Clarion Locker earns award for meat sticks

The awards wall inside the Clarion Locker is starting to fill up. On February 21, Manie and Elmarie Nel, the owners of the Locker, went home with the Reserve Grand Champion (second place) award for their meat snack sticks at the Iowa Meat Processors Association’s 80th Anniversary Convention and Trade show. “We’re very proud of it,” Elmarie said.

Elmarie said the convention involves a meet and greet, a class at the Iowa State meat lab, and a trade show where processers display new equipment, spices, and more. “We mostly go for the trade show and for the social, but sometimes it’s a bonus to get awarded for what you do,” she said.

The Nels didn’t develop a special recipe for the convention. Elmarie said they simply grabbed a package of the smoked and cooked sticks out of their retail case to be judged. They’ve used the same recipe since they started making their meat sticks in 2009.

For the full story, see the March 10 edition of the Monitor.