August 23, 2025 • 42 mins
This episode features an in-depth conversation with David Stidham, the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Compart Durock, who shares his extensive journey within the barbecue industry. The salient theme centers around the evolution of the Compart brand, which has significantly impacted the quality of pork production since its inception as a 4H project in 1949. Stidham elaborates on the innovative practices employed by Compart, including their unique feeding and breeding programs that have resulted in superior intermuscular fat scores, thereby enhancing flavor and quality. Furthermore, he discusses the recent developments in expanding their operations to include no antibiotic ever (NAE) pork, which aligns with changing consumer demands and regulatory standards. As we delve into these topics, we gain insight into the complexities of the pork industry and the importance of fostering relationships within the culinary community.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Turn It
- Culver's
- Compact Compart Durock
- Fine Swine Barbecue
- Heritage Steel
- Painted Hills Natural Beef
- Leanne's Pig Powder
- Compart Durock
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:12):
It's time for Barbecue Nationwith jt.
So fire up your grill, lightthe charcoal, and get your smoker
cooking.
Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn.
It studios in Portland.
Here's jt, everybody.
Welcome to the nation ofBarbecue Nation.
I'm Jeff Casey along with hallof famer Ms. Leanne whipping there.
That's right.
Congratulations.
(00:33):
She is.
Thank you, Hofer.
And she's coming to us fromours studio in Florida.
I'm in Portland or in thePortland area.
Today, we welcome you all tothe show.
We've got a.
A really good guest this week,David Stidham from Compact Compart
Durock.
I can't talk today, David, butforgive me for that.
He's the VPL as VP of salesand marketing, also formerly of a
(00:58):
Fine swine barbecue.
Welcome to the show, bud.
Hey, thank you, Jeff.
I appreciate it.
Good to see both you and Leanne.
Nice to see you too.
Been a while.
So before we talk about the.
The Durock, the compart familyDurock stuff, I want to talk to you
about your barbecueexperience, because that.
(01:19):
Hence, that's the name of the show.
But I'm always.
I'm always curious about howpeople kind of get into that, do
it, compete in it, and then atsome point or own restaurants like
you did, or plural, and then move.
So once you.
Why don't you tell us about that?
(01:40):
Okay.
Well, you know, it all started.
The barbecue scenes for mestarted when I was living in Wisconsin.
Of course, growing up in thesouth, you grow up grilling and cooking
and doing all those things,but it was just expected.
It was not something that youreally strove for when you were very
young.
But I was in Wisconsin.
(02:00):
I was the VP of marketing forCulver's restaurants, and that's
where the corporate offices were.
And me and.
And actually, Leanne, you'll.
You'll get amusement out of this.
Me and my youngest son, Jacobwere actually watching Barbecue Pit
Masters when it went in hisheyday, when it came out, when it
was actually really good.
Yeah.
And.
And.
And so we were watching that, and.
(02:22):
And.
And.
And Jacob's like, dad, you'rea really good cook.
You should do that.
And I'm like, jacob, that's awhole different level.
And so.
And so.
But he goes, yeah, but you cando it.
And so I thought about it, andI was like, okay, I'm gonna call
my buddy Jason Cole.
I think you guys know JasonCole with the hot coals, and he runs
the big event in Nashville now.
But anyway, he and I Were verygood friends because he used to work
(02:44):
for me a long time ago inNashville, Tennessee, where I lived
most of my adult life.
And so.
And we just got on the phonethat Saturday afternoon, We talked
and we talked, and then wetalked and we talked for, like, hours.
The next thing you know, I'mlike, I'm going to order a smoker.
And so I ordered a smoker that night.
I just did some research, andI bought a really nice, blazing pellet
grill.
(03:04):
And.
And then Jason invited me tocome down to Winchester, Tennessee,
for a big high on the hogbarbecue competition, one of the
larger ones down in the.
That area of the country.
And he says, hey, come down here.
Me and my.
My, you know, father in law,we'll show you how we do everything.
And so I went down there, sawall the teams, saw.
(03:27):
Saw my first real barbecueexperience, and.
And stayed with them andprepped and cooked and did a lot
of cleaning and all that kindof this stuff.
And, you know, and.
And got to see a couple of calls.
It was a lot of fun.
And I just.
I was like, man, this is amazing.
And so.
And he.
He showed me a lot of stuff.
And so I went back toWisconsin, and I started.
(03:48):
Started cooking, and I startedgetting really into it.
And then I did enter my first contest.
It was called Poor Q.
And it was kind of like, forteams that are just getting into
it, it was only, like, youknow, $10 to enter.
It was more of a this is aparticipation type thing.
But they had good teams there.
I mean, they were like, youknow, ql and some of the other legendary
(04:09):
teams were all cooking it.
And so I'm like, okay, well,I'm gonna come and see what I can
do and have some fun with this thing.
And.
And.
And it was just the mostinsane thing ever when I got three
calls and I finished third overall.
And.
And I was just blown away.
And so the proverbial hook was set.
And then I just startedcooking more and more competitions,
(04:30):
making my own sauce.
That's another thing, is Ibrought my own sauce to the thing.
I wanted to have my own flavorprofile right off the bat.
I know a lot of you guys dothat too.
And so.
And it just kind of.
It just kind of escalated.
And then I actually got prettydecent at it.
And I'm not.
It just took.
It takes a while, everybody.
It takes a while to figure outwhat the judges really want.
And then.
(04:50):
And like I said, I went tothat Westmont competition.
I have never won.
I've not won anything yet.
I Won.
I've gotten calls, but.
But I remember that one.
I got the first place brisketcall and I lost my mind.
And Leanne, you were right there.
Yeah.
And, and I went up and then inTimothy Shop with, you know, his
(05:12):
group, Tim's Full Belly Deli,we were both Wisconsin teams.
I ended up getting GrantReserve Grant, he ended up getting
Granted.
We were both losing our minds.
And so.
Yeah, but that was a prettyspecial moment.
And they say that once you hityour first like RGC or gc, then they
start coming a little easier.
And they kind of did.
And so, so I developed mysauces for resale.
(05:34):
I had three different barbecue sauces.
My Original, my competition,My Sweet and my Texas Heat.
And then I developed the BeeStink honeysuckle and they became
very popular.
The Habanero Honey, the AppleCinnamon Habanero Honey, and all
those.
And so I was starting todevelop this kind of brand and, and
it was a lot of fun, but, youknow, I still had this full time
responsible, you know,corporate gig.
(05:55):
Right.
And, and so after severalyears and, and starting to win and
getting, you know, top fivesat the Jack and, and being at stage
in Royal and Memphis and Mayand all this kind of stuff, I decided
I wanted to try to do thisfull time somehow and kind of lead
my kids to show them that,hey, you can, you can do more than
(06:16):
just work for somebody else.
You can work for yourself and,and lead a path.
And So I, at 50 years old, Isaid, I'm retiring from Culver's
and I'm going to, I'm going tomove down to be close to my family.
My dad was ill in SouthernIllinois and he was close to Scott
(06:37):
Air Force Base.
My mom, my brother, my sister,cousins, nieces, they all live down
there.
I've never lived close to myfamily as an adult.
And so I found a perfectopportunity down there.
Perfect building that had allthe, the different things I wanted.
And we did it.
And so I retired fromCulver's, went down there and opened
(06:58):
up my first restaurant in NewBaden, Illinois.
And, and it was amazing.
We had some.
We built a smokehouse up frontso when people walk up the ramp to
go into the place, the smokeis already right face.
They're seeing the wood pilesand, and you know, we had so much
fun inside the restaurant.
I went to Texas to go to a lotof restaurants in Texas to see what
(07:21):
they're doing, to see how muchsuccess they're having and what people
love about it.
And when I found in Texas whatthey Loved is they love to go to
these places.
And they got the pits and thebig cutting boards right in front
of you, and you go through,and they're actually literally slicing
and chopping and.
And doing everything right infront of you.
And I wanted to do that, but Icouldn't in the state of Illinois,
and especially for the codesfor, for the building I was in.
(07:44):
And so I got this huge cuttingboard from an Amish guy in Pennsylvania.
It was like, I mean, fourpeople to carry it.
And I put it in the kitchen ona stainless steel table.
I put a chairman over it, andit was big enough to where I could
do brisket chopping andslicing on one side and rib slicing
and glazing on the other side.
And we called it Carve Cam.
(08:06):
And when you walk into therestaurant, you look at the screens,
you're seeing live, you know,meats being cut, and they say, oh,
I want that.
I want that.
And so that was how I broughtthat immersion into my restaurant.
And we had a lot of fun anddoing stuff like that.
And then, then the mistakesstarted happening.
(08:26):
Everything was going great.
And then I. I'll just say it.
Maybe I.
Maybe I got greedy.
My.
My accountants were saying,hey, we need to open up another place.
And, and you know, opening upanother place is exciting, but it's
also pulling you away fromyour place.
Right.
And.
And so.
But I wanted to do a.
In Mount Vernon.
(08:46):
It was a.
It was a.
An old Papa John's pizzaplace, and it was abandoned, so we
built a smokehouse out there.
We were going to make it moreof a to go type of place, barbecue
place.
But since they left a pizzaoven there, we said, well, maybe
we could do barbecue andbarbecue pizzas.
And so, so we built that out,had a lot of fun, did really well,
(09:08):
but it did splinter me.
And I know Leanne, you knowall too well how it is, how important
it is to be absolutely.
With your people, leading,watching, understanding everything.
Yes, I get.
Exactly.
So I was splintering and, andit wasn't.
(09:31):
It wasn't great for.
For the business because I. Iwasn't where I needed to be as much
as I needed to be.
And then.
But we did well, and we were,we were.
We were bringing us somedecent results.
And then I had an opportunityto do it again in my hometown in
Carlisle, the golf club.
And so that was number three.
That was a year, four, I think.
(09:51):
But it's not like I did allthis in one year or two years, but
it was like, it took a fewyears but in year four, we went and
did that.
And that made it even worsebecause now, because I didn't have
the big smokers, like, I did anew Beta, like I had to.
I had a. I built.
I had a good sized smoker in,in Mount Vernon because we built
a smokehouse there.
But the one in Carlisle, wejust did a.
(10:12):
A decent sized smoker.
And so I was literally gettingup in the big smokers, the really
big ones in New Baden werecooking for the other restaurant,
right.
And them.
And so I would actually go there.
They load me up, I take itover the big meats, briskets and
the pork butts.
And.
And I do chicken and pork on site.
(10:33):
And so it became a managementissue, a time issue.
And so if I could go back anddo it again, I'd still have new bait
and just new bait and be, youknow, blowing it up.
But Covid hit, and that partof Illinois was particularly, particularly
managed by the state.
(10:53):
When Covid hit, they wanted to make.
To send a message.
Pritzker did and he did.
And we were in small towns andso we didn't have a drive through
and so.
And we were in small towns andthey literally shut us down for quite
a while.
And so that was a.
That was a tough spot to be in.
And then it just snowballedfrom that point on from not being.
(11:15):
It probably came to a pointwhere you don't even reopen at that
point.
It was that.
It was that.
It was that it was that bad.
And because, you know, peoplewould only drive so far to buy something
for them from theirneighborhood because everybody's
wearing masks and everybodyhas to stand in social distance.
And, you know, and if we didhave people come in, they literally
had to go into the parking lotand we had to take their food to
(11:36):
them and they couldn't evencome in the door.
And it was just.
It was crazy.
So was that the end of thethree places then?
That was it, Pretty much.
Okay, we're going to take a break.
We're going to be back withDavid Stidham from Compart Direct.
Durock.
I don't know what's with thething today.
I haven't my tongue.
I got to go take it out andput it back in.
(11:58):
Anyway.
We're going to be back in aminute here on the Nation.
Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
I want to tell you aboutsomething really cool.
Heritage steel cookware.
I just got mine.
I do a lot of cooking and it'sgot five ply construction.
(12:20):
Stay cool.
Handles it's titanium strengthened.
It's got all the great stuff.
Just go to HeritageSteel usand find out more.
You'll love it.
Guarantee it.
Welcome back to the Nation.
(12:41):
I'm J.T.
along with Ms. Whippen, andwe've got David Stidham from Compart
Durock.
There, I said it right for thefirst time.
I was going to tell you,David, I'm pretty sure that what
you said at the top of theshow when Pit Masters was a good
show.
John Marcus is going to loveyou for that.
(13:02):
I'm gonna make sure it was amazing.
I'm gonna make sure he knows that.
You said that so well.
It.
That was.
That was the.
The stepping stone to it all.
And.
And it was just.
It was just so authentic.
That's.
That's.
That's what drew me in, is the.
How authentic it was.
It was real.
There was no.
You know what I'm saying?
It was just amazing.
And so, yeah, John did a greatjob, and.
(13:22):
And the cameras did a greatjob, and.
And, you know, we saweverybody at their best and we saw
them at their worst, and itwas just authentic.
Yeah, absolutely.
David, I think you hit it, though.
I owned a restaurant a longtime ago for a very short period
of time, just for the factthat I had another business I was
running, and I was traveling alot in those days, and I put up the
(13:44):
money for a friend to buy itfor him because he had been in the
restaurant business.
Okay.
And then after the first fewdays, he came over to where our retail
store was, and he said, whatshift are you going to work?
I mean, I was.
I was literally.
Literally 70 hours a week onmy schedule at that point, and I
(14:04):
just looked at him and I said,I can't do that.
Yeah.
So we sold it a very shorttime later because.
And I did have a cateringcompany later, but you can't do that.
I think.
I think you and Leanne nailedit both.
When you say, if you're gonnado something like that, that's where
you got to focus and you'regonna be married to it.
(14:25):
Yeah.
And you build it up, and it'sdoing good.
And you're not the firstperson that ever said, well, if I've
got one, two would be better,you know?
Yeah.
But there wasn't two Davids.
I had to learn, you know?
You know, and to be honestwith you, there's a.
Having all the success I'vehad with business in.
(14:45):
In the restaurant industry,national, big national brands, and
did a lot of good things, andHad a lot of great people around
me.
I probably, probably thought Iwas better than I probably should
have, if that makes sense.
So how did you make thattransition to, to work with Jim over
there?
Actually, yeah.
(15:05):
So when I, when I, when I soldthe businesses, I got a, a contractor
position with another, with alarge franchisee of Culder's, and,
and they hired me to, to comeand help them build marketing programs
for all of their restaurants.
And, and I did that for awhile, but it just wasn't really
(15:26):
what I, where I wanted to be.
And so I, I started goingthrough this whole transition in
life, in, in everything.
And so, and so then I, I had afriend of mine who was a, a recruiter,
and he said, hey, I could findyou something.
You know, I could find you aVP of marketing position, or I could
find you this or I could findyou that.
(15:47):
And, and you know, your, yourresumes, you know, it's not going
to be a hard thing to do at all.
But I got another thought foryou and I said, what's that?
He goes, why don't youactually become a recruiter like
me and I can show you theropes and you can work on your own
schedule.
You work from home and youdon't have to move and uproot your
family.
And because, because in therestaurant industry, you got to be
at the restaurant and there'sonly so many corporate jobs in the
(16:08):
town you're currently living in.
Right.
And so, so I was, I lookedinto it.
Next thing you know, I waslike, yeah, let's just do that.
And then I moved intohealthcare recruiting exclusively.
And you know, and I had quitea bit of success with it.
And then out of the blue, Jimcalls me and, and, and because I've
(16:31):
known Jim for a long time,because Jim sponsored me, we wanted,
I won a lot, won a lot oftrophies with Compart Durock.
And so I actually put a fillerout there, said, I'm looking, I want
to stay in the barbecue world,but I don't want to, you know, to
work in a restaurant or doanything like that.
And I actually sent it topeople I respected and people that
I knew, people that soldbarbecue trailers, who built barbecue
(16:53):
pits and who did, you know,like, like, like comparts and so
forth.
And he responded and he said,hey, let's, let's chat.
And so we got on the phone andwe were on the phone for just a few
hours talking about whatthey're doing at compart, what's
going on, the growthprojectile, and, and the way it's
currently set up with from theeast coast all the way to the west
(17:15):
coast.
And, and he was looking forsomebody to, to bring in to continue
the trajectory of growth thatthey've got going.
And so one thing led toanother and he and I flew to Vegas
to meet with his rep out westand we spent some time together out
there talking about theopportunities, my capabilities, all
those kind of things.
(17:36):
And about a few weeks later,I'm on board and I'm kind of representing,
you know, the, the marketingside as well as the, the Midwest.
And because we've got twoamazing reps, Steve Countryman on
the East Coast.
Say hi to Steve for me.
I miss him.
Steve Countryman?
(17:57):
Yeah, yeah, him and SteveMulrein, we got the two Steves and
they're both fantastic andthey move a lot of product and, and
I'm learning from them becauseit's kind of new for me.
But, but with my marketingskills that I bring and, and I do
have sales skills, you know.
Well, you know, the proof isin the pudding.
I mean you use their productand you won things.
So I mean there's a storybehind what you're doing.
(18:19):
It isn't just like you're a salesperson.
I mean you, the proof is thereand so it adds credibility to it,
which is fantastic.
Thank you.
I agree.
I was in Omaha last week,Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska and I'm
with the district salesmanagers, his reps. And we're going
into these clients and, and wewent into this one client and a country
club actually and we wereshowing them our dry aged chops and
(18:42):
we're showing them all thesepork bellies and all these fun things.
And he says, he has, he goes,and I brought in a rack of ribs just
because I brought extra rack.
I had some baby back ribs.
And so I said, you know, ifyou're going to do catering, it's
an easy way to do ribs andfeed a lot of people, you know, pretty
good price point.
And, and, and I, and I offeredup, I said, you know what?
(19:02):
And if you want I will come uphere and I will personally, as part
of my service from CompartFamily Farms is I will show you exactly
what I do to cook competitionquality ribs in a restaurant format.
And, and his eyes just lit upand I said, yeah, you can offer,
you know, Compart Family FarmDurock pork championship caliber
(19:23):
ribs for your catering group,your, your special or for whatever.
And, and that's one of thethings that I can do because I've
cooked thousands and thousandsof those racks.
Same with all the other meatsand proteins that I, that I've cooked.
And so, so that's anotherlittle thing that I can add to the,
to the table.
Yeah, that's so important.
Like Leanne said, you know,the proof is in the pudding or it's
(19:46):
actually in the smoker.
You might say that a lot ofmeat guys don't have that experience.
You know, they're good salesmen.
But when you add that littleflavor profile to your resume, that's
good.
We're going to take anotherbreak and we're going to be back
with David Stidham fromcompart Durac and Ms. Whippen here
on the nation.
(20:06):
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(20:30):
Hey, everybody, it's JT and Ihave eaten.
If you've ever looked at me,you know that.
But I have eaten seafood allover the world and I can tell you
there's no place better thanhere in Oregon and our Dungeness
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If you want to learn moreabout Oregon Dungeness crab, just
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(20:54):
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Check it out.
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
You can find us on any or mostany podcast platform on the USA Radio
(21:16):
networks out there.
If you can't find us, callLeanne and she will send you an autographed
picture.
We, we want to thank, ofcourse, Painted Hills Natural beef
and Leanne's pig powder forhelping with the show.
Here, Dad's pig powder.
And that is my dad's barbecuerub that has won best rub on the
(21:39):
planet.
And you can getit@pigpowder.com it's sweet with
a little back heat.
And I have a spicy pig powdercoming out.
I've been saying that for amonth or so, but you know how it's
like trying to close on a house.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So anyway, a lot of teams outthere are winning with it still after
all these years, and Iactually use it on the circuit.
(22:01):
So, yeah, you should try it.
It's awesome.
It is.
It's great stuff.
I was going to tell youActually, the other day I did.
I can't even remember now.
I can't remember last weekright now because it was kind of
a blur.
But I used it on somethingthat I thought, you know, I should
call Leanne and tell her Iused it on this.
And it was really good, as usual.
Brought out a great profile.
(22:24):
Very versatile.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was.
I think it was seafood of some sort.
Scallops.
It was scallops.
Scallops.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That was cool.
Anyway, we're talking withDavid Stidham from Compart Durock
today has the Compart product,the family, the whole thing.
(22:46):
You know, it's been a littletough in the beef business.
That's something I know alittle bit about.
Okay, not too much, but alittle bit.
But prices and, and thefutures markets and everything of
that has just gone kind of batwhack crazy there.
How's it in the.
In the pork business?
Well, it's.
It's actually not been socrazy since things have stabilized
(23:08):
from.
From COVID of course, youknow, and, but.
But we're always going to beon the higher end.
You know, we're premium.
We're premium work.
And a lot of people have, theyknow we're premium and they know
we're durock, but they don'tunderstand how we got there and what
it really means.
And that's the story I telleach and every day when I'm talking
to sales reps and distributorsand restaurateurs and chefs and so
(23:30):
forth.
And, you know, I don't think alot of people realize that the Compart
family started out as a 4Hproject in 1949.
Oh, and they've been raisingDuroc hogs since 1949.
They've developed their ownvertically integrated feeding program,
breeding program.
They literally register eachswine into the registry in Illinois.
(23:54):
But the cool part is like,they, you know, premium pork, just
like steak and beef, you know,it's all about marbling, right?
Intermuscular fat.
That's where the flavor is.
And what they've been doingevery to every hog since 1949 is
using an actual ultrasound machine.
Okay.
And that ultrasound machineliterally measures the fat in that
(24:14):
hog.
And they're able to give it aninternational score, intermuscular
fat score.
And that's how they actuallymeasure and breed based on the higher
scores.
And they've been doing thisevery single year.
So when you think about it,all these new Durock programs coming
on board, they're never goingto catch up to the intermuscular
fat scores that Compart hasbecause they've been doing it for
(24:34):
so long, and they've actuallypretty much created that program,
and they're the innovators ofthat program.
So they've got a uniquefeeding program.
They grow their own.
Their own food.
They got farms and farms and farms.
And.
And so there's incredibly sophisticated.
When you see them at abarbecue competition, you see Jim
walking around with Diana and.
And they're just having fun,having a cocktail, watching, watching
(24:56):
their name get called all thetime for these competitions.
The amount of dedication,heart and creativity and just hard
work that.
That whole family, the wholeentire family has evolved.
As a matter of fact, you go tothe corporate office.
It's a house with offices.
And so that's how driven theyare as a family.
And.
(25:17):
And it's an honor to be partof that.
And.
And so.
But I've learned so much, andthere's so many moving parts to an
industry like that to, to havescale that large.
And I alluded earlier on theshow, there's some new news coming
out, and that new news is thatwe've partnered with several new
(25:38):
ranches in Montana to allow usto raise no antibiotic ever pork.
And in.
One of the reasons we didthat, and we'll just be straight
up, is the state of Californiaand the state of Massachusetts passed
a proposition called Prop 12 acouple of years ago, ruling that
(26:00):
if you are a business inCalifornia or Massachusetts, you
cannot buy pork from aproducer that doesn't have a certain
size gestation crate.
And so we were no longerallowed to sell in California or
Massachusetts.
So we did partner with some.
Some brand.
We built brand new wrencheswith them.
Ranches.
I mean, they're incredible.
(26:21):
Incredibly beautiful.
As a matter of fact, when wewent and toured it earlier last year,
Jim said it's the best hogbarn he's ever seen in his life.
And.
And they're huge.
And so now we are now offeringhogs raised without antibiotics ever.
And so, of course, you allknow, in industry, we all know that
there's a lot of marketing anda lot of gimmicks when it comes to
(26:41):
how we label food products and chickens.
Hey, this is antibiotic free.
Well, you know what?
It has to be antibiotic free.
Chickens, pigs, hogs, cows.
They're not allowed to beprocessed if there's antibiotics
in their system.
But that doesn't mean youcan't use antibiotics if they're
young and they get sick andthen it runs through their system
and then they no longer have it.
(27:02):
But the barns that we'rebuilding now are no antibiotics ever
administered and they're doingvery, very well.
And it's allowed us to producea lot more product.
And so.
But we are able to open thatup now to not just California and
Massachusetts.
We're now able to produce itnationwide for, you know, the high
(27:22):
end butcher shops, retailers,those types of people where it's,
they've got a discerningcustomer that kind of wants that
kind of stuff.
You know, David, it'sinteresting you say that about the,
the antibiotics.
I worked, I've worked withPainted Hills for a long time and
they will, if an animal getssick, they will treat them, but they
pull them out of the programand sell them on the open market.
(27:45):
They don't keep them in, intheir process because they have,
they have their own feed yard,et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
But that's what they do.
Are you guys doing that same,similar type of action?
Yes, as a matter of fact.
In the antibiotic in the NAE ranches.
Yeah.
If a pig does get sick,they're going to give it an antibiotic
(28:09):
and then they're going totransport to a different facility.
Right, right.
Okay.
And keep it separated from anyother pigs in that facility.
And so that facility couldremain an NAE facility.
And they'll, they'll, they'llinstantly remove it and give it diminished,
but they're not going to letthe pig die.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, and so they're goingto take it to another facility.
But I will tell you this.
(28:30):
Our success rates for thefirst year and a half, first six
months of producing are incredible.
They're.
The yield is way higher thanwe ever dreamed or imagined.
And I don't know if it'sbecause the facilities are so high
tech, so clean and so wellmanaged, but it is surprisingly powerful
(28:52):
in the numbers that we'reseeing right now.
Oh, that's, that's very coolthough, that you guys.
Internationally, or is it justthe US we do internationally.
We, we.
This will blow your mind howmany femur bones we sell to Japan
and South Korea for, forbroths and soups.
So where I live in Oregon, wedon't see a lot of compart products
(29:19):
all over the place.
And with the advent of theranches in Montana, are you going
to be able to fill in someparts of the country that maybe you
haven't had a big footprint in yet?
That's what we're trying to do.
We're trying to do with bothOur, our traditional pork and the
new nae pork.
And so we're, we're working hard.
(29:41):
I know that right now SteveMulryin is putting a lot of energy
and effort into growing thatbusiness that he lost in California
first.
He had a lot of distributorsand a lot of great accounts that
weren't allowed to buy from us anymore.
And that, that, that hurt.
And so, so he's putting a lotof energy on, on building that back
(30:01):
up and of course growing, youknow, the entire, entire country.
We're in, we're in pretty muchall the states, but it all depends
on, you know, at what level.
And so a lot of district, likea lot of distributors are, are just
now getting wind of us intheir, they're growing their businesses.
But it takes time.
There's three of us now,there's three of us reps, including
Jim for but, but we'reanticipating a lot of growth here
(30:25):
the next few years.
I wanted to, I wanted to, Iwanted to go back, David, just to
second, just to kind ofclarify for people that are listening
what you've had to do with thehogs for California and Massachusetts.
Isn't that kind of on the samelevel as free range chickens?
Look, if people knew anythingabout growing large numbers of animals
(30:48):
for human consumption, youcan't have, you know, whatever we
eat every day, a million and ahalf chickens in this country roaming
around.
You know, it just doesn't workthat way.
Well, what a lot of peopledon't understand, especially when
you think about it at scale,the health of the animal, it's, it's
(31:10):
critical that the health ofthe animal is safe.
Right.
And there's a lot ofantibodies and a lot of things floating
around out there that, thatcreate sickness.
And as a matter of fact, whenI was with Culver's, we would do
a lot of our, our commercialsfor our chicken or for our beef on
ranches and we would go downto Georgia because we used Springer
(31:31):
Mountain Farm chicken and wewould go to Georgia and we would
literally tour the facilityand you have to, you have to take
a shower and you have to puton a hazmat suit to go into that
facility to, to keep them safeand to keep certain temperatures
and there's, and, and the samething when you go to a compart family
farm hog farm.
(31:52):
You know, we're protectingthose hogs by giving these amazing
filtration systems andtemperature control facilities to,
to make sure that they're ableto have a very comfortable, stress
free lifestyle.
But ultimately mostresponsible and ethical Producers
(32:14):
and growers are trying to keeptheir animals as safe as possible
in strong, good facilitieswhere they can take care of them.
Absolutely.
We're going to take another break.
We're going to be back withDavid Stidham from Compart Durock.
We're going to wrap up thisshow and then we're going to abuse
David after hours.
So please stay with us.
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(32:34):
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(32:57):
Hey everybody, it's JT.
You know, I talk about PaintedHills all the time and we always
say beef the way nature intended.
But it's more than thatbecause each bite of Painted Hills
will make your taste buds explode.
Put a big bright smile on yourface and whoever's at your dinner
table will have a big brightsmile on their face.
And you can thank me for that later.
Just go topaintedhillsbeef.com and find out
(33:20):
more.
You won't regret it.
Hey everybody, JT here.
I want to tell you about theHammerstahl knives.
Hammerstahl combines Germansteel with beautiful and functioning
designs.
They're part of the HeritageSteel group which also does their
pots and pans.
So go to heritagesteel UScheck out the Hammer Stahl knives.
If you're really into cooking,I think you're really gonna like
(33:41):
them.
Foreign.
Welcome back to the Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippen and David Stidham.
Stidham Today from Comp Park, Durock.
I'm sorry, I just did a, likea four day trade show talking to
(34:03):
thousands of people literally.
And I was telling Leannebefore we came on the air that yesterday
I came home, we unpackedeverything, put the studio back together
and all that stuff.
Stuff.
And today I can't talk, Ican't walk, I can't do anything like
a, you know, six foot one messhere anyway, as far as, as the hogs
(34:27):
and that, how many, I mean,how many hogs are you guys going
through a day, a week, amonth, that, that process?
Because it's a continual cycle.
Yes, it is.
And, and, and, and it's, it's,it's obviously varies on a lot of
different factors and a lot offactors that I'M not even quite versed
(34:48):
enough on.
But I do know that addingthese two new hog barns in Montana
is probably adding us another2,000 head per month or a week or
per month.
It depends on, you know, whatthe need and the growing demand is.
I mean, there's a lot of.
And so that's, but we weredoing right around 3,000 a week.
And so we're probably in that4 to 4, 500 per week range right
(35:10):
now, depending on, on what'sneeded and where, you know.
Yeah.
Where it's, where it's headingand, and so forth.
And we're.
David, what's the yield on a hog?
I mean, I, I, we raised themwhen I.
For us, it's all of it.
We, we actually have so many skus.
(35:32):
I mean, from, from snouts to,to, to femur bones to, you know,
I mean, we really try toutilize the entire.
I heard, I heard that Mexicoloves the snouts.
Is that true?
Is that where you ship most of them?
I know that right now we'retrying to.
We're working on a deal withMexico right now.
(35:52):
I don't think we're doing it yet.
We're getting close, butactually, he wants.
Mouths snoots.
Come to St. Louis.
East St. Louis.
Also the infamous pituitary gland.
I understand that that'sprobably by weight, the most expensive
part of a hog because don'tthey buy it for medicinal reasons?
(36:15):
Leanne, you got me on that one.
I'm not there yet.
So, so, Leanne, speaking of that.
This doesn't have anything todo with hogs, but I was doing a.
I do this little thing calledFoodie Thursday for a couple of radio
stations around here that I'massociated with.
I didn't know that.
(36:37):
That a big seller wasgallstones from cattle.
It's like nuts.
And it's, again, it's likemedicinal stuff in the east and all
that.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
So there's always seems to bea use for some body part.
I'll just put it that way.
Absolute.
And that's, that's, that's theincredible part about, you know,
(37:00):
being in this type of businessis because, you know, every part
of that animal can berespectfully used, used, and, and,
and not in vain.
Out of, out of all the partsof the, the carcass, are the ribs
the number one seller or is itthe, the butts or, you know, the
(37:20):
loins?
It depends on region and, and,and, and so forth.
I mean, obviously our loinsare very popular.
You know, one of the things Iam proud to talk about.
And, and this is one of thethings that does also separate us
from many of our competitorsis the fact that we have such high
intermuscular fat scores thatI, we talked about earlier.
Right.
And higher pH and highermarbling scores.
(37:43):
It allows us to, to dry ageour loins.
And, and so we can offer a 21day age ribeye chop from 12, 14 to
18 ounces.
We can do a 21 day ageporterhouse chop.
We could do 11 bone rib chop,a rib roast where they can, where
(38:05):
the restaurants can slicetheir own chops and french them out
now, all with a draw, a 21 daydry age on them.
And we have a lot of celebritychefs which you all know on tv.
I don't know if I can mentionthem on this show, but you all that
they, they literally in Vegasand New Orleans and all these other
places, Tavern on the Green inNew York, they're all you, they're
all buying this dry agedliving bone rib rack and they're,
(38:27):
they're cutting their ownsteaks and they're offering a, you
know, a lot of them will offera 16 ounce dry age rib eye steak
and right below that they'lloffer a 16 ounce dry aged ribeye
chop for $30 less and stillmake more gross profit, not dollars.
And so, you know, it's allmenu management at this point.
And that's what Steven, Steveand I are out there showing what
(38:48):
we can do.
And so, but there's nobodyelse that can, can really offer that.
And that gives us an acuteadvantage over a lot of our competitors
because once people see andtaste the texture of our dry aged
chops and how thick they areand how center the plate beautiful
they are, they, they want themand, and it's a pretty cool product.
So can I tell you my pickledpig feet story real quick?
(39:10):
Sure.
When I was a kid, we went to,I lived in, outside of a little town
here in Oregon and we went upfor some social deal and it was the
first time I'd ever beenthrough a buffet, right.
And I'm six, go down there andthis, there's this big.
I thought they were shrimp.
I thought these were thebiggest shrimp I had ever seen in
(39:31):
my life.
All right.
But they weren't, they werepickled and yeah, pig's feet.
And I took a little clump.
Yeah.
And I took, I took a couple,three of them and I took a big bite
of one that didn't work out.
Well, I'll just put it that way.
So, but that was my firstexperience with.
(39:52):
Other than, you know, loinsand ribs and.
And hams or whatever.
So we sell a lot of hams as well.
We sell.
I mean, we.
Oh, my God, the hams are incredible.
We did those for Easter at arestaurant, and they are unbelievable.
Seriously, the best ham I'veever had.
(40:13):
Yeah.
So I served Compartexclusively at the Deviled Pig in
Florida.
And we put the name on themenu and we thought the story and
everything, because you needto let the customers know that they're
getting the finest pork thereis, you know, and.
And they can tell the difference.
And so we were very proud toput the name on the menu.
(40:35):
Yeah.
And also.
Yeah.
And Steve Countryman, he wouldcome and visit and he'd tell me about
new cuts that are out there.
So, you know, things that are,like, cutting edge, and I'm always
about that.
And.
And it's the intimacy that wehave and the relationship with your
company that really adds notonly to the fact that it's premium
pork, but you're getting, youknow, that relationship, which I
(40:57):
think is so important in business.
That means a lot.
Thank you for saying that.
That's kind of what has madethis company so successful is the
fact that it is a family, itis a relationship, it is a what can
we do to help you?
And.
And that's why I was attractedto it and why I'm so proud to be
part of it.
That's awesome.
Do you guys have an onlinepresence for a store or anything
(41:19):
that people.
Okay, yes.
We sell a lot online.
Obviously, it's a smallcomparison of what we do with distributors
and so forth.
But yeah, just.
Just go to compartment, youknow, compartdirect.com and you can
shop.
You can see where to buy ourproducts on a local level.
Cool.
David Stidham from Compart Durock.
(41:40):
Thank you, buddy.
David's going to stick aroundfor after hours, and so don't go
away for that if you'relistening online.
But, David, thank you.
Been a great guest.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah.
And also I'm just going to addthat Compart sponsored me along my
competition years, and I won alot of awards with them.
(42:01):
So any competitors that don'tknow about it, you got to use it.
Hey, if you know, you know, right?
Go out, have some fun, makesome good food.
And don't forget our motto here.
Turn it, don't burn it.
Take care, everybody.
Barbecue Nation is produced byJTSD LLC Productions in association
with Salem Media Group.
All rights reserved.
It's time for Barbecue Nationwith jt.
So fire up your grill, lightthe charcoal, and get your smoker
cooking.
Now from the Turn It, Don't Burn.
It studios in Portland.
Here's jt, everybody.
Welcome to the nation ofBarbecue Nation.
I'm Jeff Casey along with hallof famer Ms. Leanne whipping there.
That's right.
Congratulations.
(00:33):
She is.
Thank you, Hofer.
And she's coming to us fromours studio in Florida.
I'm in Portland or in thePortland area.
Today, we welcome you all tothe show.
We've got a.
A really good guest this week,David Stidham from Compact Compart
Durock.
I can't talk today, David, butforgive me for that.
He's the VPL as VP of salesand marketing, also formerly of a
(00:58):
Fine swine barbecue.
Welcome to the show, bud.
Hey, thank you, Jeff.
I appreciate it.
Good to see both you and Leanne.
Nice to see you too.
Been a while.
So before we talk about the.
The Durock, the compart familyDurock stuff, I want to talk to you
about your barbecueexperience, because that.
(01:19):
Hence, that's the name of the show.
But I'm always.
I'm always curious about howpeople kind of get into that, do
it, compete in it, and then atsome point or own restaurants like
you did, or plural, and then move.
So once you.
Why don't you tell us about that?
(01:40):
Okay.
Well, you know, it all started.
The barbecue scenes for mestarted when I was living in Wisconsin.
Of course, growing up in thesouth, you grow up grilling and cooking
and doing all those things,but it was just expected.
It was not something that youreally strove for when you were very
young.
But I was in Wisconsin.
(02:00):
I was the VP of marketing forCulver's restaurants, and that's
where the corporate offices were.
And me and.
And actually, Leanne, you'll.
You'll get amusement out of this.
Me and my youngest son, Jacobwere actually watching Barbecue Pit
Masters when it went in hisheyday, when it came out, when it
was actually really good.
Yeah.
And.
And.
And so we were watching that, and.
(02:22):
And.
And.
And Jacob's like, dad, you'rea really good cook.
You should do that.
And I'm like, jacob, that's awhole different level.
And so.
And so.
But he goes, yeah, but you cando it.
And so I thought about it, andI was like, okay, I'm gonna call
my buddy Jason Cole.
I think you guys know JasonCole with the hot coals, and he runs
the big event in Nashville now.
But anyway, he and I Were verygood friends because he used to work
(02:44):
for me a long time ago inNashville, Tennessee, where I lived
most of my adult life.
And so.
And we just got on the phonethat Saturday afternoon, We talked
and we talked, and then wetalked and we talked for, like, hours.
The next thing you know, I'mlike, I'm going to order a smoker.
And so I ordered a smoker that night.
I just did some research, andI bought a really nice, blazing pellet
grill.
(03:04):
And.
And then Jason invited me tocome down to Winchester, Tennessee,
for a big high on the hogbarbecue competition, one of the
larger ones down in the.
That area of the country.
And he says, hey, come down here.
Me and my.
My, you know, father in law,we'll show you how we do everything.
And so I went down there, sawall the teams, saw.
(03:27):
Saw my first real barbecueexperience, and.
And stayed with them andprepped and cooked and did a lot
of cleaning and all that kindof this stuff.
And, you know, and.
And got to see a couple of calls.
It was a lot of fun.
And I just.
I was like, man, this is amazing.
And so.
And he.
He showed me a lot of stuff.
And so I went back toWisconsin, and I started.
(03:48):
Started cooking, and I startedgetting really into it.
And then I did enter my first contest.
It was called Poor Q.
And it was kind of like, forteams that are just getting into
it, it was only, like, youknow, $10 to enter.
It was more of a this is aparticipation type thing.
But they had good teams there.
I mean, they were like, youknow, ql and some of the other legendary
(04:09):
teams were all cooking it.
And so I'm like, okay, well,I'm gonna come and see what I can
do and have some fun with this thing.
And.
And.
And it was just the mostinsane thing ever when I got three
calls and I finished third overall.
And.
And I was just blown away.
And so the proverbial hook was set.
And then I just startedcooking more and more competitions,
(04:30):
making my own sauce.
That's another thing, is Ibrought my own sauce to the thing.
I wanted to have my own flavorprofile right off the bat.
I know a lot of you guys dothat too.
And so.
And it just kind of.
It just kind of escalated.
And then I actually got prettydecent at it.
And I'm not.
It just took.
It takes a while, everybody.
It takes a while to figure outwhat the judges really want.
And then.
(04:50):
And like I said, I went tothat Westmont competition.
I have never won.
I've not won anything yet.
I Won.
I've gotten calls, but.
But I remember that one.
I got the first place brisketcall and I lost my mind.
And Leanne, you were right there.
Yeah.
And, and I went up and then inTimothy Shop with, you know, his
(05:12):
group, Tim's Full Belly Deli,we were both Wisconsin teams.
I ended up getting GrantReserve Grant, he ended up getting
Granted.
We were both losing our minds.
And so.
Yeah, but that was a prettyspecial moment.
And they say that once you hityour first like RGC or gc, then they
start coming a little easier.
And they kind of did.
And so, so I developed mysauces for resale.
(05:34):
I had three different barbecue sauces.
My Original, my competition,My Sweet and my Texas Heat.
And then I developed the BeeStink honeysuckle and they became
very popular.
The Habanero Honey, the AppleCinnamon Habanero Honey, and all
those.
And so I was starting todevelop this kind of brand and, and
it was a lot of fun, but, youknow, I still had this full time
responsible, you know,corporate gig.
(05:55):
Right.
And, and so after severalyears and, and starting to win and
getting, you know, top fivesat the Jack and, and being at stage
in Royal and Memphis and Mayand all this kind of stuff, I decided
I wanted to try to do thisfull time somehow and kind of lead
my kids to show them that,hey, you can, you can do more than
(06:16):
just work for somebody else.
You can work for yourself and,and lead a path.
And So I, at 50 years old, Isaid, I'm retiring from Culver's
and I'm going to, I'm going tomove down to be close to my family.
My dad was ill in SouthernIllinois and he was close to Scott
(06:37):
Air Force Base.
My mom, my brother, my sister,cousins, nieces, they all live down
there.
I've never lived close to myfamily as an adult.
And so I found a perfectopportunity down there.
Perfect building that had allthe, the different things I wanted.
And we did it.
And so I retired fromCulver's, went down there and opened
(06:58):
up my first restaurant in NewBaden, Illinois.
And, and it was amazing.
We had some.
We built a smokehouse up frontso when people walk up the ramp to
go into the place, the smokeis already right face.
They're seeing the wood pilesand, and you know, we had so much
fun inside the restaurant.
I went to Texas to go to a lotof restaurants in Texas to see what
(07:21):
they're doing, to see how muchsuccess they're having and what people
love about it.
And when I found in Texas whatthey Loved is they love to go to
these places.
And they got the pits and thebig cutting boards right in front
of you, and you go through,and they're actually literally slicing
and chopping and.
And doing everything right infront of you.
And I wanted to do that, but Icouldn't in the state of Illinois,
and especially for the codesfor, for the building I was in.
(07:44):
And so I got this huge cuttingboard from an Amish guy in Pennsylvania.
It was like, I mean, fourpeople to carry it.
And I put it in the kitchen ona stainless steel table.
I put a chairman over it, andit was big enough to where I could
do brisket chopping andslicing on one side and rib slicing
and glazing on the other side.
And we called it Carve Cam.
(08:06):
And when you walk into therestaurant, you look at the screens,
you're seeing live, you know,meats being cut, and they say, oh,
I want that.
I want that.
And so that was how I broughtthat immersion into my restaurant.
And we had a lot of fun anddoing stuff like that.
And then, then the mistakesstarted happening.
(08:26):
Everything was going great.
And then I. I'll just say it.
Maybe I.
Maybe I got greedy.
My.
My accountants were saying,hey, we need to open up another place.
And, and you know, opening upanother place is exciting, but it's
also pulling you away fromyour place.
Right.
And.
And so.
But I wanted to do a.
In Mount Vernon.
(08:46):
It was a.
It was a.
An old Papa John's pizzaplace, and it was abandoned, so we
built a smokehouse out there.
We were going to make it moreof a to go type of place, barbecue
place.
But since they left a pizzaoven there, we said, well, maybe
we could do barbecue andbarbecue pizzas.
And so, so we built that out,had a lot of fun, did really well,
(09:08):
but it did splinter me.
And I know Leanne, you knowall too well how it is, how important
it is to be absolutely.
With your people, leading,watching, understanding everything.
Yes, I get.
Exactly.
So I was splintering and, andit wasn't.
(09:31):
It wasn't great for.
For the business because I. Iwasn't where I needed to be as much
as I needed to be.
And then.
But we did well, and we were,we were.
We were bringing us somedecent results.
And then I had an opportunityto do it again in my hometown in
Carlisle, the golf club.
And so that was number three.
That was a year, four, I think.
(09:51):
But it's not like I did allthis in one year or two years, but
it was like, it took a fewyears but in year four, we went and
did that.
And that made it even worsebecause now, because I didn't have
the big smokers, like, I did anew Beta, like I had to.
I had a. I built.
I had a good sized smoker in,in Mount Vernon because we built
a smokehouse there.
But the one in Carlisle, wejust did a.
(10:12):
A decent sized smoker.
And so I was literally gettingup in the big smokers, the really
big ones in New Baden werecooking for the other restaurant,
right.
And them.
And so I would actually go there.
They load me up, I take itover the big meats, briskets and
the pork butts.
And.
And I do chicken and pork on site.
(10:33):
And so it became a managementissue, a time issue.
And so if I could go back anddo it again, I'd still have new bait
and just new bait and be, youknow, blowing it up.
But Covid hit, and that partof Illinois was particularly, particularly
managed by the state.
(10:53):
When Covid hit, they wanted to make.
To send a message.
Pritzker did and he did.
And we were in small towns andso we didn't have a drive through
and so.
And we were in small towns andthey literally shut us down for quite
a while.
And so that was a.
That was a tough spot to be in.
And then it just snowballedfrom that point on from not being.
(11:15):
It probably came to a pointwhere you don't even reopen at that
point.
It was that.
It was that.
It was that it was that bad.
And because, you know, peoplewould only drive so far to buy something
for them from theirneighborhood because everybody's
wearing masks and everybodyhas to stand in social distance.
And, you know, and if we didhave people come in, they literally
had to go into the parking lotand we had to take their food to
(11:36):
them and they couldn't evencome in the door.
And it was just.
It was crazy.
So was that the end of thethree places then?
That was it, Pretty much.
Okay, we're going to take a break.
We're going to be back withDavid Stidham from Compart Direct.
Durock.
I don't know what's with thething today.
I haven't my tongue.
I got to go take it out andput it back in.
(11:58):
Anyway.
We're going to be back in aminute here on the Nation.
Hey, everybody, it's Jeff here.
I want to tell you aboutsomething really cool.
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(12:20):
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Welcome back to the Nation.
(12:41):
I'm J.T.
along with Ms. Whippen, andwe've got David Stidham from Compart
Durock.
There, I said it right for thefirst time.
I was going to tell you,David, I'm pretty sure that what
you said at the top of theshow when Pit Masters was a good
show.
John Marcus is going to loveyou for that.
(13:02):
I'm gonna make sure it was amazing.
I'm gonna make sure he knows that.
You said that so well.
It.
That was.
That was the.
The stepping stone to it all.
And.
And it was just.
It was just so authentic.
That's.
That's.
That's what drew me in, is the.
How authentic it was.
It was real.
There was no.
You know what I'm saying?
It was just amazing.
And so, yeah, John did a greatjob, and.
(13:22):
And the cameras did a greatjob, and.
And, you know, we saweverybody at their best and we saw
them at their worst, and itwas just authentic.
Yeah, absolutely.
David, I think you hit it, though.
I owned a restaurant a longtime ago for a very short period
of time, just for the factthat I had another business I was
running, and I was traveling alot in those days, and I put up the
(13:44):
money for a friend to buy itfor him because he had been in the
restaurant business.
Okay.
And then after the first fewdays, he came over to where our retail
store was, and he said, whatshift are you going to work?
I mean, I was.
I was literally.
Literally 70 hours a week onmy schedule at that point, and I
(14:04):
just looked at him and I said,I can't do that.
Yeah.
So we sold it a very shorttime later because.
And I did have a cateringcompany later, but you can't do that.
I think.
I think you and Leanne nailedit both.
When you say, if you're gonnado something like that, that's where
you got to focus and you'regonna be married to it.
(14:25):
Yeah.
And you build it up, and it'sdoing good.
And you're not the firstperson that ever said, well, if I've
got one, two would be better,you know?
Yeah.
But there wasn't two Davids.
I had to learn, you know?
You know, and to be honestwith you, there's a.
Having all the success I'vehad with business in.
(14:45):
In the restaurant industry,national, big national brands, and
did a lot of good things, andHad a lot of great people around
me.
I probably, probably thought Iwas better than I probably should
have, if that makes sense.
So how did you make thattransition to, to work with Jim over
there?
Actually, yeah.
(15:05):
So when I, when I, when I soldthe businesses, I got a, a contractor
position with another, with alarge franchisee of Culder's, and,
and they hired me to, to comeand help them build marketing programs
for all of their restaurants.
And, and I did that for awhile, but it just wasn't really
(15:26):
what I, where I wanted to be.
And so I, I started goingthrough this whole transition in
life, in, in everything.
And so, and so then I, I had afriend of mine who was a, a recruiter,
and he said, hey, I could findyou something.
You know, I could find you aVP of marketing position, or I could
find you this or I could findyou that.
(15:47):
And, and you know, your, yourresumes, you know, it's not going
to be a hard thing to do at all.
But I got another thought foryou and I said, what's that?
He goes, why don't youactually become a recruiter like
me and I can show you theropes and you can work on your own
schedule.
You work from home and youdon't have to move and uproot your
family.
And because, because in therestaurant industry, you got to be
at the restaurant and there'sonly so many corporate jobs in the
(16:08):
town you're currently living in.
Right.
And so, so I was, I lookedinto it.
Next thing you know, I waslike, yeah, let's just do that.
And then I moved intohealthcare recruiting exclusively.
And you know, and I had quitea bit of success with it.
And then out of the blue, Jimcalls me and, and, and because I've
(16:31):
known Jim for a long time,because Jim sponsored me, we wanted,
I won a lot, won a lot oftrophies with Compart Durock.
And so I actually put a fillerout there, said, I'm looking, I want
to stay in the barbecue world,but I don't want to, you know, to
work in a restaurant or doanything like that.
And I actually sent it topeople I respected and people that
I knew, people that soldbarbecue trailers, who built barbecue
(16:53):
pits and who did, you know,like, like, like comparts and so
forth.
And he responded and he said,hey, let's, let's chat.
And so we got on the phone andwe were on the phone for just a few
hours talking about whatthey're doing at compart, what's
going on, the growthprojectile, and, and the way it's
currently set up with from theeast coast all the way to the west
(17:15):
coast.
And, and he was looking forsomebody to, to bring in to continue
the trajectory of growth thatthey've got going.
And so one thing led toanother and he and I flew to Vegas
to meet with his rep out westand we spent some time together out
there talking about theopportunities, my capabilities, all
those kind of things.
(17:36):
And about a few weeks later,I'm on board and I'm kind of representing,
you know, the, the marketingside as well as the, the Midwest.
And because we've got twoamazing reps, Steve Countryman on
the East Coast.
Say hi to Steve for me.
I miss him.
Steve Countryman?
(17:57):
Yeah, yeah, him and SteveMulrein, we got the two Steves and
they're both fantastic andthey move a lot of product and, and
I'm learning from them becauseit's kind of new for me.
But, but with my marketingskills that I bring and, and I do
have sales skills, you know.
Well, you know, the proof isin the pudding.
I mean you use their productand you won things.
So I mean there's a storybehind what you're doing.
(18:19):
It isn't just like you're a salesperson.
I mean you, the proof is thereand so it adds credibility to it,
which is fantastic.
Thank you.
I agree.
I was in Omaha last week,Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska and I'm
with the district salesmanagers, his reps. And we're going
into these clients and, and wewent into this one client and a country
club actually and we wereshowing them our dry aged chops and
(18:42):
we're showing them all thesepork bellies and all these fun things.
And he says, he has, he goes,and I brought in a rack of ribs just
because I brought extra rack.
I had some baby back ribs.
And so I said, you know, ifyou're going to do catering, it's
an easy way to do ribs andfeed a lot of people, you know, pretty
good price point.
And, and, and I, and I offeredup, I said, you know what?
(19:02):
And if you want I will come uphere and I will personally, as part
of my service from CompartFamily Farms is I will show you exactly
what I do to cook competitionquality ribs in a restaurant format.
And, and his eyes just lit upand I said, yeah, you can offer,
you know, Compart Family FarmDurock pork championship caliber
(19:23):
ribs for your catering group,your, your special or for whatever.
And, and that's one of thethings that I can do because I've
cooked thousands and thousandsof those racks.
Same with all the other meatsand proteins that I, that I've cooked.
And so, so that's anotherlittle thing that I can add to the,
to the table.
Yeah, that's so important.
Like Leanne said, you know,the proof is in the pudding or it's
(19:46):
actually in the smoker.
You might say that a lot ofmeat guys don't have that experience.
You know, they're good salesmen.
But when you add that littleflavor profile to your resume, that's
good.
We're going to take anotherbreak and we're going to be back
with David Stidham fromcompart Durac and Ms. Whippen here
on the nation.
(20:06):
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Hey, everybody, it's JT and Ihave eaten.
If you've ever looked at me,you know that.
But I have eaten seafood allover the world and I can tell you
there's no place better thanhere in Oregon and our Dungeness
crab.
If you want to learn moreabout Oregon Dungeness crab, just
go to oregondungeness.org findout how to cook it, how to catch
it, where to buy it, and thesustainability of what they're doing
(20:54):
there in the Oregon Crab Commission.
Check it out.
Welcome back to Barbecue Nation.
You can find us on any or mostany podcast platform on the USA Radio
(21:16):
networks out there.
If you can't find us, callLeanne and she will send you an autographed
picture.
We, we want to thank, ofcourse, Painted Hills Natural beef
and Leanne's pig powder forhelping with the show.
Here, Dad's pig powder.
And that is my dad's barbecuerub that has won best rub on the
(21:39):
planet.
And you can getit@pigpowder.com it's sweet with
a little back heat.
And I have a spicy pig powdercoming out.
I've been saying that for amonth or so, but you know how it's
like trying to close on a house.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So anyway, a lot of teams outthere are winning with it still after
all these years, and Iactually use it on the circuit.
(22:01):
So, yeah, you should try it.
It's awesome.
It is.
It's great stuff.
I was going to tell youActually, the other day I did.
I can't even remember now.
I can't remember last weekright now because it was kind of
a blur.
But I used it on somethingthat I thought, you know, I should
call Leanne and tell her Iused it on this.
And it was really good, as usual.
Brought out a great profile.
(22:24):
Very versatile.
Yeah, yeah, I think it was.
I think it was seafood of some sort.
Scallops.
It was scallops.
Scallops.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That was cool.
Anyway, we're talking withDavid Stidham from Compart Durock
today has the Compart product,the family, the whole thing.
(22:46):
You know, it's been a littletough in the beef business.
That's something I know alittle bit about.
Okay, not too much, but alittle bit.
But prices and, and thefutures markets and everything of
that has just gone kind of batwhack crazy there.
How's it in the.
In the pork business?
Well, it's.
It's actually not been socrazy since things have stabilized
(23:08):
from.
From COVID of course, youknow, and, but.
But we're always going to beon the higher end.
You know, we're premium.
We're premium work.
And a lot of people have, theyknow we're premium and they know
we're durock, but they don'tunderstand how we got there and what
it really means.
And that's the story I telleach and every day when I'm talking
to sales reps and distributorsand restaurateurs and chefs and so
(23:30):
forth.
And, you know, I don't think alot of people realize that the Compart
family started out as a 4Hproject in 1949.
Oh, and they've been raisingDuroc hogs since 1949.
They've developed their ownvertically integrated feeding program,
breeding program.
They literally register eachswine into the registry in Illinois.
(23:54):
But the cool part is like,they, you know, premium pork, just
like steak and beef, you know,it's all about marbling, right?
Intermuscular fat.
That's where the flavor is.
And what they've been doingevery to every hog since 1949 is
using an actual ultrasound machine.
Okay.
And that ultrasound machineliterally measures the fat in that
(24:14):
hog.
And they're able to give it aninternational score, intermuscular
fat score.
And that's how they actuallymeasure and breed based on the higher
scores.
And they've been doing thisevery single year.
So when you think about it,all these new Durock programs coming
on board, they're never goingto catch up to the intermuscular
fat scores that Compart hasbecause they've been doing it for
(24:34):
so long, and they've actuallypretty much created that program,
and they're the innovators ofthat program.
So they've got a uniquefeeding program.
They grow their own.
Their own food.
They got farms and farms and farms.
And.
And so there's incredibly sophisticated.
When you see them at abarbecue competition, you see Jim
walking around with Diana and.
And they're just having fun,having a cocktail, watching, watching
(24:56):
their name get called all thetime for these competitions.
The amount of dedication,heart and creativity and just hard
work that.
That whole family, the wholeentire family has evolved.
As a matter of fact, you go tothe corporate office.
It's a house with offices.
And so that's how driven theyare as a family.
And.
(25:17):
And it's an honor to be partof that.
And.
And so.
But I've learned so much, andthere's so many moving parts to an
industry like that to, to havescale that large.
And I alluded earlier on theshow, there's some new news coming
out, and that new news is thatwe've partnered with several new
(25:38):
ranches in Montana to allow usto raise no antibiotic ever pork.
And in.
One of the reasons we didthat, and we'll just be straight
up, is the state of Californiaand the state of Massachusetts passed
a proposition called Prop 12 acouple of years ago, ruling that
(26:00):
if you are a business inCalifornia or Massachusetts, you
cannot buy pork from aproducer that doesn't have a certain
size gestation crate.
And so we were no longerallowed to sell in California or
Massachusetts.
So we did partner with some.
Some brand.
We built brand new wrencheswith them.
Ranches.
I mean, they're incredible.
(26:21):
Incredibly beautiful.
As a matter of fact, when wewent and toured it earlier last year,
Jim said it's the best hogbarn he's ever seen in his life.
And.
And they're huge.
And so now we are now offeringhogs raised without antibiotics ever.
And so, of course, you allknow, in industry, we all know that
there's a lot of marketing anda lot of gimmicks when it comes to
(26:41):
how we label food products and chickens.
Hey, this is antibiotic free.
Well, you know what?
It has to be antibiotic free.
Chickens, pigs, hogs, cows.
They're not allowed to beprocessed if there's antibiotics
in their system.
But that doesn't mean youcan't use antibiotics if they're
young and they get sick andthen it runs through their system
and then they no longer have it.
(27:02):
But the barns that we'rebuilding now are no antibiotics ever
administered and they're doingvery, very well.
And it's allowed us to producea lot more product.
And so.
But we are able to open thatup now to not just California and
Massachusetts.
We're now able to produce itnationwide for, you know, the high
(27:22):
end butcher shops, retailers,those types of people where it's,
they've got a discerningcustomer that kind of wants that
kind of stuff.
You know, David, it'sinteresting you say that about the,
the antibiotics.
I worked, I've worked withPainted Hills for a long time and
they will, if an animal getssick, they will treat them, but they
pull them out of the programand sell them on the open market.
(27:45):
They don't keep them in, intheir process because they have,
they have their own feed yard,et cetera, et cetera.
Right.
But that's what they do.
Are you guys doing that same,similar type of action?
Yes, as a matter of fact.
In the antibiotic in the NAE ranches.
Yeah.
If a pig does get sick,they're going to give it an antibiotic
(28:09):
and then they're going totransport to a different facility.
Right, right.
Okay.
And keep it separated from anyother pigs in that facility.
And so that facility couldremain an NAE facility.
And they'll, they'll, they'llinstantly remove it and give it diminished,
but they're not going to letthe pig die.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so, and so they're goingto take it to another facility.
But I will tell you this.
(28:30):
Our success rates for thefirst year and a half, first six
months of producing are incredible.
They're.
The yield is way higher thanwe ever dreamed or imagined.
And I don't know if it'sbecause the facilities are so high
tech, so clean and so wellmanaged, but it is surprisingly powerful
(28:52):
in the numbers that we'reseeing right now.
Oh, that's, that's very coolthough, that you guys.
Internationally, or is it justthe US we do internationally.
We, we.
This will blow your mind howmany femur bones we sell to Japan
and South Korea for, forbroths and soups.
So where I live in Oregon, wedon't see a lot of compart products
(29:19):
all over the place.
And with the advent of theranches in Montana, are you going
to be able to fill in someparts of the country that maybe you
haven't had a big footprint in yet?
That's what we're trying to do.
We're trying to do with bothOur, our traditional pork and the
new nae pork.
And so we're, we're working hard.
(29:41):
I know that right now SteveMulryin is putting a lot of energy
and effort into growing thatbusiness that he lost in California
first.
He had a lot of distributorsand a lot of great accounts that
weren't allowed to buy from us anymore.
And that, that, that hurt.
And so, so he's putting a lotof energy on, on building that back
(30:01):
up and of course growing, youknow, the entire, entire country.
We're in, we're in pretty muchall the states, but it all depends
on, you know, at what level.
And so a lot of district, likea lot of distributors are, are just
now getting wind of us intheir, they're growing their businesses.
But it takes time.
There's three of us now,there's three of us reps, including
Jim for but, but we'reanticipating a lot of growth here
(30:25):
the next few years.
I wanted to, I wanted to, Iwanted to go back, David, just to
second, just to kind ofclarify for people that are listening
what you've had to do with thehogs for California and Massachusetts.
Isn't that kind of on the samelevel as free range chickens?
Look, if people knew anythingabout growing large numbers of animals
(30:48):
for human consumption, youcan't have, you know, whatever we
eat every day, a million and ahalf chickens in this country roaming
around.
You know, it just doesn't workthat way.
Well, what a lot of peopledon't understand, especially when
you think about it at scale,the health of the animal, it's, it's
(31:10):
critical that the health ofthe animal is safe.
Right.
And there's a lot ofantibodies and a lot of things floating
around out there that, thatcreate sickness.
And as a matter of fact, whenI was with Culver's, we would do
a lot of our, our commercialsfor our chicken or for our beef on
ranches and we would go downto Georgia because we used Springer
(31:31):
Mountain Farm chicken and wewould go to Georgia and we would
literally tour the facilityand you have to, you have to take
a shower and you have to puton a hazmat suit to go into that
facility to, to keep them safeand to keep certain temperatures
and there's, and, and the samething when you go to a compart family
farm hog farm.
(31:52):
You know, we're protectingthose hogs by giving these amazing
filtration systems andtemperature control facilities to,
to make sure that they're ableto have a very comfortable, stress
free lifestyle.
But ultimately mostresponsible and ethical Producers
(32:14):
and growers are trying to keeptheir animals as safe as possible
in strong, good facilitieswhere they can take care of them.
Absolutely.
We're going to take another break.
We're going to be back withDavid Stidham from Compart Durock.
We're going to wrap up thisshow and then we're going to abuse
David after hours.
So please stay with us.
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(32:57):
Hey everybody, it's JT.
You know, I talk about PaintedHills all the time and we always
say beef the way nature intended.
But it's more than thatbecause each bite of Painted Hills
will make your taste buds explode.
Put a big bright smile on yourface and whoever's at your dinner
table will have a big brightsmile on their face.
And you can thank me for that later.
Just go topaintedhillsbeef.com and find out
(33:20):
more.
You won't regret it.
Hey everybody, JT here.
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(33:41):
them.
Foreign.
Welcome back to the Nation.
I'm JT along with LeanneWhippen and David Stidham.
Stidham Today from Comp Park, Durock.
I'm sorry, I just did a, likea four day trade show talking to
(34:03):
thousands of people literally.
And I was telling Leannebefore we came on the air that yesterday
I came home, we unpackedeverything, put the studio back together
and all that stuff.
Stuff.
And today I can't talk, Ican't walk, I can't do anything like
a, you know, six foot one messhere anyway, as far as, as the hogs
(34:27):
and that, how many, I mean,how many hogs are you guys going
through a day, a week, amonth, that, that process?
Because it's a continual cycle.
Yes, it is.
And, and, and, and it's, it's,it's obviously varies on a lot of
different factors and a lot offactors that I'M not even quite versed
(34:48):
enough on.
But I do know that addingthese two new hog barns in Montana
is probably adding us another2,000 head per month or a week or
per month.
It depends on, you know, whatthe need and the growing demand is.
I mean, there's a lot of.
And so that's, but we weredoing right around 3,000 a week.
And so we're probably in that4 to 4, 500 per week range right
(35:10):
now, depending on, on what'sneeded and where, you know.
Yeah.
Where it's, where it's headingand, and so forth.
And we're.
David, what's the yield on a hog?
I mean, I, I, we raised themwhen I.
For us, it's all of it.
We, we actually have so many skus.
(35:32):
I mean, from, from snouts to,to, to femur bones to, you know,
I mean, we really try toutilize the entire.
I heard, I heard that Mexicoloves the snouts.
Is that true?
Is that where you ship most of them?
I know that right now we'retrying to.
We're working on a deal withMexico right now.
(35:52):
I don't think we're doing it yet.
We're getting close, butactually, he wants.
Mouths snoots.
Come to St. Louis.
East St. Louis.
Also the infamous pituitary gland.
I understand that that'sprobably by weight, the most expensive
part of a hog because don'tthey buy it for medicinal reasons?
(36:15):
Leanne, you got me on that one.
I'm not there yet.
So, so, Leanne, speaking of that.
This doesn't have anything todo with hogs, but I was doing a.
I do this little thing calledFoodie Thursday for a couple of radio
stations around here that I'massociated with.
I didn't know that.
(36:37):
That a big seller wasgallstones from cattle.
It's like nuts.
And it's, again, it's likemedicinal stuff in the east and all
that.
And I was like, what?
Yeah.
So there's always seems to bea use for some body part.
I'll just put it that way.
Absolute.
And that's, that's, that's theincredible part about, you know,
(37:00):
being in this type of businessis because, you know, every part
of that animal can berespectfully used, used, and, and,
and not in vain.
Out of, out of all the partsof the, the carcass, are the ribs
the number one seller or is itthe, the butts or, you know, the
(37:20):
loins?
It depends on region and, and,and, and so forth.
I mean, obviously our loinsare very popular.
You know, one of the things Iam proud to talk about.
And, and this is one of thethings that does also separate us
from many of our competitorsis the fact that we have such high
intermuscular fat scores thatI, we talked about earlier.
Right.
And higher pH and highermarbling scores.
(37:43):
It allows us to, to dry ageour loins.
And, and so we can offer a 21day age ribeye chop from 12, 14 to
18 ounces.
We can do a 21 day ageporterhouse chop.
We could do 11 bone rib chop,a rib roast where they can, where
(38:05):
the restaurants can slicetheir own chops and french them out
now, all with a draw, a 21 daydry age on them.
And we have a lot of celebritychefs which you all know on tv.
I don't know if I can mentionthem on this show, but you all that
they, they literally in Vegasand New Orleans and all these other
places, Tavern on the Green inNew York, they're all you, they're
all buying this dry agedliving bone rib rack and they're,
(38:27):
they're cutting their ownsteaks and they're offering a, you
know, a lot of them will offera 16 ounce dry age rib eye steak
and right below that they'lloffer a 16 ounce dry aged ribeye
chop for $30 less and stillmake more gross profit, not dollars.
And so, you know, it's allmenu management at this point.
And that's what Steven, Steveand I are out there showing what
(38:48):
we can do.
And so, but there's nobodyelse that can, can really offer that.
And that gives us an acuteadvantage over a lot of our competitors
because once people see andtaste the texture of our dry aged
chops and how thick they areand how center the plate beautiful
they are, they, they want themand, and it's a pretty cool product.
So can I tell you my pickledpig feet story real quick?
(39:10):
Sure.
When I was a kid, we went to,I lived in, outside of a little town
here in Oregon and we went upfor some social deal and it was the
first time I'd ever beenthrough a buffet, right.
And I'm six, go down there andthis, there's this big.
I thought they were shrimp.
I thought these were thebiggest shrimp I had ever seen in
(39:31):
my life.
All right.
But they weren't, they werepickled and yeah, pig's feet.
And I took a little clump.
Yeah.
And I took, I took a couple,three of them and I took a big bite
of one that didn't work out.
Well, I'll just put it that way.
So, but that was my firstexperience with.
(39:52):
Other than, you know, loinsand ribs and.
And hams or whatever.
So we sell a lot of hams as well.
We sell.
I mean, we.
Oh, my God, the hams are incredible.
We did those for Easter at arestaurant, and they are unbelievable.
Seriously, the best ham I'veever had.
(40:13):
Yeah.
So I served Compartexclusively at the Deviled Pig in
Florida.
And we put the name on themenu and we thought the story and
everything, because you needto let the customers know that they're
getting the finest pork thereis, you know, and.
And they can tell the difference.
And so we were very proud toput the name on the menu.
(40:35):
Yeah.
And also.
Yeah.
And Steve Countryman, he wouldcome and visit and he'd tell me about
new cuts that are out there.
So, you know, things that are,like, cutting edge, and I'm always
about that.
And.
And it's the intimacy that wehave and the relationship with your
company that really adds notonly to the fact that it's premium
pork, but you're getting, youknow, that relationship, which I
(40:57):
think is so important in business.
That means a lot.
Thank you for saying that.
That's kind of what has madethis company so successful is the
fact that it is a family, itis a relationship, it is a what can
we do to help you?
And.
And that's why I was attractedto it and why I'm so proud to be
part of it.
That's awesome.
Do you guys have an onlinepresence for a store or anything
(41:19):
that people.
Okay, yes.
We sell a lot online.
Obviously, it's a smallcomparison of what we do with distributors
and so forth.
But yeah, just.
Just go to compartment, youknow, compartdirect.com and you can
shop.
You can see where to buy ourproducts on a local level.
Cool.
David Stidham from Compart Durock.
(41:40):
Thank you, buddy.
David's going to stick aroundfor after hours, and so don't go
away for that if you'relistening online.
But, David, thank you.
Been a great guest.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah.
And also I'm just going to addthat Compart sponsored me along my
competition years, and I won alot of awards with them.
(42:01):
So any competitors that don'tknow about it, you got to use it.
Hey, if you know, you know, right?
Go out, have some fun, makesome good food.
And don't forget our motto here.
Turn it, don't burn it.
Take care, everybody.
Barbecue Nation is produced byJTSD LLC Productions in association
with Salem Media Group.
All rights reserved.
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