February 19, 2001- Founder of World's Largest Pork Rind Company Honored

by Bryan Salvage

John E. Rudolph, founder of Lima, Ohio-based Rudolph Foods Co. Inc., recently won the Snack Food Association's 2001 Circle of Honor Award.

“This is the association's top award that recognizes a leader in the snack food industry who has also contributed to the association and the community,” an SFA spokesperson told The Meatingplace.com.

This company, which started out in 1955 with one peanut roaster and nine employees, now employs a staff of 325 at four plants throughout the country, and it produces 100 million pounds of pork rinds annually. The company claims to be the largest supplier of pork rinds and cracklins in the world.

Here's an abbreviated history of John Rudolph's career:

In 1952, he became a partner and president of the Whittex Co. While selling Mexican specialty snack foods for his new company, Rudolph's customers kept asking him for pork rinds. Rudolph had never heard of this product, but by 1955, he and his wife, Mary, bought out the other partner, began selling pork rinds and changed the name of the company to Rudolph Foods Co.

In 1957, Mary put her home economics background to work and developed a unique recipe for pork rinds. What makes these products unique is the multi-stage cooking process – and introducing real hardwood smoke. She put together a system of drying and smoking the rinds to give them a real bacon flavor.

In 1966, Rudolph Foods was merged into Beatrice Foods. John Rudolph then became a group general manager and vice president of Beatrice Foods. But in 1987 in the midst of the leveraged buyout of Beatrice by Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, the Rudolph family repurchased Rudolph Foods.

Today, the company offers:

* Pellets: Designed for companies with large fryers that want to package their own brand of snacks and for customers wanting to sell rinds straight to the public;

* Pork Rinds: Crunchy style with a smoky bacon flavor;

* Tender Cracklins: Savory pork taste that appeals to bacon lovers;

* Traditional Cracklins: Eaten as snacks and used is ingredients in cooking and baking;

* Microwave Pork Rinds: Bacon Snaps microwave pork

Return to 2001 News Archives