OPINION

REX NELSON: The meat of the matter

The smell of smoked bacon is almost overwhelming, and I mean that in a good way. I'm touring the Morrilton Packing Co. with Edward Ruff, one of the three sons of David Ruff who are involved in this family-owned business. I love bacon, though my wife has nixed the idea of joining a Bacon of the Month club. Morrilton Packing is best known for its Petit Jean brand of meats, and we're seeing it being processed--bacon, hams, turkey, various kinds of sausages, hot dogs, bologna, luncheon loaves and more.

For the Ruffs, it's a family tradition.

"My dad only went to school through the eighth grade, and then he went to work here full time," David Ruff, 70, says. "Before that, he had delivered meat around town on a bicycle. I got involved when I was 12. I'm the oldest one around here these days. The challenge is not to lose the culture that made us what we are. We're putting the next generation of leadership in place to ensure that doesn't change."

Large numbers of Germans moved to Arkansas in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Felix Schlosser was among those who made the trip. He arrived in Arkansas in 1922 and worked for a time for the Little Rock Packing Co. and the Becker Packing Co. before moving west to Conway as an employee of the Erbacher Packing Co. A widowed cousin named Mary Ruff talked him into moving to Morrilton in 1926, and Schlosser partnered with Ellis Bentley to open a retail meat market. Bentley sold his share to Schlosser in 1928, and the company was renamed the Morrilton Meat Market & Sausage Factory.

Edward and Lonnie Ruff, Mary Ruff's sons, began delivering meat after school and on weekends. Edward (the grandfather of the Edward who's giving me the tour on this day) joined the company in 1930 as a full-time employee, and Lonnie came on board in 1932. A wholesale business was added in 1930, and the name of the business was changed to Morrilton Packing Co. The Petit Jean brand was adopted during the 1930s, and the retail market was discontinued in 1943.

"When you're a company our size, it can be challenging," says David Ruff, pointing out that he must adhere to the same types of government regulations as plants many times larger. "We have from 65 to 80 employees depending on what time of year it is."

In addition to selling Petit Jean products across Arkansas, the Ruffs also have moved into Texas. David Ruff said a major source of business is putting Petit Jean products into gift boxes that are sold for fundraising purposes by various groups in Texas. He views Texas as a continuing growth opportunity.

"We've lost so many of our independent grocers," he says. "We've had to adjust to that loss of business, and that's one reason we got into the Texas market. We're also looking at more institutional sales such as schools, football stadiums and the like."

Morrilton residents are intensely proud of the Petit Jean brand. A community known as Lewisburg thrived in the 1800s due to its location on the Arkansas River and had a population of almost 2,000 when it was incorporated in 1844. There was even an opera house and two newspapers. Lewisburg began to decline when the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad located its tracks a few miles to the north. A community named Morrilton (after E.J. Morrill, who sold land to the railroad) sprang up. The tracks reached Morrilton in 1871, and Lewisburg largely was abandoned by 1880. Morrilton became the Conway County seat in 1883.

"Beginning in the 1870s, German-speaking immigrants were encouraged by the U.S. government and the railroad companies to settle in the Arkansas River Valley and assist with railroad construction," Aaron Rogers writes for the online Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture. "Mostly Roman Catholic and Lutheran, they settled in towns such as Morrilton, Conway, Subiaco, Fort Smith and Little Rock."

"My mother's parents came in the 1880s from Germany," David Ruff says. "My great-grandfather was a baker in Germany. My dad was born in 1916, and his dad died in 1919."

During the Great Depression, Morrilton Packing Co. participated in a federal Emergency Relief Administration program in which the government purchased starving cattle from drought-stricken Western states and shipped them east. The company was paid $1 per head plus the hide and offal to butcher the cattle. The government then canned the beef for distribution to needy families.

A fire destroyed the plant in April 1946, but it was rebuilt by Thanksgiving. Schlosser died in 1968, and the two Ruff brothers managed the company until Lonnie's death in 1979.

David Ruff studied industrial engineering at the University of Arkansas. He was working for Morton Frozen Foods in Russellville when his father called to ask if he was ready to come home to Morrilton. David Ruff joined the company as plant manager in April 1984 and became the president and CEO following his father's death in 1990.

The current plant opened in April 1987 and was expanded from 48,000 square feet to 56,000 square feet a decade later. The company stopped slaughtering beef in 1986 and hogs in 1995. It now buys cuts from packing houses so it can focus on smoking and processing meats. What's now a thriving mail-order business began in 1985.

"When I was young, a lot of Arkansans still grew up on small farms and knew about killing hogs," David Ruff says. "We're now so far removed from that. It's not something people can relate to. Our job is to make sure they know we still smoke meat the old-fashioned way."

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Senior Editor Rex Nelson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He's also the author of the Southern Fried blog at rexnelsonsouthernfried.com.

Editorial on 09/27/2017

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