KEARNEY, NEBRASKA – In stiff competition with 37 other competitors and over 180 products, Wheatland’s local butchery, H’s Custom Cuts, came home with 11 plaques demonstrating samples of the quality items they produce.
It’s not the first time H’s crew has come home with awards. The wall near the front door of H’s Custom Cuts on Rock Lake Road is filling up with plaques from multiple awards over several years’ worth of time from state competitions in Colorado-Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota… and most of them have the word ‘champion’ – reserve or grand – on them.
H’s owner, Harold Allbright, got his start with meat processing right here in Wheatland as a freshman in the SWEAT program (later named PEAK). The vocational program helped him learn the business and develop his skills. After working in the business in Riverton, he moved back to Wheatland to start his own operation. H’s Custom Cuts opened its doors in 1999 and has been steady ever since, processing domestic animals throughout most of the year and wild game during hunting season.
Allbright started making smoked meats by paying to use someone else’s smoker, but around six years ago he decided to put more skin in the game and purchased his own smoker. Since then, he’s experimented with a lot of different smoked meats. The spices H’s uses are their own mixture – some of which are other people’s mixes they add to in-house to make them “just right.” Recently, he added a commercial bacon slicer to his collection – so don’t be surprised if there’s more bacon awards on the wall in coming years.
Anyone wanting more information or to purchase some of H’s Custom Cuts’ products can go to their website ( www.hscustomcutswy.com) or stop by their booth at the 4th annual Total Spring Show in Wheatland at the Agriplex on Friday, April 25.