Vermont Smoke & Cure has moved into licensed co-branding territory, announcing the launch of two new meat sticks developed in partnership with Kraft Heinz Licensing and its A.1. Steak Sauce and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce banners. The products — now rolling into Kroger stores nationwide — mark the first time either condiment brand has been applied to a meat snack SKU, extending both flavor identities beyond the grocery condiment aisle into the high-velocity portable-protein set.
The Hinesburg, Vt.-based producer, which has operated as a craft smokehouse since 1962, is not disclosing shelf placement terms or velocity projections. What the deal does signal is a broader licensing play by Kraft Heinz to monetize legacy condiment equity in adjacent refrigerated and shelf-stable snack categories — a strategy that requires minimal capital outlay from either party while expanding brand touchpoints at retail. For Vermont Smoke & Cure, the partnership adds marquee name recognition to a portfolio that competes against significantly larger players, including Jack Link's and Conagra's Slim Jim, in a meat snack segment that has posted consistent mid-single-digit annual growth.
The steakhouse flavor profile — A.1.'s tangy tomato-and-vinegar base and Lea & Perrins' umami-forward Worcestershire — translates logically into the meat snack daypart, where bold, savory flavor is the dominant purchase driver across convenience, grocery, and club channels. Kroger's national footprint gives the launch immediate scale across roughly 2,700 banner stores, a meaningful on-ramp for a regional producer looking to compete for incremental snack shelf space. Convenience channel expansion, where meat sticks index heavily among grab-and-go consumers, would represent a logical next step.
The broader snack meat category has benefited from sustained operator and retail interest in high-protein, low-prep formats — a trend that intersects with foodservice operators' growing use of branded snack components in grab-and-go cases, hotel markets, and non-commercial feeding programs. For procurement teams sourcing ambient or semi-perishable protein options, co-branded SKUs backed by recognizable condiment equities can reduce consumer education costs at the point of sale. Vermont Smoke & Cure has not disclosed foodservice-specific distribution targets for the new items, but the Kroger launch establishes a retail proof-of-concept that channel sales teams are likely to leverage.
Kraft Heinz's licensing arm has been increasingly active in extending A.1. and Lea & Perrins into new formats, consistent with the broader condiment and sauce segment trend of sweating brand equity across categories. For smaller craft producers like Vermont Smoke & Cure, area distribution agreements and co-manufacturing partnerships with recognized snack and protein brands have proven an efficient path to national shelf presence without the capital requirements of an organic build.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
