Another Baton Rouge institution is going out of business.
Ready Portion Meat Company, which has supplied many of Baton Rouge’s most beloved restaurants and caterers with specialty meats for decades is closing its doors after 56 years in business.
The company will permanently shutter its retail storefront at 1546 Choctaw Drive at the close of business today. It will continue servicing its restaurant customers for another week or two before permanently discontinuing operations, according to manager Steve Burns.
The company was founded in 1960 by brothers Kyle and Ellis Beck. Kyle Beck ran the company until 2013, when he sold it to Mobius Industries, a Kirkland, Washington-based company with professional services, military training and support services divisions.
A Mobius executive says the decision to close Ready Portion Meat Company is a result of slowing sales, which are down 15% to 20% over the past year, despite efforts to increase business.
“We put a tremendous amount of effort into increasing sales in the last year or two and haven’t been able to get that magic to happen,” says Brian Clayton, director of finance and accounting at Mobius.
Clayton says Mobius bought Ready Portion Meat Company, though it doesn’t own any other food or food-related businesses, because it was an interest of Mobius’ then-owner and seemed like a good investment.
“But we were just not able to grow it,” he says.
Since the acquisition, however, Mobius itself has been acquired by a Native American-owned corporation based in Alaska called Katmai Government Services. Katmai is a diverse holding company that, under a federal law, was created to generate profits to benefit the Ouzinkie Native Corporation in Ouzinkie, Alaska. Clayton declines to discuss the Katmai acquisition and the extent to which Katmai executives may have factored into the decision to close Ready Portion Meat Company.
Closer to home, however, long-time customers of the supplier are saddened and somewhat surprised. Though the market for restaurant wholesalers is both more competitive and diverse than in the past, loyal customers of the Choctaw Drive business say they didn’t see this coming.
“Every meat I get comes from them,” says DiGiulio’s Bros. Manager Clint Stockwell, who places at least three, 20-pound orders from the company every week. “All our veal, beef everything, has always come from them. We’re going to miss them. I hate change.”
—Stephanie Riegel
