Den’s Country Meats is Expanding

Den’s Country Meats in Table Rock has been serving customers within a 150 mile radius with custom butchering of beef, pork and deer meat for over 40 years. Dennis Schaardt, owner of Den’s Country Meats, considers himself a people person; therefore, his meat processing business is all about making the customers happy by giving them a good quality product.
According to Schaardt, customers today want meat products without bones.  “The customers like to have more smoked processing of the meats as well, which is the main reason Den’s Country Meats is expanding their business,” he said.
This expansion involves construction of a 7,500 square foot building that will be used for creating smoked products for their local customers as well as dispersing these smoked products to area grocery stores in the local surrounding area, including northeast Kansas, as well as Lincoln and Omaha.
The new 12’ x 160’ building is being constructed by We Design of Plymouth, Nebraska. Equipment updates include adding a third grinder. Schaardt also noted that during COVID, a 1,000 foot slaughtering area was constructed.
Currently, Den’s Country Meats has nine employees and the Schaardts expect to hire up to five additional employees in the future. Employees include the Schaardts’ daughter Courtney and son-in-law Seth. Courtney handles the online sales and shipping orders while Seth handles all the smoking details of the meat products while Seth takes care of smoking the meat products.. Schaardt added that packages of meat products are shipped to customers in half the states from the east coast to the west coast.
Within the past year, Den’s Country Meats has won over 100 awards at state, national and international levels for their smoked meat products. Schaardt said their ring baloney is one of the biggest sellers, along with their jerky and snack sticks which come in 10 flavors.
Although Schaardt was hoping to have the expansion project completed in time for deer season coming up November 16-23, when he receives up to 16,000 deer to process, but the expansion won’t be completed until January.