A Modern Process for a Cincinnati Favorite

Goetta (GET-uh) may be a rare find beyond the Cincinnati region, but within it, the pork, beef, and oat specialty is a cultural institution.

For evidence, look no further than Goettafest. Glier’s Goetta launched the annual celebration of the local delicacy inGoettaFest has grown into a major regional event since its debut in 2001.Images courtesy of Glier's Goetta / Mark Byron 2001, and it now draws between 200,000 and 250,000 people to the banks of the Ohio River in Covington, Ky., over eight days across two weekends. Live bands take the stage as attendees sample goetta served in dozens of different dishes.


“It was my father’s idea to have a celebration of goetta and a way to show customers that there are different ways to consume it. If you use goetta as an ingredient rather than an end-product, maybe you’ll buy it more often,” says David Glier, Vice President and Owner of Glier’s Goetta. Glier joined the operation as a teenager and now represents its third generation.

This sausage-adjacent food’s roots run deeper than the festival, though. Goetta descends from Grützwurst, or grain sausage of northern Germany, where usable meat trim, broth, and grain were combined to stretch the results of an animal harvest. As German immigrants settled in various regions across the United States, they brought their local food traditions with them, and Cincinnati developed its own version.

The defining Cincinnati preparation combines pork and beef with the broth created by cooking those meats and adds steel-cut oats to absorb the broth and its flavor. Similar meat-and-grain foods emerged elsewhere under names such as scrapple, hash, and mush, but goetta became distinctly associated with Cincinnati. Glier credits his grandfather with being the first to commercialize the product and says his company’s formulation later helped define the federal standard of identity for goetta.

Glier’s produces up to 13,000 lbs of goetta per day from its Covington, Ky., facility.ProFood WorldToday, Glier’s makes about 10,000 to 13,000 lbs of goetta per day to serve a concentrated regional demand, operating out of the same building since 1969. About 95% of its goetta is sold within the Interstate 275 loop around Cincinnati, though the company also distributes to select nearby markets across neighboring states. Online retailer Cincinnati Favorites offers shipping, so “people outside of Cincinnati are able to get a taste of home,” Glier says.

To help meet that demand, Glier’s automated a cooking and mixing process the company once doubted could be mechanized. Two Mepaco ThermaBlend mixers with steam jackets and vacuums ultimately allowed it to shorten production time, improve consistency, and free workers from hard physical labor without changing the recipe behind its signature product.

A unique product and a demanding process

Unlike conventional sausage, goetta begins with cooked meat rather than relying on proteins extracted from raw meat to bind the product.

Before the Mepaco systems, the process began much as it still does today: measured portions of pork and beef trim were placed in nets and simmered in large kettles of water for 30 minutes, cooking the meat while creating the broth used in the formulation. From there, however, the old process became considerably more manual. The meat was removed and the broth was combined with steel-cut oats, which absorbed its flavor as they hydrated in long tanks for about three hours.

The cooked meat was then ground and added to individual pots containing the hydrated broth-and-oat mixture. To mix the product together, employees stirred each pot with a large paddle resembling an aluminum oar.Glier’s old process relied on long hydration tanks and hand-stirred pots like these, which have since been replaced in regular production.ProFood World

“Every batch of goetta that we made had a guy sitting with an oar, turning the goetta over and over and making sure that the oats didn’t sit on the bottom, that the meat was appropriately mixed with the oats,” Glier explains. “It was a very manual process. And honestly, we didn’t think we would ever be able to mechanize it.”

It was repetitive, physically demanding work in a room that could exceed 90°F and required experience to achieve the consistency Glier’s wanted.

“Our guys did a very good job of being consistent with the manual product, but new guys who weren’t accustomed wouldn’t make it as consistently, and that was where we would have customer complaints,” Glier says. Recognizing the importance of maintaining that consistency, “it was our veterans who were doing the most manual part of the process.”

A business associate suggested the Glier’s team needed a steam-jacketed mixer for the job, and even had a machine ready in surplus, but it was too large for Glier’s weekly production at the time.

Glier was also concerned that the new machine might require recipe changes and didn’t want to gamble a week’s worth of production to find out. The company passed on the machine, but the idea stuck.

A used machine proves the concept

The 700-lb Mepaco ThermaBlend is Glier’s primary mixer for day-to-day goetta production.ProFood WorldEventually, Glier’s found a Mepaco ThermaBlend steam-jacketed mixer/blender with a 700-lb capacity. It was a used model in rough shape, but Glier called the team at Mepaco for help with what amounted to a full rebuild.

Unsure whether the system would work for goetta, Glier’s installed it in a location where it could be removed relatively easily. Instead, “it turned out that the recipe did not need to be adjusted at all, so we hit the ground running with that machine,” Glier says.

The system proved successful enough that Glier’s purchased a secondThe larger 2,100-lb ThermaBlend gives Glier’s added capacity when production demand spikes.ProFood World ThermaBlend, this time a 2,100-lb capacity system that it reserves for peak production times, while the first system covers regular operation.

“As we’ve used the machines more, we’ve gotten more efficient with their use,” says Glier. “We’re working to figure out the most efficient way to produce the product, but these are fabulous machines.”

A faster, more consistent process

The most immediate change after installing the ThermaBlend systems was speed. By replacing the roughly three-hour hydration and manual mixing portion of the old process, the systems significantly shortened production time.

The ThermaBlend systems use mechanical mixing under vacuum to keep the meat and oats evenly distributed. Scrapers wipe the interior surface of the vessel as it operates, preventing product from remaining against the heated steel and burning.

Glier says about 30 minutes of training is enough for an employee to become familiar with the system, and most are comfortable operating it within an afternoon.

Recipe controls also make the process less dependent on operator experience. The system’s HMI provides access to programmed settings, with a select set of Glier’s most-used cooking recipes preloaded for operators.

“It’s not a technically demanding machine. It’s very user-friendly,” Glier says. “We’re not demanding [recipe control expertise] from the individual operator. That’s set up.”

The system also takes workers out of the hottest and most physically demanding part of the old operation, removing the need for Glier’s veteran employees to manually stir every batch.

“Because we have these steam-jacketed blenders, all of that adverse environment and all of that labor is taken out of the process,” Glier says.The internal mixers and scrapers help keep goetta evenly blended and prevent product from lingering against heated surfaces.ProFood World

Glier’s currently cleans the systems using a clean-out-of-place process. A safety grate can be lifted with the machine cover to provide greater access during sanitation, while remaining locked in place during production. Partial cleanup of the production area takes place throughout the day, followed by a more extensive end-of-day cleaning.

The original setup is still available as backup, but with two ThermaBlend systems in place, Glier’s no longer expects to need them.

“We can still operate the old way,” he says. “But then we have two of the machines now, so if one breaks, we’ll just use the other. Even at peak times, if this one went down during our peak operation, that would just be a little bit of overtime with the other machine.”

The efficiency gains have also lightened pressure for shift expansion. Before installing the systems, Glier’s was considering a split shift or adding a second shift to keep pace with production.

Installing the ThermaBlends “took that concern off the table entirely,” Glier says. “We’re so much faster in production.”

They also helped Glier’s continue operating in its historic Covington plant, where a U-shaped production flow reflects the constraints of a building constructed around 1895. The company had seriously considered building a new facility as the manual process demanded more labor and space.

“[The ThermaBlend systems] have allowed us to continue to use our existing facility and get more out of it,” Glier says. “When we thought it had to be manual, we were growing to the point that we needed more and more space to produce, and now we don’t.”

That ability to grow within the existing building is especially important as greenfield construction costs rise, Glier says.

Following goetta through the new process

Goetta production begins with meat trim arriving in combo bins, primarily from regional suppliers as it did before the process change. Glier’s buys in smaller quantities than many large processors, which sometimes allows the company to take excess lots that would be impractical for a much larger operation.

Kettles remain part of the modern process, cooking the meat before it is ground and moved into the ThermaBlend systems.ProFood WorldEmployees portion the raw materials into batches, precisely weighing equal amounts of pork and beef, and cook the meat in nets in the kettles from the original process. After cooking, the meat is removed from the cook-water, which at this point is a rich broth from the process.


The meat is ground in a Rome Grinding Solutions grinder. The ground meat is added to the ThermaBlend system along with the broth, helping to restore moisture, yield, flavor, and texture. Water, steel-cut oats, fresh onions, peppers, and spices are then added for the final vacuum mixing step.

“Using fresh onions is a big deal because they contain volatile oils that will escape in the air,” Glier says. “If you use dried or ground spices, you’re losing about half of the effect of what the fresh spice will bring you.”

Finished goetta is discharged into mobile bins and transported to packaging. The 700-lb capacity ThermaBlend is placed directly next to the packaging line, while the larger machine is in the next room over alongside the kettles. The bins are automatically lifted into a hopper to fill chub packs.

At the stuffer, hot goetta is filled into chubs and manually clipped before moving on to cooling.ProFood WorldAt the stuffer, the product is still hot. “We stuff at about 160 degrees,” Glier says, requiring employees to wear gloves as they handle it. Operators then manually clip the filled packages, a task that depends on rhythm and dexterity. Glier says experienced workers can reach about 38 packages per minute, while the plant’s fastest recorded pace is approximately 45.

The packaged goetta next passes through a water shower that begins cooling before the product enters a blast chiller. Glier says cooling takes about three hours, allowing some early production to be packed the same day, while other product remains in the chiller overnight. Product is cooled to below 40°F before final packing.

Once cooled, employees remove the packages from racks and pack them by hand into 12-lb cases. Glier’s uses VistaTrac to manage inventory and maintain case-level traceability through production codes. Odd lots that don’t complete a case are redirected to the company’s onsite retail operation.

What comes next for Glier’s

With mixing no longer limiting production, Glier’s is evaluating where it could improve the rest of the operation. The company is currentlyGlier’s uses VistaTrac to manage inventory and maintain traceability down to individual cases.ProFood World working with Mepaco to integrate cooking into the ThermaBlend systems and remove the kettles from the process. Packaging is another possibility, though the company has avoided systems that could create excessive product giveaway. Greater upstream throughput has only recently made more precise packaging automation worth considering.

Glier’s has also considered further improvements including clean-in-place capabilities as the company invests in larger machinery. It’s also considering expansion into other cooked-meat products to make greater use of the ThermaBlend systems' capabilities.

“Our number one goal right now, with the rising cost of everything, is to increase mechanization and increase our efficiencies so that we can maintain prices, so the customer doesn’t get priced out of our product,” Glier says. “Everywhere that there’s a bottleneck or something that’s expensive labor-wise, we’re looking to streamline and automate that. So that’ll inform our capital purchases.”

Preserving a Cincinnati tradition

For Glier, modernization is ultimately a way to carry the family business forward, along with the regional tradition built around it.

While the ThermaBlend systems changed how Glier’s makes goetta, they did not change the recipe behind the Cincinnati staple. The added efficiency is helping the family sustain it for the consumers who built the market around it.

“Cincinnati has just seized onto goetta, and they’ve made it what it is,” Glier says. “We didn’t do that. The people of Cincinnati did that. We’re grateful to them for building the business that we have, and we’re just trying to make sure that we pass that on.”