031209 Local Story: The Ebb & Flow of Meat Processing

Madison, WI (The Capital Times) - It was just over six years ago when I visited with Mike and Tony Danz at their swine raising operation near Black Earth.

From a humble beginning with 12 pigs in their parents' barn in 1990, the brothers - both still in their 20s - were operating as Danz Brothers Farm partnership and farrowing 300 sows in their modern facility. Some of the offspring were sold as 45-pound feeder pigs with the remainder raised and sold as finished hogs.

The hog business has long been one of the most challenging of farm enterprises. There are dramatic price changes as well as consolidation of swine ownership. At one time Wisconsin was home to thousands of small family-owned swine farms, but no more.

The Danz brothers were going with the flow, getting bigger and better as time went on.

A year later, I again visited Black Earth. This time it was to Strang's Meat Market where owner Jim Strang was working long and hard to keep up with his meat business that he had owned since 1962.

That busines centered on custom slaughtering and processing livestock for local farmers, processing venison during the deer hunting season and running a meat counter for the consuming public. Strang admitted the long hours and hard work were getting to be too much.

"Actually, I'm ready to quit and trying to sell," he said.

Since those visits the world of change has gone on, with both the swine and meat processing industries right in the middle of major changes.

Consider: In the late 1990s a farmer's price for hogs that he paid some $30 per hundredweight to raise dropped to $8 per hundred. It was the Great Depression revisited and hog farmers were lucky to survive. Many didn't.

Consider: Chronic Wasting Disease became a common phrase. Deer hunters stayed out of the woods. Fear and puzzlement severely impacted venison eaters and the meat processing industry.

Jump ahead to December 2003. It seemed like a good time to revisit Black Earth and renew acquaintances with the Danz brothers and Jim Strang.

The Danz Brothers Farm Partnership survived the black days of the late '90s and is still in business. Nowadays, Tony Danz is running the hog operation. Instead of selling feeder pigs and finishing pork, the farm, still with about 300 sows, is farrowing and selling the little pigs at 18-20 days of age as "weaners."

The piglets are sold under contract to a company that picks up the 100 or so little pigs per week from the Danz farm and co-mingles them with those from other farms.

"The price is tied to the pork futures market," Tony says. "And there is a a bottom price they can pay."

Older brother Mike Danz has pretty much left the farm but is still closely connected with the pork industry as a meat processor. In April of 2001 he bought Jim Strang's meat market. Now renamed Black Earth Meats, the place is a hub of activity with seven full-time employees and a host of part-timers.

"I needed a change," Mike Danz explains. "I wanted to stay self-employed and to stay in agriculture. And we had sold Jim Strang pigs from our farm."

Mike admits that it's been a learning experience. His first year in the meat processing business was also the year that CWD became a household term in Wisconsin. And Black Earth Meats, like every other small meat processor in Wisconsin, felt the impact as their deer processing business took a big hit.

"We had to diversify," Mike says.

One new area was increasing wholesale sales for the high quality sausages, bacon and meat cuts the company provides.

Mike admits that hiring good employees is a must.

"I find their strengths and let them do what they do best," he says.

Take Spud Rose of Arena, the plant manager and super salesman who spent 18 years working in a glass factory in Spring Green.

Rose, a graduate of the meat cutting course at Southwest Tech in Fennimore, worked for Wal-Mart as a meat cutter until the store got out of that business.

"Meat processing is an art," Rose says. "It's creative."

He tells about an elaborate lamb crown roast he created for a customer.

"They loved it," he says.

Then there is Fred Kalsow, who managed Tri-County Locker in Prairie du Sac for 30 years and Sauk Prairie Meat Service in Sauk City until it closed during the highway expansion last May.

"He's a legend in the area," Danz says with pride.

Black Earth Meats hires a force of high school students, among them Laura Danz (Mike's distant relation) and Nikki Schrieber. The two work at the counter from 3:30-7 p.m.

"They are really good with customers," Mike says.

Mike Danz is in the meat business but bases many of his plans for the future on working closely with farmers who want to sell to consumers.

"I'd like to be a hub for farmers who raise good things - and there are so many of them," he says. "I buy eggs from Hollandale, lambs from Blue Mounds, chickens from Janesville, and cattle from throughout the area.

"I just spent a half hour on the phone talking to a lady who wants to sell her lambs to the public but doesn't know how to price the meat. I can tell her how to do it," he says with pride.

"I'd like consumers to know that I have specialty meats or will get them for them. I know the farmers with organic products and with every kind of meat, including goat," he continues.

Whether it's smoked ham, bacon or sausage, beef jerky or big steaks, Mike Danz has it. And he provides the slaughter and packaging services so important to local farmers.

To Mike Danz and the others at Black Earth Meats, it's a business, but most certainly also an affair of the heart. Even to Jim Strang, who still cuts meat (on his schedule) in the place he owned for so many years.

As the world moves at an ever-increasing speed, it's nice to know there are still people who will strive to please and remember your name. In the six years that have passed since our last visit to Danz brothers and the Black Earth Market, it's nice to know that change has happened. But all for the better.

Source: John Oncken who operates Oncken Communications, his Madison-based agricultural information and consulting company.

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