-foot building that we were able to renovate into what you might call a ‘cut-and-wrap facility with a smokehouse,’” he jokes. “It was a blank slate of a former beer distribution warehouse that we converted into a 3,500-square-foot area for retail sales and offices, another 2,400 square-foot area for meat cutting, a packaging room, separate RTE room and a cooling area of 4,500 square feet. The balance is dry warehousing or additional space for future expansions. The retail area is set to open about March 1.

“We have tried just about everything to generate sales channels and participate in value-added beef,” Blake continued. “Ultimately, we decided further processing for ourselves and others — while developing retail, e-commerce, wholesale and trading partners — was the way to go. At our size it had to be an all-encompassing approach with a flexible processing facility at our disposal.”

At one point, the shop operated out of a beautiful retail store built in downtown Norfolk in a historic building, but the shop just didn’t have the foot traffic to support the business, Blake said.

“Our latest iteration is blending the bulk beef approach we have built at our new plant with the more premium retail experience we had built in the past,” he said. “It’s a full circle moment for us.

“What we learned initially was that our local customers wanted to buy in bulk and were seeking value, while our online customers wanted the story and the premium products. We found out that buyers existed locally too, we just didn’t have enough name recognition in the beginning.”

Blake and Brittany Albers represent the fifth generation of the family in the meat business. (Source: Albers Craft Meats)

E-commerce is key

As far as custom processing goes, Blake said his company focuses on the “on the cusp” producers who sell 12-15 animals a month and are ready to scale up. Many of these producers started beef brands after live cattle and beef prices effectively divorced. They have larger commodity operations and the small beef programs they started need to grow to justify the time and capital sink. Blake said he figured his company could help them balance the animal through turnkey services. Albers Craft Meats focused on everything from snack sticks for the trim, to working with meat traders to sell off 50/50 trim or an excess of inside rounds for an example. His goal is to help grow those smaller beef producers into long-term players who can increase their volume and make it worth the labor.

“My wife Brittany and I decided we needed a hook for e-commerce orders,” Blake said. “We developed our Prepped Protein line of pre-cooked individual portioned meats. It gives (customers) something unique to our site and a reason to shop with us. There are a lot of farm-to-fork concepts out there now, and you need to stand out.”

His vision of the online meat shop can be seen in more detail on the website: alberscraftmeats.com. Items like boneless ribeye, strip steaks and tenderloin can be found under the Craft Meats section. Smaller size portions (6 oz) of lemon pepper or fiesta chicken, spiced and ready-to-heat-and-eat, are available along with such items as a 20-pack of their original snack sticks (each package has three 1.5 oz sticks), a way of catering to those with more active lifestyles or those constantly on the go.

The website is also navigable by such criteria as budget, pick-up options, premium and non-premium. Selections can also be located by alphabetical order, best-selling, by price, featured and old or new stock categories.

Albers Craft Meats also offers seafood, franks and sausage and is moving quickly to begin making its own versions of those latter products.

While the present is a constantly changing environment that produces new challenges to build traffic, Blake advised that the prospect of having several other brick-and-mortar locations is in his mind but will take time.

“For now, we are featuring and celebrating ‘the taste of Nebraska’ with our customers, letting them know who produces these meats, how they are raised and that there are meats for every family in every price range,” he said. “The dream here is sustainability for our local farmers and producing products we are happy to sell because we know the consumer will enjoy them.”

Blake feels that connecting the e-commerce aspect and cost effectiveness to the ability his store has to be flexible and readily responsive to customer needs is a strong advantage for this nearly 100-year-old farm and feedlot family. Today there are nine family members among the 15 employees at Albers Farms and about 10 working at the USDA inspected processing facility.

Albers wants to sell quality products that satisfy customers and sustain Nebraska's farmers. (Source: Albers Craft Meats)

Building from references

There is very much a ‘spread-the- word’ approach to the company’s marketing. They offer customers who refer new shoppers to the store a rewards program that can earn them free meat products or a discount. And Albers is sharp at reading customer wishes for items like gift boxes. They offer from four to six different holiday or seasonal choices. When a company or office is looking for pricing on meat gift ideas for employees or customers, the employees at the store will ask them what amount they have budgeted for that purchase and give them a number of choices that fit their planning.

The newly opened retail store operates as Albers Craft Meats, but pick-ups can be made and shopping done at the location they call Lot 279 at the new facility. Blake makes no apology for the retail concept not being a custom cut and service location:

“We uniformly cut and package what we have,” he explained. “When the customer realizes what we are saving them through standardized portions and cuts, they come to appreciate that, in the long run, we really are saving them money.”