How do you make better bacon? For Bill-E Stitt, music helps
Posted On December 1, 2022
Make a better product and you can prove a lot of people wrong.
People told Bill-E Stitt he wouldn’t be able to sell his small-batch bacon because its packaging didn’t include a window where customers could see the meat. He didn’t listen.
Now he’s shipping it all over the world and it’s being used by championship chefs in prestigious cooking competitions like the World Food Championships. The last time we spoke with Stitt on “What’s Working with Cam Marston” a couple years ago, he was selling 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of bacon a week. Now it’s up to 3,000.
He’s done it by focusing on using the highest quality pork (and being very particular about where he gets it), by taking the time to do it right, and of course, with a little music.
“You’ve got to sing to your pork bellies,” said Stitt, who cures his bacon in a room directly behind the live music stage at his restaurant in Fairhope. “If you’re a musician and you come here to sing or play or entertain, you’re serenading the bacon.”
As sales have grown across the board – online, wholesale and walk-up – Stitt has seen chefs do all kinds of things with his bacon, from using it in chocolate to putting it in soap to making shot glasses out of it for bourbon. He and his restaurant have also popularized “grazing boards,” which are a hit at weddings and other large gatherings.
Stitt shares with us his tips for the best ways to prepare his bacon, who his favorite smoker is named after, the biggest mistake first-time bacon curers make, the joys of working with your kids in a family business, why he prefers hickory wood, and why there’s a bicycle on his roof. He also shares his goals for the future.
Hint: They involve pork butts.
If you haven’t tried Bill-E’s Bacon, do yourself a favor and check it out at billesbacon.com.