Current Issue Calf News -
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Published on: 7/13/2002
Last Visited: 7/13/2002
The weekly seminars are held in Atglen, Pa., at Visionary Design, an independent food product creation facility which has been in business for more than five years and is owned by NCBA New Product Development Team member, Gene Gagliardi.Beef industry funds were not invested into the facility itself.
"Henry Ford almost went under in the mid-1920s because he tried to make the market buy what he wanted to make rather than make what the market wanted to buy."
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Primary on the New Product Team is Eugene (Gene) Gagliardi, Jr., the founder and CEO of Visionary Design.Gagliardi began his career at the age of six working in the family meat business.During the 1950s, their company, the Gagliardi Brothers, experienced tremendous growth as the forerunner of the portion control line, developing products for industry leaders such as McDonald's, Burger King, Gino's and Pizza Hut.Gagliardi also invented and produced Steak-ummm®, a highly successful, thinly sliced beef steak sandwich that, in 1980, became the largest selling frozen, raw, branded meat product in the world.Steak-ummm® sky-rocketed company sales from $10 million in 1960 to more than $63 million in 1980.
One of Gagliardi's greatest success stories is Popcorn Chicken, which he developed and licensed exclusively for Kentucky Fried Chicken as a fast food snack for children.
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Gagliardi and his team dissected knuckles, shoulder clods and a veal breast, providing product after product that was promptly cooked, served and consumed by all.The further fabrication of products that are normally ground, produced any number of taste treats, tender and juicy.When asked who invented the rules we use to fabricate beef today, Gagliardi replied, "Probably the cave men."A major surprise and taste treat was veal bacon cut from the veal breast.
They also demonstrated a technology called RiteBite, where portions of the chuck and round are put through a slinder.The slinder, developed by Gagliardi, slices rather than grinds beef, enabling it to be formed into a number of different shapes while retaining the meat fiber.
In all 32 new products were presented for the group to taste and by the time we finished, no one there doubted that beef was "What's For Dinner."NCBA, the New Product Team and R&D Ranch are taking beef to the right place ... to the people who put it on the plate.
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Last Updated 02/26/02