What Is Great About Pre-Marinated Meats
In almost all cultures of the world, meat is a staple of their diet, and for a good reason. A slab of
A Dream Deferred
“Every meat cutter’s dream is to own their butcher shop,” Levitt says. Though his 60,000-square-foot plant, which runs entirely off solar power, maybe the ultimate realization of that dream, he had to start a bit smaller.
In the early ’90s, Levitt was vacationing in a Southern California mountain town and fell in love with a grocery store that had a classic meat counter and rails in the back for hanging beef. Walking in one day, Levitt asked the owner if it was for sale, but he couldn’t afford it.
“If I had a million dollars, why would I need a grocery store?” he thought. Levitt continued with his life and career, raising more children with a new wife and working his way far up the retail grocery meat business ladder.
On Sept. 4, 2001, Levitt closed on a house in New Jersey, preparing to start a new executive-level corporate job in New York. Seven days later, the world changed forever, and Levitt found himself pondering what was more important — his job or family.
He reached for his Rolodex and called that same grocery store from 10 years ago. The owner was ready to retire and sold it to Levitt for half the previous price.
Levitt finally had his butcher shop. He raised his kids in the store, instilling in them his work ethic and teaching them the business. The dream lasted until the economic crash of 2008 when the vacation homes of the people who shopped at his store went sideways.
Levitt sold and founded Levitt Foods, where he used his retail know-how to position brands as a broker. “As a broker, you’re always worried about the retailer more than the manufacturer,” explains Levitt. “I’m trying to guide the manufacturer and teach them what the retailer wants.” Even as Levitt flourished as a broker, something gnawed at him. He still wanted to have something tangible where his family could all work together again. He asked some of the companies for which he brokered if he could co-pack items under his label. Branding Iron Ranch was born.
Retail Minded
Levitt introduced his first Branding Iron Ranch product, a marinated carne asada, in 2018. He quickly moved on to other marinated meats and now sells 25 different items.
Levitt’s product development philosophy always starts with assessing the needs of retailers. “How the industry looks in five years is truly a guessing game right now,” he says. Tighter food safety regulations and higher labor costs at retailers drove his thinking for his Branding Iron Ranch offerings.
“It takes time, it takes energy, it takes training” for stores to run consistent and appealing meat counters, Levitt says. These days, retailers are “just trying to get as much on the shelf as possible, so that when the customer comes in, there’s something that intrigues them.”
He hit on making ready-to-cook items that would let consumers “feel like they made a gourmet meal at home, something that you wouldn’t feel bad about taking out of a package and putting it right on your grill.” The target demographic skews younger, aiming at people looking for value and who may not be experienced cooks.
“Everything is done with the mindset of, how do we make a consumer who is finicky and doesn’t always want to touch the meat with their hands … have something they can feel good about?” Levitt says.
Of course, there were hiccups along the way.
Initially, the company sold its meat in the butcher case. Still, when COVID hit, it moved its products to case-ready trays, says Steven Eskildsen, the company’s director of product development. That caused unintended aesthetic problems.
“We bought a machine thinking it was the right machine, and the retailer said, ‘It looked great, but the problem is by the time it gets to our warehouse, it’s all splashed and doesn’t look pretty any- more,'” says Rob Levitt, vice president of the company and Art’s younger son. Eskildsen and his team quickly transitioned to roll-stock packaging affixed with brightly colored labels that would look as good on the retail shelf as it did when it left the plant.
Planting A New Seed
With the brand’s product lines expand- ing, the company started to run into production issues with its co-packers. As Rob Levitt remembers it, “I called my dad and said . . . ‘We need to do something,’ and after multiple times of that he finally said, ‘Find me a plant.'”
Within hours, Rob homed in on the Mendota facility. It was an FDA plant owned by the pomegranate giant POM Wonderful. Art gave Rob the go-ahead to see what it would take to convert it into a USDA facility. Things checked out, but Levitt wasn’t sure how to pay for the plant. He told the real estate agent, “I’d love to buy the plant, but I’m going to need some help. . . . Will you ask Stewart [Resnick, the billionaire owner of POM Wonderful] if there was ever . . . somebody that had to help him along the way?”
Levitt’s plea worked. “I was fortunate enough to have a nice down payment, but Stewart Resnick, for the first time in his life, carried papers for somebody.”
Levitt also wanted to make sure he had community buy-in. He called Rolan- do Castro, Mendota’s mayor, to see if the town would be supportive.
Levitt Foods employees Kristen Corpe, Steven Eskildsen, Rob Levitt, Brad Corpe, and Brett Shank
Castro grew up in Mendota, a heavily Latino town whose population mainly works in agriculture. Castro never expected to be mayor, but when he ran into interference from the city trying to start his auto shop business, he delved into the machinations of small-town government. Soon he won a seat on the city council and then ran for mayor.
“It’s always scary to bring in the out- sider,” Castro says about receiving the call from Levitt.
Castro nonetheless felt that the year-round presence of Branding Iron Ranch would be a boon to the community. “Agriculture is seasonal,” he says. “When someone gets a job all year-’round, now you have opportunities to buy a vehicle, buy a home, and have more opportunities to provide for your family.”
For his part, Levitt assured Castro that he was in Mendota for the right reasons. “I am old school in the sense of how we do business and how we treat our employees and the community,” Levitt says. “I’ve made decisions to benefit our people that was the right thing to do, but might not have been the right business decision at the time; but in the end, karma comes around, and you do things for the right reasons.”
Still, Levitt admits he’s not an easy boss. “I’m very disciplined, demanding, and I want excellence. I don’t allow us to be followers,” he says.
According to Castro, Levitt’s leadership philosophy seems to resonate with his employees.
“When you see the owner working hard, people value their jobs even more,” he says.
Magda Flores, another Mendota native, and the company’s quality control lead, agrees that the plant has helped the community.
“A lot of people tell me that working here is good because they come in early, and they get off early and get to spend time with their kids and husbands,” she says. “I love it. It’s the best thing that Art could have done for our town.”
Regional Growth, Rural Renewal
Levitt hopes to reproduce these successes across the country. His processing company, Ranchers Processing, is taking over a co-packing plant it partnered with in Tennessee and is actively pursuing additional opportunities to open facilities around the country.
Though the model lacks certain efficiencies, the company sees numerous advantages to its approach.
For one, the team’s close relationships with retailers and the smaller size of its production allow it to identify new trends in the marketplace and quickly implement products in response. “We have the ability to make a small batch and go and do a test of five stores for a few weeks,” Levitt says. He can iterate that process until he has a product people are clamoring to buy.
The company also keeps its pricing competitive by leaning into its relationships with the brokerage business, which helps it strategically forecast and contract for products from multiple suppliers. “We know where the market is going, and we know the trend of the market every year,” Rob Levitt explains.
A regional model also helps grocery stores keep the fresh produce on the shelf longer.
“It’s all about giving our customers the best chance of success, focusing on our retailers’ needs,” Rob Levitt says. “[We are] making sure they have the freshest product and the most shelf life they can get, to make sure they have the best chance to sell to their customers.”
For his part, Shank, the sales and marketing director, sees the company’s regional plan as an opportunity to build trust with consumers while benefiting communities across the country.
“Consumers are trained to think in boxes about whether value matters or traceability matters. But what matters is that your next-door neighbor is employed gainfully and that your community is being taken care of,” he says.
Levitt concurs: “We’re using this place as a model … to build local manufacturing plants in strategic locations in rural communities around the country.”
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A Dream Deferred
“Every meat cutter’s dream is to own their butcher shop,” Levitt says. Though his 60,000-square-foot plant, which runs entirely off solar power,