Profiles in Quality: Hord Family Farms

Wendy’s is proud to partner with progressive farmers, ranchers and pork producers who share our passion for high-quality meat.

This week, we would like to welcome Pat Hord, president of Hord Family Farms, to the blog to discuss his personal experiences as the fifth generation to lead his family business and a Wendy’s Animal Welfare Council member. Pat also shares his thoughts on his family farm practices and the farm’s involvement in Clemens Food Group (CFG).

CFG is a vertically coordinated company (meaning all aspects of the organization are connected to allow for better line of sight) that includes pig farming, food production and transportation. Hord Family Farms is one of more than 20 independent family farms in their network, and Pat sits on the Board of Directors. CFG’s integrated approach to animal care is one that few in the pork industry can claim, and one Wendy’s believes is beneficial for the animals, the environment and Wendy’s customers.

Q: Hi, Pat! Can you tell us about your background in the pork industry?

Our family is rooted in farming – in fact, we’ve been based in the same area of Ohio for more than 125 years and owned our current farm for over 110 of those. After all that time, Hord Family Farms is still a family affair, with multiple generations involved in the business. I’m married with four children – one of whom is married with a new baby, my first granddaughter. My wife Janel as well as my father, mother, son, daughter-in-law, two daughters and brother-in-law are all involved at the farm – from operations, to accounting, to HR.

We stay busy around here, managing our corn, soybean, wheat and barley crops, as well as our cattle and pigs. Right now, we employ 200 team members, as well as have a network of about 150 farm families that help us raise our pigs from birth to market. We also work with over 200 local farm families that produce corn for our feed needs that we cannot grow ourselves.

We’re passionate about our work, and about building connections and relationships in the farming community.

Q: What makes Hord Family Farms unique or different from other pork producers?

The core values of Hord Family Farms set the stage for how we operate, as both a family and as a team. Our core values are:

Trust – built through honesty and integrity

Care – we care about people, animals and the planet

Courage – we are willing to do the hard things and go through the tough times together

Empowerment – when we value people and support them in helping their talents emerge, it helps the business overall

Innovation – we are always trying to innovate and improve

Ultimately, we are consumers too, so we try to do our best to blend what we know to be best management practices on the farm and what we think the general consumer is concerned about.

Some industry operators are opposed to change, but we do our best to not be defensive and listen to all sides on an issue. We would rather listen and do all we can, under the constraints that we operate under, to facilitate an on-farm solution that solves a problem for our customer. We strive to be open-minded as to how we can help be a leader in agriculture. We want to always come from a mindset of consumer trust and ask, “how would I view this issue if someone had all the same information that I have?”

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your partnership with Clemens Food Group (CFG)?

In 2014, we were approached by CFG with the concept of partnering in the opening of a new pork processing plant in Michigan, alongside 12 other family farms. Through a series of many meetings, we decided to embark on this unique journey of extending our reach from farm to fork. The processing facility officially opened in 2017.

CFG’s role is to oversee pork processing operations. For example, Hord Family Farms will supply pigs to the CFG processing plant, and from there CFG will smoke and slice the pork bellies to Wendy’s specifications. The result? Bacon worthy of a Baconator®. CFG will then ship the bacon out for restaurant delivery and in-restaurant cooking. In short – Hord Family Farms provides the pork, and CFG brings home the bacon, so to speak.

Q: At Wendy’s, Quality Is Our Recipe® – and we love to work with suppliers that uphold that commitment to quality. What do you most appreciate about your relationship with Wendy’s? Do you think the two share similar values?

Dr. Henry Zerby (VP of Protein Procurement and Innovation at Wendy’s supply chain co-op, QSCC) and I worked together when he was at The Ohio State University. He knew Hord Family Farms was partnering with CFG and wanted to learn more about our work. As a result, the Wendy’s management team came up for a visit to our farm to learn more firsthand and to visit our new plant. That visit began our relationship with Wendy’s, which has grown into a great partnership today. 

Hord Family Farms, CFG and Wendy’s all take the approach of not cutting corners – we always strive to do things with excellence, and innovation is at the core of our businesses. Being willing to think outside the box – and challenge one another to do the same – has been beneficial for all parties.

Q: Wendy’s has a rigorous supplier auditing program in place. Can you share about your participation in Wendy’s auditing, and/or any auditing practices of your own that help provide customer assurances?

Given my role on Wendy’s Animal Welfare Council, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time at Wendy’s headquarters in Dublin and learn about the history of the Wendy’s auditing program and the company’s leadership in this space. Wendy’s has a robust, industry-leading auditing program – and they’ve audited our pork processing plants. We also conduct third-party audits at each of our farms once every three years, as we have been doing for many years. Most processing plants are required to have a statistical sampling of audited farms, but CFG has asked (and we have embraced) having every farm audited. My mindset is that we are proud of what we do and welcome others to see that. If there are areas that need to be improved, we want to know that as well so we can continue to improve our processes. 

Q: What’s next for Hord Family Farms and Clemens Food Group? Are you working on any ongoing or upcoming trials / test-and-learn programs that demonstrate progressiveness?

We have an innovation team that is always evaluating and working on testing new approaches to our business. We’re fortunate to be in a “sweet spot” in terms of business size – we have enough resources to justify having a dedicated innovation team but are small enough that we don’t find it difficult to innovate. We have done extensive trial work on genetics, nutrition and innovative equipment that all work to improve the lives of our animals.

For example, due to our innovative vaccines and management processes, we were recently able to eradicate mycoplasmal pneumonia, one of the most common respiratory diseases in pigs – cutting out an entire instance for the use of an antibiotic.

There are new products being launched in the animal health space that we are exploring, too. Many of these are related to probiotics, essential oils and other items to improve animal gut health. There is a lot of industry research being done on animal gut health, just like in humans, which we are watching closely because we think it could play a role in keeping our herds healthy and reducing their need for treatment. All these efforts contribute to improving the lives of our animals.

Q: Okay, we have to ask. What’s your favorite Wendy’s menu item?   

I love the Apple Pecan Chicken Salad – with bacon added, of course. But my ultimate weakness is a Chocolate Frosty®. Funny story – my wife worked at a Wendy’s restaurant when she was younger, and she taught me a Frosty trick: Saltine crackers. We crumble them up and add them to the Frosty for a little added crunch and salt – who knew?!