Courtesy of Union 30
From Union 30 restaurant, a Brewer's Crafted Pork "volcano" shank atop blue cheese polenta, Brussels sprout fricassee, micro leeks, and pea tendrils.
Listening to Vito Racanelli talk about his various projects is like listening to a parent gush with pride over his children. In that sense, the chef-turned-food entrepreneur has many “children,” and you can never be sure where the fascinating stories he tells about them will go. The baby he dotes on the most these days is Brewer’s Crafted Pork, an idea that started on a whim.
While working for a global brewing company years ago, one part of Racanelli's job was "trying to figure out how to get beer into food manufacturing and creating food programming,” he recalls. Racanelli began talking to farmers, including Whetstone Farms' Shelly Meyer, who was raising Mangaliza and other hog breeds. Racanelli connected her with a thousand pounds of six-row malted barley, the same kind of grain that some brewers use while producing beer.
“The malted barley is more of a complex carbohydrate, and it’s sweet,” explains Racanelli. “Because of the sugar, pigs love malted barley. They devour it! It changed everything—it increased the marbling, and it added amazing flavor to the meat.”
Racanelli then talked to cereal experts at the brewery and learned about malted barley’s nutritional profile. As Brewers Crafted Pork's website explains, the six-row malted barley is "rich in natural sugars, complex carbohydrates, natural enzymes, protein, vitamin, minerals, and most importantly, is packed with the flavor of beer."
When the brewer decided not to pursue the idea, Racanelli explains, "I started talking to a company in the Carolinas called Joyce Farms. These guys are all about regenerative farming and the environment, and they had all the experts. They thought this was a really neat idea, but I'm located in St. Louis. They said I needed to work with a meat expert in St. Louis.”
Racanelli struck up a relationship with Matt Sherman at Kern Meat Co., from whom Racanelli had purchased meat during his restaurant days. Sherman was on board with the idea, and the partnership between Joyce Farms, Kern Meat, and Racanelli was formed.
Today, Racanelli’s Brewer’s Crafted Pork is on the menu at Union 30, Urban Chestnut and The Tenderloin Room. “It’s our current pork selection,” says Tenderloin Room co-owner Bob Brazell. “We offer a 14-ounce pork porterhouse, and it is a delicious product. Our chefs love working with it, and our customers have given nothing but great feedback thus far.”
Racanelli is especially proud that regenerative farming is involved in the raising of his crafted hogs. “If we’re going to do anything about healing our planet, we're gonna have to look at the way we farm,” he says. “We're never gonna get rid of the demand for meat, so factory farming will always be there. We can, in some cases, do things better, though. Regenerative agriculture is no-till. The animals are the till. We plant what pigs like to eat—onions, turnips collards, barley—and that's kind of like our spice. Pigs love this stuff, so we have all this terroir coming into our animals.”
Racanelli is determined to combine this sustainable style of raising superior pork with further environmentally-friendly initiatives for his company. “We want to be green and sustainable,” he says. “We want to do our part. The only thing we haven't gotten to yet are the electric trucks to get the pork here from the Carolinas.”
