Broadbent’s Grand Champion Ham Brings Record Price of $340,000

Louisville, KY-August 26,2005-As the sun came up over Louisville Thursday; local TV stations were previewing the 42ed Annual Kentucky State Fair Country Ham Breakfast.  Most of the talk was about politics, but that quickly changed once the sell-out crowd of 1,600 dined “high on the hog”.  The focus became the auctioning of this years Grand Champion country ham.  There were several similarities to last years breakfast.  Broadbent’s B & B Foods were again presented the Grand Champion Country Ham Award, along with first place awards for four of the six classes.  Republic Bancorp was the top bidder and Jack Crowner was the Auctioneer.  Crowner began the auction asking the entire crowd to raise their hand for the opening bid of $10,000.00, then joked saying, “When the auction makes news tomorrow you can tell people, I bid on the ham but didn’t get it”.  The big difference, to the amazement of the crowd, the bidding went much longer and higher than normal.  The excitement grew, until Crowner announced sold to Republic Bank for a record $340,000.00.

The 15.9-pound ham averaged $21,383. per pound.  Republic Bank, the high bidder for the last two years had to pay a little more this year, in fact a little over five times more for the ham.   Republic Bancorp Chairman Bernard Trager caused the bidding to be held up several times as he held a “quick board meeting” at his table discussing how to proceed.  In the end he decided to flip a coin, but no one at his table had a coin.  A coin was borrowed from a neighboring table and the final decision was to keep going.

“I am still in shock from the events yesterday,” says Drennan of Broadbent’s.  “A reporter ask yesterday how it felt to win Grand Champion and go on to sell for this record amount, my reply was for a Kentucky Country Ham Producer winning the State Fair Grand Champion is like a football player winning the Super Bowl.  Some of the best Country Ham producers in the nation are right here in Kentucky and it’s always an honor to win.”

This has been a remarkable year for Broadbent’s.  They began the year by winning a Reserve Grand Champion award at the National Country Ham Association Competition in April.  In July they won both the National Association of Specialty Food Trade “Outstanding Meat Pate and Seafood” category for there Pepper Bacon and the American Cured Meat Associations Grand Champion for Unsmoked Country Ham and Reserve Grand Champion for Smoked Country Ham.  “This is the icing on the cake”, says Drennan.  “We have been blessed with winning the Kentucky State Fair Grand Champion award four of the last six years.  It’s still hard to believe this year’s record price equaled more than the other three put together.  More importantly though is the fact that ham I would sell for about $50.00, has raised $340,000 which will go to education and health care charities here in the state according to Mr. Trager from Republic Bank.”  Eleven Broadbent Grand Champion hams have been auctioned since their first entry at the fair in 1967.  They won that year and their ham auctioned for $825.00, setting a record.  “My how times have changed”, says Drennan, “ Broadbent hams have auctioned for a total of $645,628 going to charity.  We are a very small company, it’s incredible we could be a part of this.”