Fully Cooked Meal Solutions

	BREAD READY PRESLICED MEATS From package to bread with no thawing and no slicing, foodservice operators are ensured of optimum convenience benefits.

A growing and significant consumer trend is for fully cooked entrees that are flavorful and provide heat-and-serve convenience. Hormel fully cooked entrees - beef roast au jus, beef tips with gravy, meat loaf with tomato sauce and pork roast au jus - were introduced early in the first quarter. The four-item line combines quality and convenience, allowing the consumer to prepare a meal with home-cooked taste and quality in only seven minutes. In its first year, Hormel fully cooked entrees gained major distribution across the country, receiving favorable consumer reaction and excellent repeat sales.

	BLACK LABEL MAPLE FLAVORED BACON A new and popular flavor alternative to the company's premium branded bacon line.

The success of the original fully cooked entrees line prompted the introduction late in the year of four barbecue meat products featuring the award-winning Rich & Sassy barbecue sauce of the Famous Dave's of America restaurant chain. A seasoned &. sliced beef brisket, seasoned shredded beef, seasoned & sliced pork and a seasoned pulled pork, all fully cooked and microwaveable, enable the company to enter a burgeoning market niche with "right-out-of-the-pit" authentic barbecue that is a perfect fit for today's time-pressed consumer. With 34 restaurants in seven states and more than 80 regional and national barbecue awards. Famous Dave's is one of the nation's best recognized barbecue companies and gives Hormel Foods a strong co-brand partner necessary to build sales and distribution.

	HOUSE OF TSANG HIBACHI GRILL SAUCES Authentic Oriental flavors in five delicious varieties to complement meat, chicken, fish and seafood dishes.

Another exciting product innovation, known as Austin Blues Bar-B-Que beef and pork, has met with widespread acceptance by foodservice operators interested in heat-and-serve products that are flavorful. convenient and deliver high quality. The newly introduced line of premium hickory smoked and fully cooked meats - beef brisket, hand-pulled pork. St. Louis-style spareribs and boneless pork loin - allows family restaurants, sports bars, regional food, hotel and motel chains and other foodservice businesses to offer popular and authentic barbecue varieties without the added expense of smokers, pits or other cooking equipment. Because barbecue sauce flavors are distinctly regional in appeal, Austin Blues Bar-B-Que beef and pork enable foodservice operators to customize the products with their own signature sauces that meet local taste preferences.

Despite strengthening competition, other precooked products developed for the foodservice industry also showed strong growth in fiscal 2000. Fast 'N Easy strip and round bacon, Fast 'N Easy sausage and hamburgers, Grill Perfect bacon. Old Smokehouse hickory smoked bacon and Old Smokehouse Applewood smoked bacon are consistently strong performers because they match so closely the convenience and reduced preparation costs sought by restaurateurs and other away-from-home eating establishments.