Food Maker Forgoes Tradition With Line of Microwave Burgers

Bridgford Foods believes it has a winner in its microwave hamburgers and cheeseburgers, a bold new product line, a bona-fide burger bonanza.

But then again . . .

“They might fail as miserably as our pizza kits,” said Bill Bridgford Sr.

The folksy candor is characteristic of Anaheim-based Bridgford Foods, an old-fashioned company that competes successfully in a new-age industry against multinational food companies many times its size.

Bridgford, which markets specialty food products ranging from Bavarian dark bread to salami and pepperoni sticks, has made a place for itself in the super-competitive food industry by identifying new niches and filling them before most of the competition.

Bridgford’s “everybody-better-feel-at-home” style originated with Santa Ana native Hugh Bridgford, who started the company as a retail butcher shop in San Diego in 1932.

Now 79, Hugh runs the company’s Chicago production plant. His two sons, Bill and Allan, preside over the headquarters operation in Anaheim and at five other plants.

Open-Door Policy

The unpretentious atmosphere is evident in the corporate “executive suite:” an unadorned, linoleum-floored office shared by Bill, the company chairman, and Allan, its president. The office, chilled year round by the meat-packing operations and furnished with metal cabinets containing safety helmets and production-floor smocks, is in a far corner of the Anaheim meat packaging plant.

The office is off-limits to no one. A sales manager drops in to borrow the office for a sales call. A production manager steps inside to use Bill’s phone.

And the brothers don’t have a secretary.

“It starts to feel like home pretty quick,” said Leon Owens, a meat packaging supervisor who has worked in virtually every department since starting with the company in 1953 while still in high school. Owens, whose father worked at Bridgford as an operating engineer, was a high school friend of Bill and Allan.

Family Affair

Dozens of Bridgford’s 450 employees have been working for the company for decades, every Monday through Friday, plus Saturdays during busy times of the year. Several employees attributed their loyalty to the close-knit nature of the operation. Instead of characterizing themselves as company employees, they work “for the family.”

That atmosphere is enhanced by the fact that Bridgford family members are everywhere. In addition to Hugh and his two sons, more than a dozen other family members work for the company. Bill’s wife, Diane, is a data processing manager, his son Bill Jr. is manager of the Anaheim plant, and Allan’s son Allan Jr. is a sales manager in Illinois.

Hugh said he’s tried retiring, but “I’m not interested in it. Besides, the rest of the family’s at work.”

Despite the family feel, Bridgford is a publicly traded company whose shares are owned by several hundred investors. The company’s 1987 sales were $57 million.

Bill and Allan, the company’s two top officers, each earned $89,700 in 1986. That compares to $160,000 for the average Orange County chief executive, according to a recent Arthur Andersen & Co. study.

The challenge facing the Bridgfords is to get their products on store shelves next to products made by food giants such as Pillsbury, Conagra and Oscar Mayer, which sell in much larger quantities and have more clout with big grocers.

But even a small manufacturer like Bridgford can compete effectively if its products have consumer appeal.

“If a product can sell, we’ll put it on the shelf,” said Frank Woodard, a marketing specialist at Vons, the El Monte-based supermarket chain, which sells Bridgford’s frozen dough products.

In addition, stores want a good profit margin on the products they stock and bonuses for selling them, said Dan Yost, a Bridgford sales manager. “I have to convince them we’re dependable, and we’ve got a quality product.”

“We’re niche marketers of unique products,” Allan said.

Old-Fashioned Products

Among the losers were pizza kits complete with sauce, cheese, toppings and dough. It seemed a logical enough product for Bridgford because the company already made all the products except the sauce.

“We thought the world was waiting for our pizza kits,” said Allan. “It wasn’t. And we learned not to figure on anything.”

The new microwave burgers are exceptions in the Bridgford line, which consists of relatively simple, old-fashioned food products. The company’s pepperoni and salami sticks, for example, are variations on centuries-old recipes.

“They made pepperoni sticks hundreds of years ago because they didn’t have refrigeration,” Bill said. “The product is little different today.”

Bridgford products, which are made in six plants across the country, are sold in more than 20,000 stores and are stocked by more than 15,000 restaurants and institutions.

Although supermarkets carry the product line, Bridgford seems to do best in independent, mom-and-pop convenience stores, liquor stores and delis, where profit margins are wider and the big food companies are not as big a factor.

One store owner in Whittier said Bridgford family members have visited his store “just to see how I was doing.”

“They’re not a company for this day and age, but maybe that’s why they do so well,” the owner said.

“Watching the Bridgfords, you feel good that a business can still be run like they do it,” said Jeff Kilpatrick, president of Newport Securities, a brokerage firm in Costa Mesa.

Stock Performed Well

Kilpatrick said: “They know as well as anybody how to run a business, and they have a very definite attitude that this is the shareholders’ money, and it’s their job to make money for the shareholders.”

Bridgford stock is only owned by one institutional investor that holds less than 1% of the company’s shares. The Bridgford brothers and their father own 50.3% of the stock.

Despite the lack of attention, Bridgford stock was a star performer last year, gaining 67% in value, the most of any Orange County company.

“I didn’t understand that much,” Bill Bridgford confided. “We had a good year, but I don’t know why it went up like that.

“But I’m not much of a stock market person.”