A pork rind revolution

Popular low-carb snack has helped Pflugerville business scarf up sales

01:39 PM CST on Saturday, March 6, 2004

By KAREN ROBINSON-JACOBS / The Dallas Morning News

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/bus...rinds.ebee.html

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas ~ As low-carb entrepreneurs, erstwhile rock-'n'-roller Julee Dennis and her business partner, Bryan Bootka, are giving new meaning to the term piggy bank.

Their company, Gram's Gourmet, saw sales shoot up to nearly $1 million in 2003, its first full year of operation. They expect more than $3 million in sales this year from low-carb items, mainly pork rinds. "It's our pork rinds that make people call," said Ms. Dennis, who launched the Pflugerville business in May 2002, "five years and 100 pounds" after going on a low-carbohydrate diet to control her diabetes. "It's the pork rinds that really are our shining star."

For the past year, the nation's hunger for all things low-carb has been in hyperdrive, with retailers and restaurateurs catering to Atkins and South Beach diet devotees.

And while grocery sales of low-carb products have jumped by more than 300 percent since 2000, few snacks have caught on as well as pork rinds – those deep-fried crunchies made from a pig's paunch.

Long consumed primarily in the Southeastern United States, these twisted bits of pork enjoy nationwide popularity these days.

The trend is being fueled largely by the low-carb boom but also by sales to immigrants from Mexico who enjoyed the snack at home. They've even gained a certain cachet from supermodels seen snacking on them in public.

Large gains

Pork rinds – which are smoked, flavored and fried bits of belly skin – posted the largest gains among the 13 most popular low-carb foods tracked by Information Resources Inc., a Chicago-based market research firm that tallies sales at grocers, drugstores and mass merchandisers such as Target, but not Wal-Mart or convenience stores.

Sales appear to be accelerating in recent months, based on two surveys by the firm. In the 12-month period ended in October, nationwide sales of pork rinds jumped by more than 27 percent over the year-earlier period. In a survey of the 52 weeks ended Jan. 25, sales of pork rinds in grocery and drugstores jumped 39 percent from the prior year to $125 million.

But the true carbo-phobics, who buy online or from health food stores, have pushed actual sales of the snack closer to the $500 million mark, according to estimates from the Snack Food Association, a trade group in Alexandria, Va.

As America's taste for the smoky bites grows, more than 140 marketers and manufacturers are cashing in by helping these little piggies get to market.

"We thought 2002 might have been a high-water mark, but pork rind sales keep going up," said Jim McCarthy, the snack association's president. "I would imagine that many of these company's sales have doubled in the last few years.

"They've always had a presence in the marketplace," Mr. McCarthy said. "But as of late, they've really taken off."

The Plano-based Frito-Lay unit of PepsiCo boasts the No. 1 selling pork rind in grocery and drugstores – Baken-ets, with sales last year approaching $39 million, according to Information Resources.

Making waves

But Gram's Gourmet is attracting the buzz among the most carb-averse snackers, said Olivia Mayer, editor of LowCarbBiz magazine, a trade publication.

"They'd be more apt to grab a Gram's Gourmet snack than a Frito-Lay bag," said Ms. Mayer, who doesn't eat pork rinds but tried them as a kid. "The bottom line for them is the carb count."

And for Ms. Dennis and Mr. Bootka, the bottom line is looking pretty fat.

In its first full year of operation, the privately held company posted sales of $987,000 – 40 percent of that from pork rinds.

Not bad for an initial investment of $53,000 cobbled together from family and friends.

"Every day is a head-spinning day," said Ms. Dennis, 46, who gets help running the company from her two adult children and three grandchildren. "We have to scramble to keep up with it."

Most of the companies that sell pork rinds have them manufactured by someone else.

The largest contract manufacturers include Rudolph Foods Co. of Lima, Ohio, and Chicago-based Evans Food Products Co. Frito-Lay's Baken-ets are made by Rudolph, as are at least 50 other brands.

Rudolph's Dallas plant recently underwent a major expansion to keep up with the growth. Gram's rinds come from an Evans subsidiary.

Ms. Dennis, who previously toured with the Austin rock band Denim and Lace, takes credit for the recipe for her first pork offering.

Using an oven not much bigger than a toaster oven and guidance from her 9-year-old grandson Devin, Ms. Dennis cooked up her first batch of cinnamon-flavored pork rinds.

The company's first product – the granola-like Flax 'N Nut Crunchies – was shipped in October 2002. Cinnamon pork rinds made their retail debut early last year. Cheddar-flavored pork rinds came out last May, and a chipotle lime pork rind is due out this year.

The well-used oven still remains the core of the Spartan test kitchen at the company's headquarters in a low-slung light-industrial complex in Pflugerville, a town just northeast of Austin with a population of more than 20,000.

Ms. Dennis said she was prompted to try her hand at pork rinds after participating in several online conversations with low-carb dieters who were looking for a sweet, crunchy snack.

With a suggested retail price of $3.49 for a 4-ounce bag – at least $1 higher than most competitors – Gram's Gourmet hopes to appeal to a class of snackers who may never have tried pork rinds.

"People eat our pork rinds whether they're on a diet or not," said Mr. Bootka, 28, who joined Ms. Dennis in the business after a stint at low-carb retailing. "We're attracting high-end, well-educated people to buy into this category."

Gram's Gourmet snacks are mainly available in health food stores and can be found at many Central Market grocery stores.

Nutrition facts

Of course, low-carb doesn't necessarily mean healthy.

While a 1-ounce serving of Gram's Gourmet's cheddar pork rinds boasts only 2 grams of carbs (the cinnamon version has none), the snacks contain 5 grams of fat, 18 milligrams of cholesterol and 250 milligrams of sodium.

That's 10 percent of an adult's daily sodium intake in a 2,000-calorie diet, which could cause problems for those on a low-sodium diet.

"The pork rinds category will fuel our growth into many other categories," said Mr. Bootka, noting that the company also offers a waffle mix and will soon come out with a low-carb pizza crust. "This gives us brand recognition and capital."

To be sure, even with a chart-topping growth rate, pork rinds still look like small fries next to the perennial snack champ – potato chips, which boast nearly $6 billion in annual sales, according to the snack food association.

Hogging the market

But it's pork rinds that are boosting the profits of established firms and attracting new companies hoping to hog a share of the market.

"It's a wonderful time for our business," said Mark Singleton, vice president of sales in the Dallas plant of Rudolph Foods, which has been in the pork rind business for 48 years.

"Mr. Rudolph has been waiting for 50 years for pork rinds to take off like this."

E-mail krobinson~dallasnews.com