For Matt Ventrella, the rewarding aspect of his role as Leidy’s Director of Technical Services and Hog Procurement comes from the people he works with — from the pig farmers to the employees who process predominantly Pennsylvania-born-and-raised hogs into the company’s well-known, savory, smoky-sweet bacon. 

“We are a small, but mighty team!” says Ventrella. “We all work very hard to make the safest, highest quality pork you can buy…everyone wears multiple hats, so we are usually good at making decisions efficiently, because we are a small group of highly engaged leaders.”

As a medium-sized manufacturer with about 250 employees and roots dating back to 1893, Leidy’s has been a longtime key player in Pennsylvania’s swine industry, particularly in the Southeast-Philadelphia region. While the company was once a small family farm, over the decades it grew to meet the demand for artisanal, premium pork by buying hogs from local farmers and building a modern processing facility that processes over 10 million pounds of bacon annually. 

Ventrella, who has been at Leidy’s for seven years, holds a multifaceted position that allows him to wear multiple hats as he works across several departments, including quality assurance, food safety, regulatory compliance, and product development. 

“My role is pretty unique, making it so that no two days are ever the same,” says Ventrella. “Working with several different departments directly often means there’s a lot of different things that can come up in the course of a day that I need to jump into.” 

However, Ventrella really enjoys working with Pennsylvania family farmers, who feed and raise Heritage Breed Duroc hogs that go on to become the brand’s famous bacon, ham, and specialty craft pork products. 

“Farmers in Pennsylvania know how to raise happy and healthy market hogs.” – Matt Ventrella, Director of Technical Services and Hog Procurement at Leidy’s.

He spends a lot of time during the day collaborating with farmers, assisting them with their contracts, negotiating supply agreements, and ensuring compliance through third-party certification, including American Humane. 

Leidy’s has been an innovator in animal welfare, says Ventrella. Close to twenty years ago, it was one of the first companies to adopt American Humane Certified™ standards. 

Before California’s Prop 12, a law which prohibits the strict confinement of livestock, including breeding pigs, egg-laying hens, and veal calves, was enacted, Leidy’s had begun to embrace open pen gestation housing, which is also a key component of the certification standards. 

The company worked with Dr. Parsons at The University of Pennsylvania’s New Bolton Center to help farms transition from gestation crates to open-pen housing, says Ventrella. This shift from restrictive breeding crates to group housing enables sows to move freely and engage in natural behaviors between breeding and farrowing, thereby enhancing animal welfare. Ultimately, this change improves the quality of the meat from the offspring they produce, he adds.

Using a collaborative approach, Ventrella says he helps new-to-contract-farming farmers raise pigs for Leidy’s, and he helps adapt their current barn facilities creatively and cost-effectively to continue improving the swine animal care process.

“Farmers in Pennsylvania know how to raise happy and healthy market hogs. They know how to go about things in a very unconventional way that allows them to accomplish things that maybe other farmers can’t do out in the Midwest or in North Carolina,” adds Ventrella.

A lot of the time, he works with the farmers to show them how they can get credit for the good work they are already doing, focusing on proper handling techniques, enrichment tools, and other best practices.

“The American Humane certification adds value back to the farm, which is rewarding. Yet it is what we have to do here in Pennsylvania to stay competitive within the market,” he says. “On the processing side, by complying, we are creating a value proposition for our product.” 

Additionally, nutrition plays a significant role in how farmers raise pigs.  

Since joining the Wenger Group in 2022, Leidy’s has been able to support its farmers by using Wenger’s swine nutritionists, who evaluate and develop novel all-grain rations to meet the ideal nutritional requirements for hogs throughout all stages of life, but also enrich meat quality, improving characteristics like tenderness, moisture, and color.

“We are consistently asking ourselves, how do we make each hog that we bring in here as valuable as possible for everyone? So, we really focus on ingredients that enhance the quality of the pig’s meat. The quality, that is what is going to keep the consumer coming back to buy more pork,” he adds. 

A Mutual Benefit: Leidy’s Sees Value in Its Membership at PennAg 

For Ventrella, who supports the company’s longstanding membership with PennAg Industries Association, the price they pay is worth every penny. 

From legislative monitoring and protection of the industry to networking that builds collaborative relationships across the industry and beyond, Ventrella and his team at Leidy’s have had a lasting impact. 

“We rely on PennAg to keep tabs on what is happening in Harrisburg on any legislative action that could impact our business, then report back to us on their efforts and communicate with us on how we work together to create a better outcome,” says Ventrella.

Ventrella adds that the company’s membership with PennAg has opened opportunities for him and his team, including getting industry information from its newsletters, and networking have been vital to Leidy’s relationship with PennAg and its Assistant Vice President Jennifer Reed-Harry. 

“We aim to treat people and animals right. It is about working well together, but also respecting each other, and that includes work-life balance.” – Matt Ventrella, Director of Technical Services and Hog Procurement at Leidy’s.

“Any opportunity that I or my team has to collaborate with Jen. We really enjoy. She’s always throwing out ideas on how we, as an industry, can do better, such as communication and disease response. That kind of relationship is very valuable. She understands our business. She understands our products,” he says. 

Additionally, by being PennAg members, Ventrella and his team are aligning and strengthening not just Pennsylvania’s pork industry but also themselves as professionals.  

“I’m proud of what my team and I do here day in and day out. I have team members who have been with Leidy’s for over 50 years, that’s something you don’t see much of anymore, but that speaks to our environment,” says Ventrella. “We aim to treat people and animals right. It is about working well together, but also respecting each other, and that includes work-life balance.”