Raber reinventing: Community events, large retail store, unique experience are features of new facility

WEST PEORIA, Ill. — The new facility for Raber Packing Co. is designed for the way the company does business.

“We process for farmers and we process for ourselves,” said Buddy Courdt, owner of Raber Packing Co., during a tour that was part of the Illinois Beef Association Summer Conference. “We are still under construction, but we should be open not too long after July 4.”

The new facility is about a half a mile from the former location of Raber’s that was destroyed by a fire almost 2 1/2 years ago.

“It has been a very long process to get to this point,” Courdt said. “This plant is 35,000 square feet.”

After the fire, Courdt said, he looked at a lot of places to build.

“We wanted to be close to where we were,” he said. “Our old building was not designed for retail sales, but we did a lot of retail business.”

Raber Packing was started in 1954 and Courdt is the fourth generation involved in the business.

“Sam Raber and my great grandpa, Fritz, started the company and my grandpa, Harold, bought Sam out in 1969,” Courdt said. “My grandpa ran the company for over 40 years.”

The company is now reinventing itself.

“We used to slaughter 12 to 15 beef a week and 50 to 60 pigs and this plant is designed to do 50 beef per week and 300 hogs,” Courdt said. “In 1954, we only slaughtered animals and sold primals and filled orders for local corner markets.”

That led into custom slaughter, retail sales, wholesale sales, sausage making, ham curing and, in 1995, catering.

“This room is wired for a slaughterhouse, but I think we can do neat stuff here,” Courdt said. “I’d like to open it to the public on Friday nights to serve food, offer brunch on Sundays and on Saturday nights have weddings or reunions.”

Courdt has lots of ideas for the community room like offering a movie night or hosting a beef tasting paired with wine event.

“This room is for introducing people to new products. It’s pretty exciting for us,” he said. “Maybe once a month we’ll have a meet your farmer event where we are serving meats from the farm and that farmer is here to answer questions from consumers.”

All aspects of the new facility have been carefully planned.

“I really wanted the letters on the front of the building to look like the old building in the ’60s,” Courdt said. “And that’s what I tried to do with the windows, so they looked like a warehouse you’d see downtown in the ’20s.”

The retail shop is four times larger than the area in the former location and the raw and cooked products are separated.

“Everything in the retail area is cooked — bacon, jerky, luncheon meats and hot dogs,” Courdt said. “You will go into the cold room to buy raw meat such as steaks, chops and roasts.”

Many additional products will be offered in the retail shop, including wine, craft beer, bread, dairy products and seasonings.

“We get a lot of people that process their own hogs or deer, so we sell a lot of seasonings to make salami or bratwurst and items like casings,” Courdt said.

“I think this building will draw customers from an hour away because it is not just a place to get meat, but a place where you can see quite a bit of what we’re doing,” he said. “I’m really big on people understanding what we’re doing, so when you walk in here on most days you will see meat cutting and sausage making.”

Through a window, customers will be able to see bacon or hams after they come out of the smokehouse and a window in the cold room provides the opportunity to view the processing room.

“You will see whole hogs roll in or half of a beef,” Courdt said.

“I want kids to be excited to come here,” he said. “I have an antique slicer that only does 60 slices per minute, so kids will be able to watch bacon being sliced.”

At the back of the retail store is an area where customers can purchase lunch from Monday through Saturday.

“We are going to use our animal fats to fry our French fries,” Courdt said. “That makes the best French fries you’ve ever had in your life.”

For more information about the Illinois Beef Association, call 217-787-4280 or go to www.illinoisbeef.com.