Randers, 30 august 2013
Spare-ribs from Danish pigs have been popular in the USA for more than 25 years. American restaurants in particular like the Danish cuts, and one of the biggest chains in the USA has just honoured Danish Crown USA with its “Supplier Partner of the Year Award 2013”.
Brinker International, which runs the Chili’s Grill and Bar chain, operates about 1,300 restaurants in the USA.
Chili’s well-known speciality is its “Danish Baby Back Ribs”, and it is this dish which has earned Danish Crown the honour.
In explaining why Danish Crown has received its Supplier Partner of the Year Award, Brinker International writes that Danish Crown is supplying exactly what Chili’s Grill and Bar guests want, while Danish Crown has also made it possible for staff at the nationwide chain to serve incredibly uniform meals on a daily basis.
Meatier ribs
- This is fantastic recognition of the work performed at each stage of the Danish Crown chain, by everybody from the pig producers to the shippers. However, it is undoubtedly the guys who wield the knives at the slaughterhouses where we produce the extra meaty ribs who have been the key factor, says Export Manager Peter Frederiksen.
At the beginning of 2012, Danish Crown USA was contacted by the buyer at Chili’s. He wanted more meat on the ribs which Danish Crown supplies to Chili’s – ribs which Americans call “meaty ribs”.
On the face of it, it seemed an easy request to meet, but with spare-ribs it is actually not that simple.
- To get meatier ribs, our workers have to cut the spare-ribs in a way which would otherwise be described as poor butchery, because spare-ribs are normally cut so there is as little meat on top of the ribs as possible. However, Chili’s had discovered that their customers prefer spare-ribs with meat on top of the bones, because then the barbecue sauce has something to cling to, explains Peter Frederiksen.
New instructions
Together with Danish Crown USA’s CEO Stig Kjærø and Export Manager Peter Frederiksen, a delegation from America toured a number of factories in Denmark to explore the possibilities.
At the slaughterhouse in Blans, the employees welcomed the challenge, and since 1 September 2012 they have become specialists in “bad butchery”. Sales went so well in the USA that, last February, Danish Crown also started to produce “meaty ribs” at its department in Sæby in northern Jutland.
At Brinker International, they are extremely satisfied with the meatier ribs. Sales of the product are still growing, so in the long term yet another DC factory will have to start producing the “meaty ribs”.
- This past week, Brinker International has been visiting the slaughterhouses in both Blans and Sæby to inspect production of the new spare-rib quality. They were very happy with the quality of what they saw, so we will undoubtedly be shipping an increasing number of containers packed with meaty Danish ribs across the Atlantic to hungry American customers in the near future, says Peter Frederiksen.