Photo by Cole Garside
While there is definitely nothing wrong with the old way of doing things, especially when producing European-style meat products with recipes demanding strict adherence to timeless tradition, there is nothing wrong with throwing some processing and packaging innovation into the mix now and then to carve oneself a bigger slice of the meat market pie.
It’s a formula that has worked wonders over the years for the Hamilton, Ont.-based R. Denninger Limited—a Triple A-rated, provincially-licensed processor of high-quality European-style meats operating six nearby retail outlets and a warehouse to supply the growing ranks of meat-loving local consumers with a tasty and comprehensive offering of sausages, smoked and fresh meats, and other prepared foods made with the finest ingredients the company can get.
Photo by Cole Garside
“What makes Denninger special is that our customers can depend on the freshness of our products,” says Rana Denninger, part of the family-owned company’s management team whose meat-processing heritage traces back to Germany’s famed Black Forest region, where her grandfather Rudolf Denninger made his living as a master sausage maker until moving his family to Canada in 1953.
“Six months after arriving, they established their first store on King Street in Hamilton’s downtown area, bringing with them their famous family recipes of European meats,” Denninger told Canadian Packaging over a recent visit to the company’s lively, 60,000-square-foot Hamilton manufacturing plant housing all the butchering, smoking, cooking, chilling, packaging and shipping of its products to the company-owned shops on a daily basis.