This Little Piggy Went to Il Porcellino Salumi
By Lorrie Baumann
Denver’s Il Porcellino Salumi, already starting to make a name for itself among the cognoscenti, is ramping up its production facilities. The company has just opened a new U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified processing facility in Basalt, Colorado, about 180 miles west of Denver, where it’s begun processing dry-cured and fermented salumi for the wholesale market.
Il Porcellino is already known in Denver for its retail store, located in the city’s Berkeley neighborhood, which is anchored by the Tennyson Street shopping district, fairly well known across the city for the artisan shops that make it a destination. The shop combines a deli and butcher shop that earns five-star reviews for Charcutier and Owner Bill Miner’s Head Cheese and for sandwiches like the Hoggie, which offers Genoa salami Pepperoni and Berkeley Ham and garnishes on a hoagie roll. The real aficionados recommend adding an optional portion of Crispy Pork Belly to the Hoggie for the full porky experience.
Il Porcellino makes dozens of different dry-cured products, including hams and many flavors of salami. “We make our own bologna. We make our own mortadella,” Miner said. “We do a wagyu beef pastrami that’s amazing. You name it – we’ve probably tried it.”
“We do our own pickled vegetables,” he added. “Everything except the bread is made in-house. We make our own mustard.”
The Berkeley store is only the first of the retail locations that Miner is planning. “Nothing’s set in stone yet, but there’s definitely going to be something in place next year,” he said of his search for another location in a similar Denver neighborhood.
Miner’s career as a charcutier is an evolution from his 20-year career as a chef. He learned how to cure meats in the months when business at the catering company he was running was a little slow. “It really stems from a passion for cured meats that I’ve had ever since being a young chef,” he said. “I definitely shared recipes with family and a number of friends who encouraged me to start the business.” He continued working on his recipes for another two or three years before opening the doors to Il Porcellino, and he’s now putting those recipes to use making products for the wholesale market. “There are two different aspects to the business,” Miner said. “We wanted to develop a brand name at the retail store before we developed our wholesale business…. We worked hard on making sure that we had a number of good base recipes before we opened the door, but we’re still trying to push the limits, make new things, develop new recipes and not rest on our laurels. We want to be a leader in the industry.” As part of the brand development, Miner competed this year in the 2018 Charcuterie Masters competition in New York City, winning the grand champion’s crown among charcutiers from across the U.S. and Canada with his Spiced Juniper Salami, Speck and a new Hot Link recipe. The Spiced Juniper Salami won the Dry Cured Salami category, chosen from more than 100 entries from across the country.
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With the opening of the Basalt facility in June of this year, Miner started making fermented and dried salumi for the wholesale market, selling to wineries and cheese shops – any specialty retailer offering a charcuterie platter or selling charcuterie at retail – as well as high-end restaurants. “We’re already having a hard time keeping up with the demand, because we did develop that brand name before we opened our doors,” he said. “We want to be a small, artisanal salumi maker. We don’t want to be a big company. We make everything by hand.”
His current flavors of salami available at wholesale include Black Truffle, a Genoa-style salami seasoned with Malbec wine and fresh Burgundy black truffles; Cacciatore, a hunter-style salami that includes caraway seed, coriander, garlic and red chile flakes and Diablo, which is a spicy Italian salami seasoned with toasted fennel seeds and both whole and ground Calabrian chiles. The current salami includes a Finnocchiona, the traditional Italian salami that’s redolent with toasted fennel seeds and fennel pollen as well as garlic and black pepper. Orange Pistachio is a salami seasoned with garlic and fresh orange zest and garnished with Sicilian pistachios.
Saucisson Sec is the traditional French-style salami with garlic, black pepper and wine. Miner also jazzes up with Saucisson Sec further in a recipe he calls Queso, which includes Haystack Mountain Queso de Mano, a handmade Manchego-style cheese made from raw goat milk by Cheesemaker Jackie Chang. Miner’s Spanish Chorizo is seasoned with Pimenton smoked paprika, garlic and oregano, and his Spiced Juniper, a 2018 Charcuterie Masters Grand Champion, innovates on tradition with juniper berries, coriander and fennel seed with Calabrian chiles for heat.
This fall, the Cacciatore, Diablo, Finnochiona and Spiced Juniper salamis will also be offered for wholesale in large-format sliceable versions. In addition, Miner will be offering Guanciale, which is dry-cured pork jowl seasoned with garlic, bay leaf and thyme, Pepperoni and Soppressetta, the classic spicy Italian salami with unctuous amounts of fat for a luxurious mouthfeel and garlic, black pepper, red pepper flakes and Malbec to give it depth of flavor.
Once the new facility is approved for the production of whole muscle cuts, expected in early 2019, he’ll add his Lonza, Wagyu Beef Bresaola and his Good Food Award-winning Coppa as well as Culatello and Prosciutto to his wholesale menu. Like the retail shop, all of the meat used in the facility is sourced from Colorado and neighboring Nebraska.
Miner also has plans to expand the business further in late 2019 to include cooked products such as Mortadella, Summer Sausage, Artisanal Hot Dogs and Wagyu Beef Pastrami. “We’re working directly with farmers and ranchers that are raising the animals properly,” Miner said. “Working with the best-quality animals helps us to create an awesome finished product.”
Simplify Gourmet with Country Home Creations #GNatSFFS
Shirley Kautman-Jones was working at a bank when she heard her co-workers discussing how they had a difficult time creating impressive, easy meals. Shirley, being a natural in the kitchen, would send them home with little bags of spices and easy recipes to follow. Her creations were an instant success, and she realized it was time to expand outside her comfort zone. She decided to start taking her savings and driving down to the market in Detroit, Michigan, to pick new, different spices for her creations. Her next idea was to sell her bags of spices at a craft bazaar at the church. She priced the bags for 75 cents each and set up her table with samples of her creations. To her surprise, she sold all 100 bags in a matter of minutes. Shirley knew she was on to something, and that people were craving delicious dishes without a lot of hassle. She took her profits back down to that market in Detroit and the process began.
Visit Country Home Creations at booth #2472, Level 3.
Country Home Creations has since moved from a basement operation to a 10,000-plus square foot facility that employs many people. But it hasn’t forgotten about the things that made it successful in the first place: quality gourmet mixes that bring customers together for a delicious home-made snack, meal or dessert. Country Home Creations still creates its mixes the old-fashioned way: by hand every day, using premium quality ingredients like herbs, spices, dried fruits and vegetables. Plus, its commitment to customer service sets it apart from the rest.
Awards & Recognition
- 2000: Country Business Magazine’s first Vendor of the Year. This award was an especially proud moment since the national magazine’s readers selected CHC to receive the honor.
- 2006: Michigan Entrepreneur Award.
- 2010: Scovie Award for Jalapeño Pepper Dip Mix.
- 2013: Outstanding Woman-Owned Business Award from Flint/Genesee County Chamber of Commerce.
- 2018: First Place Scovie Award for Habanero Dip Mix.
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Cheese Shop Finds Foodies in Des Moines
By Robin Mather
For a while, C.J. Bienert thought that he’d love to run his own cheesemaking company. Then he went on a year-long “cheese sabbatical,” as he calls it, and learned something important about himself.
“Cheesemaking is really about washing a lot of dishes,” he says. “I learned that while working at cheese companies in that year. One day someone asked me what I wanted to do and I was surprised to hear ‘I want to open a cheese shop’ come out of my mouth.”
So, after a year of working “when I could” and interning “sometimes for free” with various cheesemakers around the United States, C.J. returned to Des Moines, Iowa, and opened The Cheese Shop of Des Moines in 2011.
The shop, with storage and production in a 600-square-foot basement and a retail space of about 550 square feet at street level, specializes in artisanal American cheeses and domestic charcuterie, he says. It’s located in a strip mall called The Shops at Roosevelt in the Historic Roosevelt Cultural District. “It looks like a standard strip mall,” Bienert says, “but it’s really food-centric.”
The mall is also home to specialty grocer VomFASS, which sells wine, spirits, specialty oils and gourmet foods; and to La Mie, a long-time Des Moines artisanal bakery and cafe. “Most of our employees live within two to four miles of the shop,” Bienert says, “and many of our customers also live in the neighborhood. Each of us (the other food shops) brings in customers for the others, so it works really well.”
The shop is open Tuesday through Saturday, so Bienert and his six-person staff can enjoy a full two days off each week. “We’re a family business,” he says. “I believe we all need time off to reenergize.”
That’s particularly important for Bienert, who with his wife, Kari, has two children: 2-1/2-year-old son Solomon and infant daughter Coral, who was born in early June — the same week that the Bienerts opened Cheese Bar DSM, a 3,000-square-foot 70-seat cafe that offers more seating for customers than the original Cheese Shop can provide.
C.J. met Kari when he was selling cheese in a gourmet shop and she was working in the store’s wine department. “She’d been in organic farming,” C.J. says, “and she’s definitely a foodie, so we had a lot in common.” Today, Kari juggles the company’s bookkeeping and payroll duties while staying at home with the kids. “I don’t think she’d like to hear me refer to her as a ‘stay-at-home mom,’ “ Bienert quips. “She’s probably feeding the kids while she does payroll right now.” Bienert credits ZingTrain, the business development company in the Zingerman’s family of businesses, with much of his success, he says. “We wouldn’t be here, probably, if it weren’t for ZingTrain.” He calls himself a “servant-leader,” and encourages his staff to develop their potential.
Thorough ConsultationWhile the pharmacists at your local store cialis tadalafil 100mg will be there to answer your queries, you may not have the time to make the changes necessary in your diet to achieve better blood flow. The medicine is made with the same ingredient of side effects viagra downtownsault.org erection-helping medicine. Due to these properties this herb normalizes all the three doshas, kapha, vata and pitta dosha. discount viagra usa How to study NLP? You must experience NLP to study it. generic cialis cheapest “Like I did on my cheese sabbatical, I encourage my employees to take the time to find out what they really want to do,” he says. “I say, ‘If you want to take the summer off to go intern at a cheese plant, you can do that.’ I keep a current list of cheesemakers seeking interns available at all times.”
Bienert qualified for the American Cheese Society’s Certified Cheese Professional accreditation a couple of years ago, he says, and he’s encouraging his staff to pursue that, too, if they’re interested. “I have some staff people who’ve been with me for five years, and some of them came to me with no cheese experience, but now they’ve fallen in love with cheese. I’ve been in the business for 16 years, but I like to be a good ‘servant-leader’ and lead by example. The accreditation has definitely opened some doors for me.”
Bienert got his start when he was just 19, working for Barbara Horn at her Des Moines shop, Wine Experience, which closed in 2006. “The shop was ahead of the curve and it had a great cheese counter, but in those days, there wasn’t a plethora of web sites or cheese information out there like there is today,” Bienert, now 34, says. “Barbara said then, ‘This is a growing industry.’ And today I tell my employees the same thing — cheese is a growing industry.”
Bienert enthusiastically works to help Des Moines help the cheese industry grow. Classes and samplings at Cheese Shop aid in the growth. “We do classes at the cheese shop once a week, on Mondays,” he says. “They’re themed — things like wine and cheese pairing, cheese 101, cheese 2.0, comparing wine vs. beer for pairings, things like that.” Somewhat to his surprise, the classes have become much more than he expected. “When we first started six years ago, we thought the classes would be just marketing, but they also promote revenue. We seat 25 people, oftentimes sell out and sometimes have people standing for the whole class. We make money on our classes.”
His customers have been appreciative, he says, and that keeps his own enthusiasm revved up. “It excites me that people are that interested in good cheese,” he says.
He recognizes that his store occupies a very special niche, but that’s part of its strength.
“I used Europe as our model and travel to Europe annually. We visit cheese shops and independent retailers, and they have a niche that larger stores can’t provide,” Bienert says.
As examples, he says, “Our main competitor would be grocery stores, but they don’t have our relationship with producers. We’ll drive nine hours to pick up a cheese from the producer on our day off, turn around and drive nine hours home again, just so that cheese will be in perfect condition when we get it to the shop.
“We also do products from La Quercia,” Bienert says of the Iowa company that produces prize-winning domestic prosciuttos and other salumi. “Large stores have a hard time doing things like the hand-carving of a full prosciutto with the hoof still attached, and then giving it proper care. But again, that’s something we can do. It’s not only theatrical and looks cool, it’s also tasty.” There’s no other shop in Des Moines like his, Bienert says, “but I feel there will be more, and I encourage the competition. Again, we’ll rely on our connection with our producers.”
