The Howie Carr Radio Network
Meet the Experts: Todd Simon of Omaha Steaks
Just in time for Father's Day, this week's expert is one in those choice cuts of meat every man loves to sear on the grill. Todd Simon's family has been in the steak business for five generations. As owner of Omaha Steaks, Todd has an unparalleled passion for the quality of his company's products and the satisfaction of his customers. Join Howie and Todd as they discuss the origins of Omaha Steaks, and get some grilling tips ahead of barbecue season, too.
Get the Father's Day deal by going to Omahasteaks.com and using promo code HOWIE.
- Duration:
- 26m
- Broadcast on:
- 29 May 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to another episode of Meet the Experts with Howie Car, a new podcast featuring long-form interviews with guests who have a specialized field of expertise. Father's Day is fast approaching, and there's not many things dads love more than clicking their tongs and placing some choice cuts of meat on a hot grill. Today's guest is an expert in those choice cuts of meat. Todd Simon's family has been in the steak business for five generations. And as owner of Omaha Steaks, Todd has an unparalleled passion for the quality of his company's products and the satisfaction of his customers. Join Todd as he discusses the origins of Omaha Steaks, how their products are sourced and selected, and even some great grilling tips for fathers looking to fire up the grill on their big day. Here's your host of Meet the Experts, Howie Car. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to today's edition of Meet the Experts. And we have an expert today who's an expert on something that we all, or most of us, know and are very interested in. And that is Meat. And our guest is Todd Simon. He is one of the fifth generation owners of Omaha Steaks. He's the company's chief steak evangelist, as he's described. He's been around in Omaha Steaks for more than 39 years since he graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. This is a great opportunity to talk about steaks and Omaha Steaks as well. We have a special deal we want to promote on this edition of Meet the Experts. And it's a Father's Day gift special that deluxe gift package 20 unforgettable entrees, plus four free burgers for just $89.99 when you visit OmahaStakes.com and use the promo code Howie at checkout. As you know, with Omaha Steaks, there's no shopping, no wrapping, and the steaks are delivered right to your dad's door in a cooler packed and dry ice to ensure freshness. All Omaha Steak products, as always, are guaranteed unconditionally if dad is not completely satisfied or uncle or brother or anybody else or granddad. Omaha Steaks will refund your purchase price or replace the product. No questions asked. Giving dad a package for Omaha Steaks for Father's Day is about so much more than just a gift. It gives dad an occasion, a reason to celebrate, to spend time with the family, actually enjoying a quality meal. So welcome to Meet the Experts, Todd Simon. And it's so great. You have a fantastic product. I've been buying Omaha Steaks for years, as so many of our listeners have been. Tell us a little something about Omaha Steaks. Well, first of all, it's great to be here, especially with not just Father's Day. But really, we're just on the edge of grilling season. We have so many great occasions coming up in the summer. People have been getting their grills out. They've been getting them ready to go. I know I have. I just replaced the igniter in my grill the other day. People are going to be grilling full on between now and Labor Day and even through tailgating when football season starts. So it's really a great time to be talking about steaks and all the great things that we have at Omaha Steaks. So thanks for having me on the show. So Omaha Steaks was founded by my great, great grandfather in 1917. I'm the fifth generation in the family business. I like to joke that we're at overnight success that took over 100 years. My ancestors came from Latvia. They got on the train after passing through Ellis Island. They came to Nebraska where it looked like home because they were ranchers and butchers back home in Latvia. They got off the train there. They set up shop and they started as a small wholesale butcher selling to hotels and grocery stores and restaurants. Eventually started selling to the railroads, which is what brought our product national in the '40s and '50s. And then we started to sell direct to consumer in the mid to late '50s and innovated a lot throughout that period of time. We're probably one of the original food tech companies, one of the first food companies that have a website to sell online to be able to ship everywhere in the country. Today we operate across America, not only in our online business. We still take orders over the phone. We sell to businesses for gifts. Of course, we're very popular at Father's Day and Holidays. And we also have retail stores, about 40 of them around the country in major markets. If you go to OmahaStakes.com, you can learn all about that and also find a store near you. At our radio company, the birthday gift is a package for Omaha Stakes. And we've never had any complaints about that. And we sometimes give them to our best clients or at Christmas. And again, never a complaint when you give a gift of Omaha Stakes in my experience. You know, when you give Omaha Stakes, you're not just giving meat in a box. You're giving whoever receives that the opportunity to create memories with family and friends, with the age-old tradition of breaking bread together, having a great meal together. And those are the kinds of things that stick with people. I keep reading these headlines. I saw one in the Wall Street Journal just the other day. The National Cattle heard us the smallest. It's been since 1951 that there could be beef shortages. What is going on? And is there any danger that someday we might try to order something or go to the supermarket and not find beef because there's just not enough product? You know, I don't think there's a danger of that happening. The beef business is a cyclical business. And the economics change from time to time based on all sorts of factors, like the price of corn and where there's drought and where there's not drought. And ranchers will come in and out of the business or make their herds larger or smaller based on the current economics. I think it's important to remember that, you know, at any given week, there are hundreds of thousands of head of cattle on feed in this country. And whether that number is 550,000 or 600,000, it's still a big number. There's plenty of beef out there. Now, certain cuts you might find are going to be a little bit more expensive. One of the great things that we do at Omaha Steaks, we have an expert buying team that's constantly in touch with our suppliers. And we understand what our marketing is going to be. So we understand what our demand is going to look like. And we're able to buy in advance to fulfill our demand. So while it may be true that you might not be able to find your favorite cut at a butcher shop or a supermarket, you'll always be able to find it at Omaha Steaks. - Todd, you know, you make a point about Omaha Steak that it's aged for 28 days and that it's flash frozen. All these years I've been around. I still don't know what it means to age beef for 28 days. How does that improve the product? - Now, that's a great question. First of all, at Omaha Steaks, every one of our steaks is crafted by master butchers for consistent quality every single time. We started out with the very best Midwestern beef. And as you said, we age it for 21 days for maximum tenderness. Now, aging is an old world process that's really all but forgotten today. And what we do is we hold the beef at a constant temperature. Beef actually freezes at a bit lower temperature than water because there's natural sodium content in beef. So we hold the beef at a constant temperature just above freezing. And what that does is it allows the natural enzymes of the beef to start the process of breaking down some of the tissue in the beef, which what that does is it makes the beef more tender without the need to use a machine or anything like that. And it also imparts a deep, rich flavor that one used to be a customer to finding at the best steak houses, but is really pretty much hard to find today. So those two factors of finding the best beef and then naturally aging it for 21 days. And then the next thing we do is we vacuum seal it and flash freeze it. That flash freezing takes that aged steak and basically puts it in a state of suspended animation. So when our customer or your dad or whoever thaws out that steak, they're gonna get a steak that was just as fresh as when we froze it coming directly out of that naturally aging process. - Omaha steaks are extremely tender. I made some filet mignons two or three weeks ago. And I just noticed how amazing they were. I guess that is the natural aging has a lot to do with that. One thing I wanted to ask you about is the actual grilling process. You were talking about the 60/40 grilling method. I want you to give a little bit of advice to people as we do go into the spring and summer grilling season. Tell us about the 60/40 grilling method. - Well, you know, the first thing we always tell people is you gotta make sure your grill is in good shape and people use different kinds of grills. I use a gas grill for kind of everyday cooking and I use a charcoal grill when I'm making a little bit more of a project out of it. I have a grill that's modeled after the kind of grill they use in Argentina. So if you wanna Google that, there's very interesting grills down there in Argentina and South America. And that's my wood grill. But you start out when you're using a gas grill, you wanna pre-clean your grill, your grate and you wanna put your grill on high or medium high. And then, you know, you prepare the steaks by patting them dry and seasoning them before you cook them. You know, I use sea salt and freshly cracked pepper for that minimalist seasoning, but we also, Omaha Steaks, we also sell a variety of seasonings, including our private reserve rub and our signature seasoning, which are absolutely fabulous. In fact, I think we include-- - Yeah, you do, and in some of the special packages, you include the seasoning. - Exactly, and that, I mean, it just makes every steak taste great, it's great on pork chops, a deep grate on chicken and fish. So it's super versatile. And then we recommend that you sear your steak, you sear the outside of the steak, you always turn using a tongs or spatula, you don't wanna use a fork because that will pierce the meat and you'll literally see the juices just running out. - So you put the first side down and you do that for a while and then you flip it over, but you don't put it on the other side for as long. It's 60% to 40% explain how that works. - So the first thing you need to do is you need to understand how long you're gonna cook your steak for. And Omaha Steaks helps you out because we have a grilling chart that we include in every package, you can find it online or you can find it at the Omaha Steaks app on your Android or iPhone. And so let's say you've got an inch and a half thick filet mignon, well, it'll say in the app how long you should cook that for medium rare, if that's what you're going for. Let's just say that it's gonna take 10 minutes so we can do the math easily to cook that steak to medium rare. - Right. - What you're gonna wanna do is you're gonna put it on for six minutes on the first side, that's your 60%, and then flip it over to the other side and you only need to flip it once. You don't need to press on it, you don't need to squeeze it, you don't need to just one flip and then put it on for four minutes for the second side. When you take it off the grill, you'll let it rest for about five minutes and that should be a perfect medium rare if that's the right time setting. So please confirm those on the Omaha Steaks cooking chart. - Why should you let it rest, quote unquote, for five minutes? - What we typically do is we let it rest under tension foil for about five minutes before serving. And what that does is it helps redistribute the juices for the best tasting steak experience and it also allows the steak to cool to the proper temperature to be eating it. Remember that you've just pulled the steak off a grill that might be 400 or 450 degrees. It is not ready to put in your mouth at that exact moment. You do wanna let it cool down a little bit. There's nothing wrong with eating a steak that's 150 degrees when you put it in your mouth, it'll be delicious. - All right, we're talking to Todd Simon from Omaha Steaks. He's one of the fifth generation owners of the premier steak provisions company in the United States. And right now they have a special Father's Day gift special from Omaha Steaks. It's a gift package deluxe. 20 unforgettable entrees plus four free burgers for just $89.99 when you visit Omaha Steaks.com and use promo code Howie at checkout. There's no shopping, no wrapping. And the steaks are delivered right to dad's door and a cooler packed in dry ice to ensure freshness. I think you'll like it more than a Thai or a coffee mug. All Omaha Steaks products are unconditionally guaranteed if dad is not completely satisfied. Omaha Steaks will refund your purchase price or replace the product, no questions asked. Giving dad a package for Omaha Steaks for Father's Day is about so much more than just a gift. Omaha Steaks gives dad an occasion, a reason to celebrate, to spend time with the family enjoying a quality meal. You know, Todd Simon from Omaha Steaks. One thing I really like about Omaha Steaks is when I go to Steak House, sometimes I like to order a type of steak that I can't get just on a weekly visit to the supermarket. And I don't want to stand in line at a butcher shop and sometimes even a butcher shop, they don't have it. And the great thing about Omaha Steaks is you have some of these steaks. I wrote down flat iron, hanger, skirt, flank, tritep. These are great kinds of steaks that most people forget about except when they're in a steakhouse. Tell us about these other types of steaks that you guys offer. You know, our most popular cut is the filet mignon. And then of course, we provide the New York strips and all of that stuff. And those are kind of our signature cuts, topster lines. But you're right in that we have a whole variety of other kinds of steaks to suit specific recipes or specific tastes. Each one having its own characteristics. You know, the hanger steak is a classic French steak, sometimes called, you know, a bistre steak. And that steak is super tender. It's got a very interesting flavor. You can season it or sauce it. It comes out fabulous. You know, I recently just started cooking skirt steak and I did a great recipe with skirt steak where I marinated it in red wine and salt for a couple of hours. And then I put it on my smoker and smoked it until it was medium rare. It's absolutely fantastic. So what, you know, we encourage people who are adventurous about steak to go online to go to omastakes.com and to try out some of these unusual cuts that you mentioned because you might find a new favorite in there and something that will certainly compliment the filet mignon. I will say that at my house, while I love to experiment with other steaks, my kids are like, yeah, just give me the filet. - Most of the time when I'm going to the website, I owe it to the filet mignon. But I'm just saying that this is a great option to have. And you can get the prepared foods as well. Like the, I noticed the chicken fried steak, which you don't see it here in the Northeast where we are, but it's, you know, it's a staple in Texas, obviously. I mean, you guys have really expanded your offerings lately, haven't you? - Yeah, I mean, we've got a full line of center of the plate protein. So of course we've got beef and steaks. We have an amazing traction right now in the burger space. We have so many different varieties of burgers. They're all large size, starting at six ounces. We've got our pure ground burgers where we literally grind a particular cut to make them. So we have like a ribeye burger, a New York strip burger, even a filet mignon burger. And then we sell pork chops, chicken, a huge variety of seafood. And then what you mentioned, a lot of prepared meals. We also have great desserts. Some of them included probably in that Father's Day gift package and the items like you were mentioning, like the chicken fried steak or the chicken cord on blue or different items like that, are just, have been staples in the Omaha Steaks universe for a long time. One thing I will also call your attention to is pork chops. I've really come to appreciate pork chops. - Yes, I have too. I've especially come to appreciate the Omaha Steaks pork chops because they're, they're very lean. They're perfect. They're really yummy. And we do a lot with a center cut loin chop. We also sell pork tenderloin. - Very underrated, Todd. Would you agree? - Yeah, I would. And it, to me, it's one of the most perfect cuts for marinating. You can make very creative marinades. The pork takes a marinade very well. And then when you put it on the grill, you end up adding that grilling flavor along with the delicious marinade. Like I'll use like an Asian style marinade on my pork tenderloin and it just comes out fabulous. - We're speaking to Todd Simon. He's the chief steak evangelist. This he's described for his family's company, Omaha Steaks. You mentioned earlier, the burger cuts from the different meats. I think that is such a fantastic idea. Why don't you tell us about burger perfection flight? - So what we've done is we put together a flight of burgers where you get an assortment of each of our pure ground burgers. So we have like a pure ground porterhouse burger. We've got a pure ground filet mignon burger, a pure ground ribeye burger. - Don't forget brisket. Right, the brisket burger. - I think we have one we call the Delmonico burger. And all of those burgers, if you go to the website, you can find a flight where you can get an assortment of four or eight of each of the different burgers. And the great thing about that is you'll get a chance to try all the different varieties. It's fun. And then if you decide that, hey, these two are my favorites, you can go back and order those individually. So if you go to omothdakes.com, you can check out the burger perfection flight. - You also have the amazing hot dogs, or Frankfurt is whatever you want to call them. One of my producers here, he's a big hot dog guy and he says they're the best hot dogs he's ever had. - Since I've been working on hot dogs for 39 years, we've had that gourmet frank, which is an award-winning frank. It's so much larger than what you normally think of a hot dog. It really just like bursts out of the bun. My daughter is a huge fan and she's got me interested in eating them in a variety of different ways. Sometimes I'll boil the hot dogs. That's a simple way. A lot of times I love a grilled hot dog and I'll grill it on my grill. I'll put it on a brioche bun. I'll top it with chopped onions and a little bit of sriracha sauce and a little bit of spicy mustard. And I get just like the perfect gourmet frank experience. We also sell a variety of brats and other kinds of sausages. And if you're looking for that kind of thing to compliment a burger cookout or a steak cookout, I highly recommend it. And you know, a lot of times kids just love franks. And so putting those two together and making sure you've got something for everybody in the family is a great choice. You have salmon, the salmon is really good as well. Tell us about your other products. - So I mean, depending on what your dietary style is, you know, we'd like to be able to help everyone out and we've made a big push over the years into seafood. In particular, our seafood, I mean, I could go on and on about the problems of the fresh seafood supply chain and why I would never buy seafood in a grocery store, but I won't nauseate you with those details. - No, we've read about them. I mean, you don't even know what you're buying in many cases. - Exactly. And a lot of it's already been frozen and then thought out, which is kind of the worst outcome. Our seafood is all wild caught and then processed right on the spot and flash frozen and vacuum sealed. So it's as fresh as it possibly can be when it gets to you. Some of it is farm raised and sustainable farms where the quality could be controlled. And again, it's immediately cut and then vacuum sealed. So it comes to you as fresh as it possibly can. My mother is a huge salmon fan and she loves our Ferro Island salmon. It's got a beautiful pink color. It's perfectly portioned and it's super easy to prepare. And it's a nice thick salmon steak, which gives you control whether you're grilling it or whether you're baking it or whether you're poaching it. It gives you control over getting the right doneness because a thin piece of salmon often cooks extremely quickly and will get overdone very easily. So it gives you a little bit more leeway and a little bit more control when you have that nice thick cut. I'm telling you, if you haven't gotten an order of Omaha Steaks, you don't know how happy you'll be when you see it in your driveway or at your front door. Nobody's ever saying, oh, a package from Omaha Steaks. I don't want to have to bring this inside. You're always happy because there's always something good in there. I love the caramelized apple tarts. I know that's not one of your big products, but they are so good. And you just take them out, you flip them into the microwave. Two minutes later, you have a piping hot treat for dessert. You guys do such a good job with that kind of product and so many of these products. - Yeah, I mean, that's really, you know, our specialty is to scour the country and the world to find amazing products to bring to our customer family. And what we want to do is we want to give you the ability to have that great center of the plate, you know, steak or burger or pork chop that you're going to grill and then give you all the things that you need to complement that. So, you know, we've got side dishes. We've got appetizers, we've got desserts. You know, one of my favorite side dishes is our scallop potatoes. Again, super easy to prepare. You just pop them out of their packaging, put them in the oven, heat them up, and while you're grilling your steaks, they're getting ready in the oven. As you mentioned, the caramel apple tartlet, you heat it up after you're done eating in the microwave or the regular oven. I like to serve it with a scoop of ice cream, vanilla ice cream or cinnamon ice cream. It's actually good with any kind of a fruity ice cream, like a strawberry ice cream, complements it very well. So all of those are designed to make your meal planning so much easier because you can take yourself from start to finish with Omaha steak. The scallop potatoes, and I think you have potatoes a grotten too. I mean, these are kinds of potatoes you can't normally get unless you go out to a better restaurant. - I mean, I would encourage anyone when they go to OmahaStakes.com to check out our steakhouse side dishes. They're really terrific. You make a good point about preparation because we sell a delicious stuffed baked potato. It's like a twice baked potato. If you've ever tried to make twice baked potatoes at home, it's like an all day project. I mean, you know, the ingredients are very simple, right? It's potatoes, it's butter, it's sour cream, it's bacon, it's chives, it's cheese. We source top quality ingredients and then we produce a delicious twice baked potato and you can have that ready in 15 minutes at home. You know, instead of taking that all day project to bake potatoes, whip potatoes, stuffed potatoes, baked potato shells. I mean, you know, I don't even want to think about what it takes to make a stuffed baked potato. It's too complicated. - Not to mention, if you go out to a restaurant, it's going to cost you an arm and a leg. When you compare going out to a top quality steakhouse as opposed to ordering from Omaha Steaks, it's a fraction of the cost. - Do you make a really good point there? I mean, there's no question that going out for a steak dinner these days is a $75 to $150 or a person, you know, experience. Whereas when you buy Omaha Steaks, like even the $89 Father's Day package, you're going to get 16 portions of protein, some of them steak, some of them burgers. And for sure, it's going to be about the same price as just one meal, you know, at a steakhouse. Again, if you're not familiar with Omaha Steaks, everything is lean. That doesn't mean that there's no flavor. It just means that there's not a lot of fat. That's one thing, again, I love about the pork chops. And also the filet mignons, there's very little waste in anything for Omaha Steaks. - That's what the hand trimming does for you because what happens is, you know, we want to start out with top quality USB with great internal marbling. And that marbling will be different, whether it's a filet mignon or a ribeye steak. If you put those two together, you'll see there's a lot more marbling in the ribeye steak than there's the filet mignon. That's just the nature of the cut. But what we do is we trim that so perfectly that you're going to be able to basically eat everything on your plate. There's not going to be a lot of trimming around the edges to avoid trying to get those big pieces of fat on the side. - Yeah, tough break for the dogs. Good break for you. - Unless you buy a bone in steak up, which we have a huge variety of bone in steaks, including a colossal bone in Omaha ribeye. So then you will have the perfect bone for your dog after your meals. - So one last thing, you can get subscription plans now to Omaha Steaks. Explain those before we wrap this up. - Sure, so if you go to Omaha Steaks.com, go to our homepage, scroll down a little bit, and you'll see the subscription plan, a description there, and how to get involved. But basically, you can subscribe to the best Omaha Steaks. This is a great convenience for people who want to eat Omaha Steaks regularly. They don't want to ever open their freezer and go, I forgot to order Omaha Steaks. And so we will ship you Omaha Steaks at a cadence of your choice. And when you build a custom plan online, you'll save 10%, and then you can customize your subscription plan and your frequency to get exactly what you want when you want it, and you can also choose from pre-curated plans. And every third shipment, you get a bonus gift, you get the flexibility to change your skip or cancel any shipment, and of course, just like everything else Omaha Steaks sells, it's backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee. And that guarantee, by the way, applies to the steaks and the food, but it also applies to the delivery experience, the customer experience. If we ever do anything that you don't like, you just let us know and we'll make it right. That's our bid, our promise, to our customers for 100 years. - You know, even if you just want to order today, the Father's Day gift special, you really should go to the Omaha Steaks website and just check it out, 'cause it's just amazing the variety of products. And you're going to see things there that you probably have forgotten that you once ordered and really enjoyed. You could maybe get some great eating ideas just from going to OmahaStakes.com. And I just want to remind people one more time that Father's Day is coming up and Omaha Steaks has got a great Father's Day gift package, 20 unforgettable entrees, four free burgers, all for just $89.99. That's a really great deal when you visit OmahaStakes.com and use promo code HOWY and check out my first name, Howie. No shopping, no wrapping. The steaks are delivered right to dad's door or uncle's door or brother's door. Grandpa, anybody's door, your door, in a cooler packed and dry ice to ensure freshness. All Omaha Steaks products are unconditionally guaranteed if dad is not completely satisfied. Omaha Steaks will refund your purchase price or replace the product. No questions asked. And they've been doing this since 1917, so they obviously know what they're doing. Giving dad a package for Omaha Steaks for Father's Day is about so much more than just a gift. Omaha Steaks gives dad an occasion, a reason to celebrate, to spend time with his family, enjoying a quality meal. Todd Simon, thanks for being with us and thanks for filling us in on this. It's a great company and I hope you get a nice package from your kids this Father's Day from your own company. Well, thanks for having me and I think you really hit on it, which is that this year for Father's Day, dad wants an experience. He doesn't need more stuff. He's got everything he needs. What he needs is that experience of spending time with family and friends. And there's no better way to do that than with Omaha Steaks. So thank you for having me. Thank you, Todd Simon. Now I think I'm going to have a brisket burger from the burger perfection flight. Thanks for joining us on Meet the Experts with Howie Car. We'll be back soon with another interesting guest you're sure to learn a great deal from. [MUSIC PLAYING] (dramatic music) [BLANK_AUDIO]