Bacon Stories
Christa's Bacon Story
How It Used to Be When I Was Little
Hard work, cold winters, and the daily enjoyment of bacon shaped a childhood rooted in Alpine farm heritage
By Christa Berger, 25 May 2025
Mornings on the Farm
The day started early on the farm in the last foothills of the Alps in eastern Austria. My parents got up, dressed, and went straight to the barn to milk, muck out, and feed the animals. In winter, when it snowed and the icy wind whistled down from the mountain, they wrapped themselves in warm clothes and enjoyed the warmth of the animals in the barn. We had about 25 dairy cows, several bulls, and a few calves, as well as pigs, chickens, and a horse.
Helping Out as Children
When we were old enough, we helped out when we didn't have school. Our tasks included grooming the cows, mucking out, sweeping the aisles, cleaning the feed troughs, and refilling them with fresh feed. Grandpa accompanied us. In the hayloft, straw and hay were stored, which we could throw through a hole in the floor into the aisle in front of the cattle using a pitchfork. Once, my sister fell through such a hole and broke her leg.
Evening Chores & the Taste of Bacon Bread
In the evening, it was our job to fill the milk from the tank into cans so it could be taken to the collection point in the morning. Afterwards, the milking room had to be thoroughly cleaned with a broom and water jet. By the age of 13, my little sister, my two-year-older cousin, and I could already milk and handle all barn work independently. After that, the bacon bread tasted especially good.
Early Rising & School Snacks
Usually, my parents were in the barn by six o'clock at the latest. We children also had to get up early because our farm was on a mountain, and we had a long way to school. Grandma helped us get ready for school: washing, dressing, combing, and braiding our hair. She also prepared our school snack, which, as you might guess, was often a bacon sandwich. She cut the bacon into fine rectangular strips, salted and peppered them. At school, I had to be careful while eating because these small bacon strips wanted to fall out of the bread. When my parents came back from the barn—after about an hour and a half of work—there was coffee, a buttered slice of bread, and often homemade jam, but by then, we were already on our way to school.
Daily Work & the Importance of Bacon
Then they went back out to continue working—in the fields, the forest, the orchard, the hayloft, or the barn. The work was hard and physically demanding. At half-past nine, they came back in for their second breakfast: homemade bacon, freshly baked sourdough bread, and cider. Especially during heavy labor, bacon was indispensable—not only tasty but also strengthening. As luck would have it, the mailman arrived at exactly the same time in the morning and enjoyed a good piece of bacon and a glass of cider with the family. Bacon was just a part of our daily life.
Meals in the Forest & Long Working Hours
When my father went into the forest with the men—which often meant they wouldn't return until evening because some of our forests were high up the mountain—they took their provisions with them. Bacon was always included. In the afternoon, my mother and we children would follow and bring them hot coffee and a pastry—like a nut cake—to the clearing. Generally, the men worked in the evenings until they were exhausted – in the summer, always until there was no more light outside. That could be until eleven o'clock at night. Later, my father also ran a custom threshing business, and since the combine harvesters had headlights, he could work even longer. I remember that he sometimes came to our beds completely dusty after midnight, very hungry and exhausted, to quietly say "Good night." But he was glad when all the machines worked, and he could successfully complete all the day's tasks. My mother always waited for my father until he finally came home, and then she prepared a small supper for him and the hungry drivers, like an omelet with bacon.
Learning Household Skills & Sunday Meals
Young girls usually attended a domestic science school during their compulsory schooling to prepare for marriage. But since my sister wanted to become a kindergarten teacher and I wanted to become a teacher, we attended a higher school. So, Grandma and my mother decided that we had to learn at home what we missed in household management at school. Every third Sunday, my sister and I were responsible for preparing the meal and setting the Sunday table while everyone else went to church, and in this way, we learned very early to cook and handle food. Of course, bacon wasn't just an everyday snack—it was also on the menu on Sundays and holidays, for example, as a side dish to roast beef in the form of bacon beans, which were very popular at our home. During the week, we often ate bacon dumplings or cabbage noodles with bacon.
Summer Duties & Father's Love for Work
In summer, while the parents were in the barn, we children had to handle the phone: taking calls from customers who had ripe crops and needed one of our combine harvesters. We had to write down names and phone numbers and note the expected day of harvest readiness. If bad weather was forecasted, the phone rang incessantly because everyone wanted to get the grain in before it got wet. When Dad came from the barn and had eaten his scrambled eggs with bacon, he called everyone back and planned his appointments. On days when he knew he wouldn't be home for lunch, there was a more substantial breakfast.
Father's Dedication & Bacon Tradition
My father loved work, and there was always something to be done. For him, work was an essential part of life and a source of satisfaction—not merely a duty. I am very grateful that he was able to instill this attitude in me and pass on his love for our bacon tradition, just as I pass it on to my children.
Eben's Bacon Story
The 23-Year Journey to Perfect Reformed Bacon
How an ancient art, a relentless pursuit, and a partnership forged across continents gave rise to a breakthrough in modern meat processing
By Eben van Tonder, 14 June 2025
Introduction
Some stories take a year to unfold, and then some stories take a lifetime. This is the story of reformed bacon, not just as a product category, but as a calling. It is the story of a dream pursued over two decades, through failure, loss, and rediscovery, until one day, under the heavy clouds of a Nigerian storm, it finally came together.
The Difference Between Formed and Reformed Bacon
In the world of processed meats, formed bacon refers to bacon shaped into regular logs using moulds or grids. It’s a standard industrial technique. Reformed bacon, however, is more ambitious. It’s about taking small pieces of meat, trim, offcuts, fragments, and fusing them into a single, cohesive log that behaves like whole-muscle bacon. Done well, it holds together in the pan, slices cleanly, and delivers a sublime balance of fat and lean.
What most don’t realise is that the science behind this is ancient. Long before binding proteins were studied in labs, the method of pressing and binding meat was used in European peasant kitchens and eventually codified in the monastic traditions of Austria and Germany. The basic process behind pressed ham is nearly identical to that of reformed bacon. It simply involves longer cooking. Originally, the tools were rudimentary: wooden forms, knives, mortars, and pestles. Today, we have grinders, emulsifiers, stainless-steel moulds, and industrial smoking chambers. But the essence remains unchanged.
A Personal Obsession Begins
My own obsession with reformed bacon began in the early 2000s. I was convinced that it was possible to create a perfect restructured meat product: one that wouldn’t break apart when removed from its packaging, that would hold its shape in the pan, and that would taste like something better than the sum of its parts.
Oscar and I had just launched Woody’s Consumer Brands. Through the support of Profet, I travelled to England for almost a year to collaborate with British producers and explore the technologies available. We had the drive. We had the vision. But the project was a failure. Not a single one of our objectives was met.
Woody’s shifted to producing ordinary bacon at scale. But I never abandoned the dream of reformed bacon. Or rather, it never abandoned me. Over the following years, I delved deeper and deeper into the science, examining protein mechanics, pH effects, amino acid interactions, and the roles of heat, cold, and mechanical action. It was an overwhelming body of knowledge. I had no idea how much I’d need to master before I could return to the work we began in 2011, when I first officially launched the reformed bacon project.
A Turning Point in Austria
The turning point came with Christa Berger. An Austrian trained in cultural anthropology, with a deep respect for both ancient traditions and modern food processing, Christa had grown up in the Alps. She developed a remarkable understanding of meat-curing heritage.
It was Christa who introduced me to the archives and practical knowledge held in Austria’s monastic institutions, repositories of meat science techniques passed down and preserved across centuries. We began working with the Almi spice company and their exceptional team of young scientists. The project began to take shape again. Concepts I had explored 10, 15, even 20 years ago began to resurface and combine in new ways. Christa and I would speak every evening, working through technical hypotheses, testing theories, connecting dots.
In Nigeria, where I had the freedom to work beyond the gaze of corporate meat processors, I started testing our emerging theories. A week ago, I told Christa that while I liked our direction, I fundamentally disagreed with a core mechanism in mainstream reformed bacon theory. She listened and calmly replied:
“Of course, the theory is wrong. A better approach would be a, b, and c.”
That night, the solution was born.
Breakthrough in Nigeria
The next morning, I implemented two variations of Christa’s insight. One of them worked brilliantly. For the first time, the product held. I wasn’t focused on colour or flavour development! This was about binding, weight loss, and slicability. It needed to perform like pressed ham: sliceable on a ham slicer, at ambient temperature, with minimal structural loss.
It required more attention to detail than any other product I’ve ever developed. Every single factor, from hydration technique to mechanical treatment, had to be re-examined and perfected. But finally, after 23 years, I had something I was proud of.
The Cost of the Journey
Last night, I became sentimental. I thought about my mother—her descent into dementia and Alzheimer’s during these years, and her final days, which I missed while travelling in Nigeria. I remembered the last gatherings with my brothers and our children. I looked at photos of the kids growing up.
Tristan and Lauren once joked that they’d inscribe on my gravestone:
“Our Dad Tried.” They grew up watching me return home week after week, having failed to produce the breakthrough I was chasing.
When I met Christa, our earliest conversations were about salt and ancient curing. I once told her that the structure and clarity she brings into my life might be the key to pulling together the strands of both my work and my identity. That prediction turned out to be true. A woman raised in a farming village in the Alps helped me unlock what I couldn’t in 23 years of effort.
And yes, as we laughed last night, this journey has been the equivalent of a university degree—because oh, the things I have learned.
A Slice and a Storm
This morning, with torrential West African storms pounding the coastline, I stood in the factory and had a warm, flavourful slice of reformed bacon for breakfast. I thought about the failures. I thought about the friendships. I thought about the science, the monks, the factories, the years. And I smiled.
Because it was worth it. Every single step.
Watch Eben's Bacon Story here!
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