Ex-Steeler Ready to Dazzle Country with Chitlins

One thing is obvious about Franco Harris, the soft-spoken pro football player turned business owner. He’s not afraid to take chances.

Harris leapt into the bakery business six years ago despite knowing nothing about baking. Now, the former Pittsburgh Steeler running back has saved Parks Sausage from bankruptcy and is trying to return the company to profitability, despite knowing nothing about the sausage business.

He is reticent about how he plans to revitalize the historic black-owned manufacturer, but he has one word for those looking for a clue--chitterlings.

Harris plans to increase sales and reduce costs in part by marketing nationwide a regional product from an under-utilized part of the pigs--the intestines--that Parks turns into sausage.

Harris believes there’s untapped potential for pre-cleaned and cooked, heat-and-eat chitterlings, better known as chitlins.

The boiled pork intestine is a favorite among blacks and Southerners and the growing Hispanic and Asian markets. Many remember chitlins fondly, but often don’t have the time to prepare the labor-intensive dish, Harris says.

“We feel even though a large part is regional, the South and ethnic markets, there’s a lot broader market. We want to make this product as broad as possible,” Harris said, leaning back comfortably on a couch at a downtown hotel suite, dressed in khaki pants and a blue oxford shirt.

Harris’ decision to expand sales of chitlins nationwide is an example of the business philosophy he has developed since becoming involved with Super Bakery in 1990.

“All I do is read, read, read. Out of everything I’ve read and observed I guess I’ve built a central philosophy on what I want our businesses to stand for,” he said.

Topping the list is providing an environment in which employees enjoy working and being a “company that likes to lead, that does fun and great things.”

Chitlins may seem like a stretch, but not for Harris whose Super Bakery is best known for its “nutritional doughnuts,” which contain minerals, proteins and vitamins.

The Pittsburgh-based company contracts with bakeries in New York, Indiana and California and has more than $10 million in sales, although Harris would not be more specific.

Harris’ partner in Super Bakery, and now president of Parks Sausage, Lydell Mitchell, described the corporate culture as relaxed but aggressive.

“We’re not afraid to take a chance, to have the courage to do things, to sit down and make decisions on sound facts and then pull the trigger. That’s the kind of company we are,” said Mitchell, also dressed in khaki pants and tieless, at his office in Parks company headquarters.

Despite the company’s problems, the Parks purchase gives Harris what he doesn’t have at Super Bakery, a well-known brand name with a long history.

“I’m a big believer in brand names. I like them,” Harris said.

Parks, founded in 1951 by City Council member Henry Parks Jr., became in 1961 the first black-owned company in the United States to be publicly traded. Parks’ spiced sausage and its slogan “More Parks Sausages Mom, Please” eventually made it one of the nation’s largest black-owned businesses, and a household name in the Northeast.

The company ran into financial trouble in the early 1990s when it was forced from its longtime headquarters to make way for the Baltimore Orioles’ new baseball stadium. After the company moved to its new $16 million plant, sales dropped from a high of $28 million in 1990 to $20 million in 1995 while the company’s debt rose to $7.8 million.

Parks closed its doors in late May and filed for bankruptcy as part of a plan to sell the company to Harris, an NFL Hall of Fame member.

Under the deal, several large creditors including the city of Baltimore, NationsBank, and the Baltimore Development Corporation, agreed to forgive about $4 million of Parks Sausage’s nearly $8 million debt. Parks resumed production this summer.

John McMillin, an analyst who follows the food packaging industry for Prudential Securities in New York, said recent high prices for grain, and in turn pork, are making it tough for many companies, including Parks. However, grain prices have begun falling.

“Prices have been at a 20-year high, so a gift from God in lower hog prices would help,” McMillin said.

“In the food business, you’re also competing against a lot of giants, but a lot of food businesses maintain a regional appeal, and packaged meats is one of them, but I don’t know how brand loyal their customers are,” he said.