McDonald’s Meats of Clear Lake took home one national  and two second place titles at the 2015 American Cured Meat Championships in Springfield IL June 18-20.

 

McDonald’s Meats won the Meat Snack Sticks competition for first place and took second in the Frankfurters/Weiners (coarse ground) and Smoked Turkey divisions.

 

St. Joseph Meat Market also fared well, winning the top prize in the Andouille Sausage category.

 

“We take great pride in what we do and we don’t mass produce,” said McDonald’s Meats Co-Owner Travis McDonald. “It’s as close to homemade as you can get. We also have great seasoning.”

 

This is the store’s 12th national title in their 101 years of existence and also have won well over 100 state prizes since they began processing meat in 1914.

 

“We pay attention to every little detail,” said Co-Owner Jennifer Dierkes. “We naturally smoke our meats and make our own brine mix.”

 

In the end, though the small meat houses all around the state and country are competing against each other, they still have respect and friendly relationships with each other.

 

“We cheer each other on and even discuss how we make our meats and seasonings,” said Travis. “There’s no animosity there.”

 

McDonald’s Meats has always had the reputation as delivering top-notch meat products and they especially are well-known for their jerky, their beef sticks (in many flavors), their bacon and their wild rice sausage. Now they expect to see people clamor to get their hands on their smoked turkey and frankfurters.

 

Two other Minnesota meat processors were in the national mix along with McDonald’s and St. Joseph’s and that included Morgan’s Meat Market in New Richland and Grand Champion Meats in Foley. Morgan’s took second place to McDonald’s Meats’ meat snack sticks and Grand Champion took fourth in the semi-dried sausage (non-fermented) category.

 

St. Joseph’s — besides winning the annouille sausage category — also won the title for small diameter smoked and cooked sausage and took second in the smoked poultry division.

 

Other states in the competition were Missouri, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Montana and Oklahoma.