Family farm supplies high-dollar hogs

Agriculture

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October 20, 2008

By GINA KINSLOW The Glasgow Daily Times Mon Oct 20, 2008, 08:51 AM CDT

Jane Franks has never tasted porchetta, even though the pork used to make it came from her own hog farm in western Kentucky.

“I haven’t had it yet,” she said. “We’d like to have a sample but we haven’t gotten one yet.”

Franks and her husband, Allen, can’t even go out to their local supermarket to buy the product. In order to get a taste they will have to rely on Porchetta Primata, the company that makes the Italian ham product, to give them a sample.

Porchetta is an Italian ham that has been deboned, rolled in rosemary and other seasonings, tied and roasted. Only instead of it being made in Italy, it’s made here in Kentucky.

The hogs used to make the product are a cross between Duroc and Yorkshire breeds and weigh between 120 to 160 pounds.

The animals are raised by the Franks on their farm in Todd County. From there they are sent to Hampton Meats in Hopkinsville, where they are harvested. Next, they go to Irish Hill in Louisville where they are deboned and hand-seasoned, rolled, tied together and cooked by Custom Food Solutions also in Louisville using a special oven from Italy designed specifically for porchetta, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s Web site.

There are five types of porchetta: Tronchetto, Prosciutto Porchetta, Pancetta Porchetta, and Classic Porchetta. Tronchetto is made from the loin, tenderloin, belly and rib plate of the pig and rolled together and roasted for over four hours in a 500-degree oven.

The products are “unique” and “high dollar,” according to Warren Bealer with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. “I think they are selling for $10 or $12 per pound.”

Bealer said the product is being sold at “fancy restaurants” and specialty meat stores in large cities, and at Disney properties, Pebble Beach and on cruise chips and luxury boxes at sports arenas.

The Franks came to be the supplier for the products when Porchetta Primata officials were looking for a slaughter house that ran the hogs through a scalding bath and did not remove the hogs’ skin.

Bealer explained there are only two such companies in the state that do that. One is located in Hopkinsville, while the other is in Bardstown.

It just so happened that when Porchetta Primata company officials visited Hampton Meats in Hopkinsville, the slaughter house had a cooler full of hogs that came from the Franks’ farm.

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