Midsouth’s May meeting backdrop was the world-famous World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, a part of the Memphis in May International Festival. Their very own Kelli Polatty, a member of the legacy Swine & Dine Cooking Team, hosted the MidSouth NAMA group on Thursday, May 14th. Kelli has been a member of this team for 17 years, and was nice enough to step away from her team duties to entertain our NAMA friends.

Everyone on the team has a job to do, the most important one being the pit master.  Carl Pfeifer has been one of the team’s BBQ pit masters for over 30 years.  Carl took the group behind the scenes to show off the team’s brand new custom cooker, and walk through the whole cooking process.  Without giving away too many trade secrets, the Swine & Dine’s winning pork shoulder is based on cooking temperature, seasonings, and timing of when things are seasoned during the 17 hour cooking process.

Along with their new $12,000 custom cooker, Carl was also boasting about the new technology that the team was using this year.  A new “Guru” website application allows him to monitor the temperature of the meat from his hotel room.  If the temperature rises too high, he can turn on a fan with a click of a button.  “It’s a new level of cooking” Carl said.  He added, “It’s all about consistency. Consistency of meat, preparation and temperature yield a consistent product”.  This concept was immediately familiar to the fellow agri-marketers, not so different from Precision Ag!

It was a good end to the Midsouth NAMA year.  Twenty-four members and guests were in attendance.  And the pulled pork was to die for!