Ingeniero

Guide to

Latino pork cuts

©1999 National Pork Board
No portion of this manuscript may be reproduced without the written permission of
the National Pork Board.

INTRODUCTION
Guide to Latino Style
Pork Cuts
In Front End Guidance for Value-Added Networking:
Marketing Pork to the Mexican Consumer in the United
States, a marketing framework was provided for
evaluating the potentialfor value-added networking
among pork producers. As a case illustration, secondary data and site visit interviews with pork marketers serving primarily Hispanic customers were
provided as documentation of the potential for
value-added pork markets. One limitation was the
omission of more detailed information on actual
fresh pork products observed in Hispanic markets.
To expand on thisinformation, prototypical cutting
trials were developed to illustrate the pork products
commonly observed in Hispanic markets.
Following are the results of the cutting trials. This
is not a scientific sampling of the yields and pricing
of Hispanic pork products. However, such an effort
could be undertaken by replicating the protocols
employed for this analysis. It is meant to extend the
case studyalready in progress by including photographs and illustrative yields of pork cuts. It is in
the spirit of The Meat Buyers Guide published by the
National Association of Meat Purveyors or the U.S.
Pork Export Manual published by the
National Pork Producers and the
National Pork Board. A similar marketing prototype effort would be necessary to establish protocols for providing
any porkproduct direct to an identified
market.

Cutting Trial
Methods
The cutting trials were conducted at Clougherty
Packing Company in

Los Angeles, California. Their cooperation assured
availability of uniform pork carcasses and boxed
products necessary to conduct the cutting trials.
Use of their plant facilities is also gratefully
acknowledged, as this enabled completion of the
trials at afraction of the costs of conducting them
at meat labs. Clougherty Packing was also instrumental in assisting in conducting site visits to grocers serving Hispanic customers in Los Angeles and
identifying meat cutters for the cutting trials.
Consistent with the philosophy of this overall
effort, it represents vertical networking to gain
knowledge and access to capabilities otherwiseprohibitively costly or unattainable by an individual person or agency.
Meat cutters were identified through previous site
visits and through a “cold” mailing to markets
identified as serving Hispanic customers. Meat
cutters and meat market managers were identified
as the target participants as they had the skills to
conduct the cutting trials and also the knowledge
of pricing, sales and preparation ofthe pork products. The response to the “cold” mailing was
extraordinarily low. Only four respondents of 400
requests responded they would be willing to participate in the cutting trials. While this limited the
scope of the study, it illustrated the complexities
and sensitivities inherent in working across cultural
differences. This low response rate was not fatal
since only a few meatcutters were necessary for
conducting the cutting trials. Our main objective
was to identify meat cutters from regionally distinct
markets and some who cut whole carcasses and
others who cut from boxes. For the trials, we had
two meat cutters from Brownsville, Texas, one from
Salt Lake City, Utah, and one from Los Angeles,
California. Prior to the trial, we also had confirmed one from SanAntonio, one from
Albuquerque, and two others from Los Angeles.
However, in the week preceding the cutting trials,
these individuals declined to participate. Some
indicated they were concerned about revealing

“trade secrets” which they believed enhanced their
competitive position in the Hispanic market. This
was particularly true for those cutting whole carcasses. Although greater numbers...