Monogram Quality Foods Brings the Bacon in Denison, Iowa

Bacon is big business in Western Iowa. This year, Quality Food Processors in Denison, IA, a bacon production plant, was purchased by Monogram Quality Foods and continued operations under that name beginning on June 1, 2021. Founded in 2004, Monogram Foods manufactures top-quality and innovative food products. Among these are a full range of meat snacks, appetizers, assembled sandwiches, fully-cooked and raw bacon, corn dogs, USDA baked goods, and other convenience products. In a press release, Monogram Foods announced that its annual revenue will exceed $1 billion with the acquisition. The integration of former supplier Quality Food Processors into the Monogram family highlights Monogram’s commitment to expanding its business by joining with companies that share similar values.

“At Monogram Quality Foods, we believe in the customer,” said Eric Kohler, Monogram Quality Foods Corporate Process/Project Engineering Manager. “We believe we provide their best solution. To do that, we need and we have great employees to do the jobs that are required to provide that experience to our customers. We do our best to create an atmosphere of safety, caring, quality, and efficiency. All these rolled up together provide the best solution result for our customers and our employees.”

Monogram Quality Foods is a co-packer and private label provider for strategic partners throughout the United States. “The Monogram Quality Foods facility in Denison only makes bacon products,” said Kohler. “One type of product we produce is smoked pressed pork bellies. These go primarily to the Harlan, IA, facility. In Harlan at Monogram Prepared Meats, the smoked belly slabs are then sliced, microwaved, fully cooked, and packaged for both retail and foodservice customers. In Denison, in addition to smoked slabs, we slice a variety of retail packaged bacon. We produce 12-ounce to five-pound packages in varying types of packaging. These are pretty traditional to what you see in the grocery stores.”

As reported in Business Wire, the global bacon market was valued at over $27 million in 2018 and is projected to reach $40 million by 2027; growing at an expected compound annual growth rate of 4.3% from 2019 to 2027. This market growth is good news for the industry and good news for the workforce in Western Iowa.

“When Monogram purchased Quality Food Processors earlier this year, there were plans in place to expand the business and those plans continue to evolve under the new ownership,” said Kohler. “Bacon continues to grow as a category and meeting those demands will require additional capacity and ultimately create jobs. We are looking at internal capacity improvements to existing operations along with the addition of assets to help meet the demand of our customers. These improvements do not come without capital investment and investment into the workforce. We are committed to providing the service our customers demand and our people are the highest priority in helping to do that.”

“We provide a variety of training programs at MQF,” continued Kohler. “Some are simply aimed to assure the employees are given the best opportunity to be successful in the job they were hired for. Other programs are designed to help them move to other departments that they may be interested in. More disciplined offerings are developmental in nature to provide for leadership potential.”

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Iowa Pork Industry at a Glance

• Iowa is the number one pork producing state in the U.S. and the top state for pork exports.
• Iowa has more than 5,400 pig farms.
• As of 2019, 147,105 jobs were associated with the Iowa pork industry.
• One in nearly 10 working Iowans has a job tied to the pork industry.

Contact Western Iowa Advantage with Questions  

Western Iowa, with its committed workforce, strong sense of community, and quality of life,  should be high on the list of locations for companies looking to grow and improve. Contact Western Iowa Advantage to learn more about the region, workforce, and available sites.