The following is an excerpt from Top Producer, February 1999:
Slim-Line Sausage
The Weavers cater to the fat-conscious crowd
 Tina Weaver was the antithesis of her MBA night school classmates at Strayer College in Fredericksburg, Va. They worked at the Pentagon;
she stayed home with the kids. They pushed papers; her husband, Tom, produced 2,800 pigs a year. They went to class hungry; she
brought the dinner.
"I felt sorry for the poor guys," she jokes. "So I fixed them sausage biscuits." And they went hog wild. "They said, 'You've got to
make money off these,'" she recalls. Soon after, her sausage became the class project, and Papa Weaver's Pork was born.
Specialty. That was four years ago. Today about 1,000 lbs. a week of the Weavers' lean pork sausage, links and special cuts
find their way to gourmet restaurants, schools, farmers' markets and regional and health-food grocery stores in the northern
Virginia-Washington D.C. area. About 20% of the family's production flows into the venture. The goal is 100%. With their cheapest
ground sausage selling for $2.99/lb.; links at $4.29/lb.; and special cuts up to $9.99/lb. Tina may have found an antidote
to the $16 hog.
Dallas Hochman, head of worldwide marketing for the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) in Des Moines, Iowa, says niche marketing
helps producers extract more dollars from the supply chain. "Especially in low-market situations as we have now, it's a way to add
money to the bottom line," he says. Yet fewer than 5% of pork producers brand-market, largely because of stumbling blocks in the marketing
chain. Tina Weaver knows all about that.
"We almost got divorced over the label," she quips. Getting it cleared throught USDA took 2 1/2 years and $8,000, all the while
holding up their first sale. After that, developing name recognition and gaining a toehold in grocery stores and
restaurants was an arduous task. Last summer a distributor finally took them on.
The Weavers cater to the health-concious crowd with a sausage that is free of preservatives, additives, chemicals, hormones and
antibiotics and has 12% of the daily value of fat, compared with 30% of the other brands. And there are plenty of other avenues
for niche marketers to consider. "Some people can't eat dyes; some can't tolerate nitrites," Tina says. NPPC is helping producers target
the Hispanic market, which prefers special cuts and smaller rotisserie pigs.
But the Weavers offer advice to budding entrepreneurs:
Have a plan. Tina spent time in school developing business, financial and marketing plans. Don't embark on a value-added
venture without these road maps.
Make few claims. "Your label will take forever to get approved if you make claims like 'less fat,'" says Tina.
And if you compare your product to your competitor's, "you're going to war," she says. She believes the label's nutritional analysis
is enough; consumers naturally compare products.
Don't expect instant profits. Start-up costs for small ventures like the Weavers' take time to recoup while market
acceptance grows. "After two years of planning and two selling, we're breaking even," says Tom, who handles marketing now that Tina
teaches full-time.
Finally, Know thyself. "You must be creative and innovative," Tina says. "To stay in business, you must be willing to look
at the consumer."
By Joann Spahr Welsh
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