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New owners of Uncle Charley's eye expansion [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette](Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 14--On a typical production day, workers at the Uncle Charley's Sausage plant in Vandergrift make 17,000 pounds of plump, pink sausages in neat casings. But they pushed that to 25,000 pounds a day in the past few weeks to meet increased demand from Labor Day holiday picnics, on top of the brand's inclusion in the Giant Eagle weekly ad flier and in a Shop 'n Save two-day sale. "That was a good test for us," said Len Caric, president and CEO of the company since January. It would be pretty hard to pick up new accounts and get the sausage into grocery stores up and down the East Coast and into the Midwest if the plant couldn't actually step up production to fill additional orders. So, check that off the list. But there's a lot more to accomplish if the brand is going to have a chance at becoming a superregional brand, rather than mainly a Western Pennsylvania staple. It's been not quite a year since Charles S. Armitage sold his company for an undisclosed sum to F.N.B. Capital Partners in Marshall, as well as a group of local investors including Jim Rudolph and Mr. Caric. Mr. Armitage, who was 80 at the time of the sale, created the sausage brand in 1988 and grew sales to about $12 million annually. The founder is still serving as a consultant this year, but the new owners are the ones discovering the headaches of being in the business. Base costs went up 70 percent in the first couple of months of the year -- mainly because of rapidly rising pork prices -- triggering a 6 percent to 6.5 percent price hike in April for Uncle Charley's products. "The good news was everybody had to raise prices," said Mr. Caric. "We watched what the competition was doing." Later, when some pork commodity prices dropped prices remained high on the pork that the Vandergrift company uses and Uncle Charley's prices did not drop. While the plant built in 1999 was in good shape and laid out well, there has been some maintenance work and a bit of tinkering. One production line was making just a little over half of its sausages to the right size, so they played with that and got its efficiency level up above 95 percent. Grander changes are in the works -- the kind of strategic shifts that are more fun to dream up and could pay off big, even as they involve more risk. Mr. Caric's office table last week was strewn with a pile of labels and two posters stood up against the wall, visual props in the project meant to make the brand look like the premium, quality product that its owners think they've got. Uncle Charley's products now glow with bright yellow labels easy to spot from a distance. "The yellow stands out, there's no doubt about it," said Mr. Caric as he studied a picture of a Giant Eagle display case with the grocer's private label brand on one side and Johnsonville products on the other. After researching labels on competing sausage packages as well as some from Europe that go an entirely different direction, the plan is to move Uncle Charley's sausages into trendier packaging. The links will move out of white plastic foam trays and into black ones with labels that pair black with a bright color -- although not yellow. Yellow, Mr. Caric said, "is recognized as a value brand." Value is retail shorthand for lower priced, sale or even discount products. Even as the new labels should be rolling out early next year, the company hopes to be ready to reassure potential clients that it is a safe manufacturer bearing the approval of a third-party food safety certification program. "Our goal is to be certified by Dec. 31," said Mr. Caric, noting key auditing dates are coming up in October and November. To win that stamp of approval, they've had to detail their processes, including tracking things like the temperature the raw meat product is kept at all along the processing and delivery path. In the production and packaging rooms, where temperatures range between 32 and 34 degrees, workers wear hoodies and gloves under white uniform jackets and hair nets. One day last week, hot Italian grillers -- the company's best-selling product -- could be seen rolling along the conveyor belts and into the packaging machine to be wrapped in plastic. About 75 percent of the company's products are made at the plant, with other items such as bacon and a sauce with onions and peppers made by co-packers. Early next year, the company may start playing with ideas for new products. One of the Uncle Charley's brand's signature assets is that the products are never frozen. That's why the company defines its sales potential by areas within an eight-hour truck drive from Vandergrift. The fresh sausage also helps with the premium pitch that could appeal to potential clients. Third-party certification will make it easier for major buyers to sign off on contracts. Mr. Caric said grocer Aldi began carrying Uncle Charley's products in Pittsburgh-area stores earlier this year, with the caveat that the company needed to have the certification completed by year end. In addition to being sold in around 700 stores mainly in Pennsylvania and Ohio, Uncle Charley's products are carried in a few individual Weis Markets and Giant Food Stores in the eastern half of Pennsylvania. Mr. Caric said it would require the certification to get the sausages into the distribution centers that serve those chains and the bulk of their stores. There's room for growth within the current footprint, too, and marketing work with C-leveled in Bloomfield has already seen new TV ads shown in places like Johnstown, Erie and Pittsburgh. The company's website has gotten a refresh and social media is now part of the marketing. Sales this year are on track to grow about 10 percent. Mr. Caric said the goal is to see closer to 20 percent next year. He's worked at numerous small businesses from beer to propane cylinder reconditioning but this is his first time leading a food business. "It's a blast," he said enthusiastically. Teresa F. Lindeman: [email protected] or at 412-263-2018. ___ (c)2014 the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Visit the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at www.post-gazette.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |