Robert Young, chief executive officer of Miami Beef, brings passion and excitement to his position, giving him the drive to make moves for the company to better its position in the meat marketplace.

In February, Young and the meat company acquired Syracuse, NY-based Hofmann Sausage Co., a longtime staple of the hot dog scene in the Northeast.

“I think it’s the best hot dog out there,” Young said of Hofmann “I mean, they have a formula they haven’t changed for 100 years. We met with their team. You know they had all the right things in place. They have a great product. They have a great brand.”

Another appealing attribute that Miami Beef identified was the culture and leadership team at Hofmann. Young said maintaining that culture will be a key to a successful ownership.

“They’ve got guys that have been there for 20 years, and they love the product, and the brand is strong up there,” Young said. “It goes all up and down the East Coast where we ship.”

Having a brand with an established heritage in New York was a major factor in Miami Beef acquiring the processor.

“We wouldn’t change the formula of what they do, because that’s what their customers love and they have for generations,” Young said. “What we want to do is add products to what they’re doing.”

Young and the Miami Beef team want to find the right people, location and products. The South Florida meat company was already producing burger patties and other grill products. It now wants to add the hot dog lines from Hofmann to its increasingly diverse offerings.

Other items Miami Beef has produced in the past include chicken and turkey patties, ground meats, steaks and pork chops. The addition of Hofmann has been something Miami Beef is promoting to its existing customers.

An example Young gave was packaging a Hofmann hot dog with Miami Beef’s established foodservice customers and retailers in the Florida area.

“I think that having an opportunity to offer our customers both makes a lot of sense,” Young said. “We can promote both in stores. We can give our customers an opportunity to buy hamburgers and hot dogs on the same truck and they can fill a pallet with both. There’s a lot of synergies there that make sense and we look to acquire more businesses, we’re going to look for synergies like that.”

This year’s acquisition wasn’t the first for Miami Beef. The company made a similar move in 2023 by acquiring Brooklyn Burger and Devault Foods.

Brooklyn Burger primarily delivered to retail customers throughout the United States with frozen burger products. Devault Foods supplied restaurants in the Northeast and Midwest with burgers, meatballs and steaks. Over the last year, Miami Beef leveraged Devault and Brooklyn’s reputation to expand its foodservice industry presence.

“We wanted to bring that great product and pack it here and take away those co-packer margins and just be the manufacturer,” Young said.

Michael Young is the founder of Miami Beef. 

| Source: Miami Beef

Family History

Although Robert now works as CEO, his father, Michael, showed him the ropes after decades of hard work and successfully growing the business.

Michael started in the meat industry when he was 11 years old, riding the bus on Saturdays from Atlantic City to Philadelphia to work at Young’s Meats.

At age 21, Michael joined his father in Florida, where he worked with his cousin Jack at Henderson Portion Pack. Jack helped develop the company’s portion-control business and Portion Pack which was ultimately acquired by Borden Foods.

As he learned more about meat processing, Michael went to Arkansas and worked at Vogels Food Distributor. He then traveled across Texarkana, Ark., selling for Vogels before returning to Miami to sell for Henderson.

After gaining some experience, Michael decided to create his own meat business. His first investment was a pink Econoline truck. He bought and sold meat to country clubs, restaurants, Burger Castle, and Homestead Air Force Base. Michael also delivered meat from Florida City to North Fort Lauderdale.

Following the truck purchase was a 10-foot -by-12-foot small, rented room in Central Cold Storage, which was the smallest state-inspected plant in Florida. While perfecting the Jaccard hand-needle machine where he tenderized the ribeyes, Michael eventually needed a bigger room to expand his business.

So, Michael moved to an old poultry plant where he could cut steaks and grind hamburgers while maintaining the pink truck and supplying the family restaurant chain Lum’s, which had dozens of stores in the South Florida area.

As his meat industry reputation grew, Michael garnered more space at US Cold Storage, which included more hooks, tables, saws and equipment that came with the lease. Michael continued to cut steaks for customers like the Kapok Tree Inn and sold them to food distributors across the South.

Finally, in the 1970s, Michael built the current plant Miami Beef runs on today and has slowly made some improvements when needed.

Even at 79 years old, Michael comes in every day to work with his sons, Robert, Harrison and Daniel, who have continued to operate the family business.

Robert Young (left) and Harrison Young both play integral roles in helping Miami Beef achieve his new business goals.

| Source: Miami Beef

Merging standards

Both Miami Beef and Hofmann ship their products all over the East Coast.

By adding a well-known hot dog player to the Miami Beef portfolio, Young said it can offer customers a complete meat program because they provide more offerings.

As part of the acquisition, Young said Miami Beef plans to invest in additional equipment at the 16,000-square-foot Hofmann plant in Syracuse to ensure the legacy remains with Hofmann as they move forward in this new chapter while adding a second line.

“We’re investing in equipment,” Young said. “We’re investing in the people. We’re going to grow that business and we think it’s going to thrive. We’re going to try to introduce it nationwide over the next couple of years.”

In the summertime before acquiring Hofmann, Miami Beef’s production was more than 500,000 lbs per week at its 55,000-square-foot facility in South Florida.

Now, as it incorporates Hofmann under its umbrella, Young and Miami Beef believe it can grab existing Hofmann customers and introduce them to Miami Beef.

“We’re going to cross sell, add new items in the Hoffman SKUs like I said, no formula changes but increasing productivity by adding another line to increase capacity,” Young said.

Publix and Harris Teeter are two retail chains where Miami Beef and Hofmann are available on the East Coast, and that distribution is expected to continue for years to come.

Some Miami Beef products were on display at the Annual Meat Conference 2024.

| Source: Ryan McCarthy/Sosland Publishing Company