Store’s piecemeal sale bittersweet for employees

By La Risa Lynch

Moo & Oink, the shuttered retail meat company, will live on in name only as a minority owned company acquired the former store’s brand and other intellectual property for $530,000 during a December 14th public sale of the 30-year-old company.

Robert Beavers, chairman and CEO of Best Chicago Meat, purchased Moo & Oink’s iconic logo, name, website, catchy commercial jingle as well as the company’s recipes for several of its meat products. Best Chicago Meat, 4649 W. Armitage Ave., makes several well-known local meat products, including Jemm burger and sausage, Red Hot hotdogs and Scala’s, an Italian meat and seasoning product.

“We are extremely proud to have Moo & Oink join our stable of brands,” Beavers said. “It’s a brand that is very well-known in the African-American community. Now it will be truly minority owned.”

Beavers and his partner, Dave Van Kampen, were the highest bidders at the two-hour public auction held at 111 S. Wacker. The auction only attracted a few bidders. The opening bid started at $100,000. There were no bids to purchase Moo & Oink as a whole, including its three city stores and its south suburban Hazel Crest location.

Beavers said competition from big box retailers made it prohibitive for them to purchase all the stores.  He said many of the big boxes want to come into areas that are food deserts, an area where Moo & Oink was once the only shopping option. Food desert is a term that describes an area that lacks mainstream grocery stores.

Beavers has high hopes for the brand. He said the company wants to produce other products, such as barbeque sauce or seasoning that could carry the Moo & Oink brand. The company plans to sell Moo & Oink labeled products in retail stores.

The company also hopes to expand the brand’s reach outside of Chicago. The company wants to target cities with high Black population like Detroit, Birmingham, Memphis and Atlanta, areas Moo & Oink’s predecessors wanted to expand before its financial woes.

An involuntary bankruptcy claim by Moo & Oink’s employee pension fund forced the company’s sale. The pension alleges Moo & Oink owes them $3 million, a claim which the company denies.

The auction garnered $530,000 for the intellectual property and $68,000 for the furniture, store fixtures and equipment, including countertops, meat processing equipment and freezers.

The auction bought in a fraction of what is owed to First Midwest Bank, Moo & Oink’s largest creditor. Courtney Barr, an attorney for the bank, said the auction generated $598,000. The bank is owed $5.5 million.

Barr said the bank is “still in the hole for a significant amount.” She hopes the sale of Moo & Oink’s four real estate properties would make up the difference. The bank plans to use a real estate broker to sale the properties in the spring.

Financing prevented another minority investor group from bidding in the auction. Attorney Exavier Pope, of The Pope Firm, which represented the group, said he was not surprised that another minority company bought Moo & Oink. He said his group stressed that Moo & Oink “needs to be African-American owned because it had African-American consumers.”

His group’s initial interest to purchase all the stores was to save Blacks jobs and preserve grocery options in low-income communities. Pope said his group did not bid in the auction because they were unable to get their financing in on time. Pope said it was disheartening that no one attempted to save the business as a whole.

“That’s a travesty,” he said.

Several employees were on hand for the auction’s outcome. Ronald Raddle, 51, of West Englewood, hoped the company would be sold in tact to keep employees’ jobs.

Raddle, a Moo & Oink butcher for 18 years, said it has been hard finding work since grocery stores are carrying more packaged meats to stop hiring unionized meat cutters.

“I got to find something else,” he said. “I can sweep, wipe windows. I will do anything to put food for my family on the table.”

Austin resident Roxanne Smith said it was hard to see a company that she worked at for ten years sold off in pieces.

“It is amazing how you can just lose something like that after being in business for so long and not having the wisdom to keep it because of greed,” said Smith, who held various jobs from cashier to demonstration cook at the Madison Street store.

Former employee Mary Steele said she was happy to see Best Chicago Meat take over the brand.

“I’m OK that Best Chicago has it because they have been packing our products for years,” said Steele, who was months away from retiring when Moo & Oink closed. Steele has been with the company for 29 years.

She, like many of her former employees, are still searching for jobs. She hopes the company will be able to hire former Moo & Oink employees. Talks, she said will begin after the holidays in that regards.

“[Beavers] can’t bring them all back because they have their own people, but as long as he brings some of them back, I’m OK with it,” Steele said.

Ricky Jones, 47, who started at the company at age 20, said the auction’s outcome is a bitter pill to swallow.

“By them buying the logo, I still don’t have a job,” the former delivery truck driver said.