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Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham

28 Aug Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham

Posted at 14:48h in News by

Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham…That’s right, a whopping Ten Million Dollars, over $555,000 per lb. was the selling price for the 2023 Kentucky State Fair Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham.  On August 17, Broadbent’s was named Grand Champion in a competition judged by Bob Woods a country ham producer from Nashville, Tennessee. 

How do you make a Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Country Ham?

“The Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham was cured exactly the same way I cure all hams here at Broadbent’s,” says Ronny Drennan, Broadbent’s Owner.  “We start with a raw ham, known by the industry as a green ham.  We hand rub each ham with a cure mixture.  Once the cure stage is complete, we hang the ham in a salt equalization room.  The next step is the aging room.  Last of all, I smoke the ham to achieve a golden pecan color.  The only extra step I add for the Kentucky State Fair is trimming the ham before the smoking stage.”

“I began narrowing down the hams for the fair throughout the summer as I notice hams with a nice shape.  I hang those on a special rack, so they won’t get cut or shipped.  Then a few weeks before the fair, I take them out of the stockinette.  Some are eliminated at this point.  The remaining hams get trimmed and smoked.  These compete in a beauty contest here at the plant. The top 3 to 5 for each class are probed and smelled to see if they have a pleasantly sweet aroma.  Five hams will go to the fair in classes based on age and weight.  So, we keep eliminating until we narrow it down to 1 ham per class.”

Who paid Ten Million Dollars for a Broadbent Country Ham?

This Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham was auctioned for charity on August 24th.  Joe and Kelly Craft and Central Bank President and CEO Luther Deaton made joint $5 million bids for the 18-pound grand champion ham.  The auction is sponsored by Kentucky Farm Bureau.  Proceeds for the auction will go toward building more than 50 homes for flood victims in Knott County, Kentucky as well as several Boys & Girls Clubs across Kentucky. 

Most of us can’t afford to buy a Ten Million Dollar Broadbent Grand Champion Country Ham, but the good news is you can get that same delicious Broadbent Country Ham for a price that will fit your budget.  Just visit our website at www.broadbenthams.com to pick out the country ham perfect for you.

As owners of Broadbent’s, we were honored and blessed to be named Grand Champions again.  This is our companies 22ed time to be named Grand Champion.  We bought the company from Smith Broadbent, III in 1999.  We have been blessed to win Grand Champion 15 times as owners.   

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Broadbent B&B Foods
manager@broadbenthams.com

Broadbent B & B Foods, have been producing Old Fashioned Country Hams since 1909. A Truly American Food that has been on this continent since colonial days, it was a staple that sustained many of our first settlers as they moved west. The climate had to be just right to cure hams in the days before electricity, and Kentucky's climate fit the bill! Therefore, the Broadbent family brought those traditions with them and used them to dry cure and preserve their pork. Today, we are still dry curing Country Ham, Bacon, and Sausage like our forefathers did. In modern cuisine, country ham is far from a Staple. It is found on the menus of ritzy restaurants across The United States. While it is still, in fact, Country Ham, it is often cut paper thin, and labelled as Prosciutto; which is used as the center piece for many Charcuterie Boards.