3838 North Central Avenue, Suite 1900
Company Perspectives:
Satisfaction Guaranteed: Powerful words that sell product, gain trust and build relationships. Bar-S brand packages display the Satisfacti on Guaranteed seal up front and bold. Our promise is on the front of the package in plain, easy to understand language. Our risk free assu rance of complete product satisfaction is just one more reason Bar-S is the Value Leader in processed meats. Webster's Definition: sat i s fac tion: the fulfillment or gratification of a need, desire or appetite. guar an tee: a promise or assurance as to the durabili ty or quality of a product. The Bar-S Definition: Product replaced if not satisfied.
Bar-S Foods Company is a leading manufacturer of meat products. Altho ugh headquartered in Phoenix, the company operates four plants in Okl ahoma. Brands include Bar-S, President's Pride, Jumbo Jumbos, Old Wor ld Premium, and Chuck Wagon. With annual production of 40 million pou nds, it is among the 40 largest meat processors in the United States. It is also one of Arizona's largest privately owned companies.
Origins
Bar-S Foods was formed in 1981 in a management buyout of the venerabl e Cudahy Company meatpacking business, which dated back to 1890. Gene ral Host Corporation, a conglomerate, had acquired Cudahy in 1970 but was looking to sell it due to structural issues such as dilapidated plants and 34 demanding labor unions.
The new owners paid General Host $28 million in cash, notes, and stock for the assets, which included processing plants in Seattle and Denver and nine distribution centers. It had a half-ownership of a f acility in Clinton, Oklahoma. Bar-S Foods, named after one of Cudahy' s major brands, started operations with 45 employees producing ten mi llion pounds of meat products a year. Its first day of business was A ugust 28, 1981. The company was led by Tim Day, a former General Host executive who had been in charge of downsizing Cudahy in the 1970s.
A foodservice unit was set up in 1986. By the end of the 1980s, produ ction was approaching 70 million pounds a year. The company spent  6;1.6 million to expand its 75,000-square-foot facility in Clinton, O klahoma, by a third. Bar-S was ranked the 40th largest meat processor in the United States by product sales volume and employed about 700 people. Distribution focused on the south and west of the country, bu t extended as far as Alaska and Puerto Rico.
To Oklahoma in the 1990s
Based in Phoenix, the company consolidated its operations around its Oklahoma facilities in the 1990s. This area was strategically located , and chicken, beef, and pork could be sourced from surrounding state s. Water and power were also relatively cheap there.
In the early 1990s Bar-S added production capacity with a new hot dog plant in Altus, Oklahoma, and another, $7 million expansion to i ts existing Clinton, Oklahoma, facility. The town Altus adopted a sal es tax to get their plant built.
Soon after, it also relocated its Denver ham operation to Clinton, wh ose central location was a key factor in the move. In addition, it wa s impractical to expand the Denver facility due to a lack of land, th e building's age, and nearby power lines. The Denver plant dated back to the 1920s. It was finally closed in 1996 and most of its remainin g 200 workers were offered jobs in Oklahoma.
Altus also served as a distribution center. It was expanded within a couple of years of opening. Bar-S's total sales were about $250 m illion a year by the mid-1990s. It offered 396 different products, bu t this would be streamlined to 119 by 2004, according to the Natio nal Provisioner. A new 85,000-square-foot wiener and sausage plan t in Lawton, Oklahoma, and a 145,000-square-foot central distribution center in Elk City both became operational in 1998.
The meatpacking industry was notorious for dangerous working conditio ns, but Bar-S had implemented a safety program that had cut the numbe r of accidents nearly in half. There was an attempt made to organize a union at the Altus plant in the late 1990s, which management vigoro usly opposed. At the time, employees made an average of $7 an hou r.
Fit to Compete After 2000
Bar-S employed about 1,350 people in Oklahoma in 1999. Sales exceeded $300 million. The company had built a considerable foreign trade with Russia, but this was hammered by the devaluation of the ruble, competition from Canada and France, and a U.S. free meat aid program. Bar-S then focused on Puerto Rico for export growth, reported an Okl ahoma City paper. Other major foreign markets were Mexico, Canada, Ja pan, Korea, and Hong Kong.
The company weathered a public relations crisis in April 2001, when i t voluntarily recalled 14.5 million pounds of processed meat and poul try products from its Clinton, Oklahoma, plant due to a listeria thre at. The recall affected several foreign countries as well as the Unit ed States. The plant was subsequently closed and most of the 400 work ers there laid off. Fortunately for the little town of Clinton, where Bar-S was the largest employer, the plant reopened after the source of contamination was discovered inside some packaging machinery, whic h was cleaned and redesigned to avoid recurrences of the problem. Lis teria could cause rare but serious infections; fortunately no one rep orted any problems from eating Bar-S products through the course of t he recall, which did not involve any of the company's other plants. B ar-S later installed state-of-the-art ozone wash and ultraviolet path ogen reduction systems from The BOC Group.
Bar-S was manufacturing more than 100 different items, including cold cuts, sausage, hot dogs, and bacon. Total production was about 400 m illion pounds a year and was growing as Americans embraced low-carb d iets.
The Altus plant was upgraded in 2005 at a cost of $40 million. Pa rt of the upgrade allowed the company to produce its own corn dogs. A bout 50 new jobs were being added there. After the expansion, Bar-S h ad 360,000 square feet of production space.
Bar-S had top five national brands in lunchmeat, bacon, dinner sausag e, hot dogs, and corn dogs. It had done little traditional advertisin g, but since the early 1990s it had been investing in large color gra phics to promote its brands on the side of tractor-trailers carrying its products.
A key part of the company's philosophy dealt with employee fitness. V arious incentives awarded employee achievements such as losing weight or quitting smoking. Workers began the day with a series of stretchi ng exercises at 8:15 a.m. The regimen seemed to be working, with net income increasing fivefold in ten years. Company founder, CEO, and Ch airman Tim Day told the National Provisioner, "Superior physic al and mental fitness leads to a distinct competitive advantage, maki ng us more effective, productive, and a tougher competitor in the mar ketplace." Phoenix's Business Journal attributed Day's discipl ine to his three years in the Marine Corps. Day was supported by pres ident and fellow Cudahy Company alumnus Bob Uhl, who had been Bar-S's original treasurer and vice-president of finance.
Another incentive program rewarded perfect attendance with cash award s. A human resources official told the National Provisioner th e company had reduced employee turnover from 88 percent to 40 percent in three years. Projects in 2004 focused on reducing waste and incre asing efficiency; in 2005 Bar-S was spending $50 million on capit al upgrades.
Principal Competitors: Hormel Corporation; Kraft Foods Inc.; S ara Lee Food & Beverage.