This Is How Spam Is Really Made

This Is How Spam Is Really Made

Posted on by Demond Reichert


Let’s face it — Spam is weird stuff. It might look like a block of mystery meat
and taste suspiciously delicious, but it turns out there’s a lot that goes into each and
every can of Spam. Here’s how Spam is really made. Spam is a weird thing, a tin of long-lasting,
weirdly-textured, inexplicably good… meat product. Things like Spam don’t just happen. Someone had to intentionally do this. The question is: why? And how? Spam has its origins in the late 20’s, when
Jay Hormel took over his father’s meat company. Hormel was always looking for the next big
thing, so when he saw a deli selling canned meat carved into slices, he latched onto the
idea. The meat was originally formed into six-pound
molds, and customers who wanted some had it sliced at the deli. Hormel figured he could cut out the middleman
and sell miniature canned meats directly to people who could then slice it themselves. The idea for Spam was born, though it would
take a few years to be perfected, finally debuting in 1937. Hormel decided early on that Spam would primarily
consist of pork shoulder, a part of the pig that at the time was rarely used as it was
difficult to process. Spam starts looking less like pigs and more
like Spam when the meat is sliced from the bone — a process done by hand — and ground
into 8,000-pound batches. These days, given the worldwide popularity
of Spam, the company needs a lot of piggy shoulders to meet demand, which is why their
partners at Quality Pork Processors, Inc. slaughter over 20,000 pigs every single day. Most domestic Spam is processed in Nebraska,
but Hormel also has overseas plants in South Korea, the Philippines, and Denmark. Spam has an image of being mostly a weird
sort of mystery meat, but there’s only six ingredients: pork (with ham), salt, water,
potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. That’s it! Still, you might be wondering why some of
those ingredients are in your meat to begin with. The sodium nitrate is there to prevent the
growth of bacteria that can cause food poisoning if it’s ingested, since no one wants their
Spam with a side of botulism. It’s also what gives Spam that distinctive
pink color, thanks to a chemical reaction that happens between the nitrites and the
protein in the meat. And the potato starch helps to hold everything
together while preventing the meat from drying out too much in the can. It’s actually a recent addition to the recipe,
as it was only added in 2009. After the meat is hand carved from the bone,
it’s ground up in 8,000 pound batches. A metal detector is used to make sure nothing
has gotten into the batch in any part of the process, and then it’s transferred to a series
of vacuum mixers that are capable of super-chilling the batch to freezing. The rest of the ingredients are dumped in,
the mixer is sealed to be airtight, and it’s mixed. Why the cold and the vacuum? It’s to help prevent a huge amount of liquid
from being released when the meat is cooked. Once the Spam is all perfectly mixed, it’s
funneled into the cans, which are vacuum sealed, giving Spam its infamously long shelf life. How long? Hormel says if you store it properly, a can
of Spam could last indefinitely. Usually, though, it starts to go off about
five years after its “best by” date, so if you’ve got some old Spam in your doomsday
bunker, you should probably eat it now. “I have the best stocked survival shelter
in northeastern Pennsylvania, but everything has a shelf life, so I must eat and then replace
everything that’s about to expire.” Once the Spam is canned, then it’s time to
cook it. Yes, it sounds backwards, but Spam is actually
cooked inside the can! The cans are sent to a massive hydrostatic
cooker, where the cans are cooked, sterilized, washed, and finally cooled. How big is the machine? It can actually process up to 33,000 cans
every hour! And they need to make that many cans, because
despite being a punchline to some, Hormel estimates they sell three cans every second,
with over 8 billion cans sold since Spam was first introduced. That’s way more than just a mere ton of Spam
— literally, as it just takes 2,666 cans of Spam to equal one ton. There’s no signs that interest in Spam is
going away anytime soon, either, as it shows up in an estimated one in three American households. But that doesn’t hold a candle to some of
the biggest Spam consumers in the world. Spam is especially popular in Hawai’i and
Guam, where the canned meat became a beloved dietary staple when Allied troops introduced
it to locals during World War II. Hawai’i and Guam both vie for the crown of
the most Spam-happy place on Earth, but at last calculation, the crown was officially
held by Guam, where the average citizen consumes 16 cans of Spam per year. You can even get it at McDonald’s. Everyone’s familiar with those distinctive
blue and yellow cans, right? Absolutely, and that’s what makes it so surprising
that there’s an extra step that goes into the making of Spam in South Korea: it’s often
packaged up as part of a gift set. The New York Times looked at South Korea’s
favorite gifts for the Lunar New Year. It was a list that included things like rare
tea, imported wines, fine cuts of beef… and Spam. American soldiers also brought Spam with them
to South Korea during the Korean War in the 1950’s, which is why Spam is today considered
a luxurious delicacy. In fact, it’s often given as a sign of respect
to important people during the Christmas season. As one saleswoman told The New York Times, “Here, Spam is a classy gift you can give
to people you care about during the holiday.” Amen. “Oh yeah.” “Oof.” “That’s the sound of quality!” Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite
meat products are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the
bell so you don’t miss a single one.

81 thoughts on “This Is How Spam Is Really Made”

  31. It's weird because I was thinking about eating my spam in my cabinet and I didn't even say a word and then all of a sudden I see a snap YouTube videos

    Reply

  33. 5 ingredients. Ok what the hell is that gel made of???? I'm pretty sure that has quite a few ingredients.

    Reply

  34. Omg horrible 1 in 3 homes I don't think so I never have met anyone to eat it still in 43 years I tried it twice one nibble and the salt intake was beyond horrible

    Reply

  36. My town has many folks from places like Guam who adore spam. Some really like canned corned beef like I do also. I find spam to be flavorless; just super salty , cheap hot-doggy tasting. But I dont like bologna either. To me it's all the same. When I did eat pork meat, it was real meat lol like bacon, ribs, roast…watching this process grosses me out..the idea of all of our food being so processed, then tainted with preservatives and thickening agents and sticking agents, passes thru many hands and many machines, then dumped into plastic, metal, glass containers and handled so much more and travels all over the globe before I then have to release the food, prep it, cook it and enjoy it as if I should be enjoying it….getting closer to start producing my own clean food.

    Reply

  38. Fake. How is it pork shoulder when and ex worker making spam told me he'll never eat spam from what he seen is in it not six ingredients so what is this video? grrrrrrr p.s. I just threw out two slices of spam that was for eggs and rice or a sandwich with mayonnaise,, the spam spoiled I've been busy. 😎🤙

    Reply

  47. I used to make scrambled eggs with spam when my kids were young, which they loved. One time I gave them scrambled eggs with leftover Thanksgiving Honey Baked ham and they whined , “Hey! This isn’t Spam!”…… (so much for the high road.)…😄

    Reply

  51. If you like bacon and tomato,mayo sandwiches just crisp up some hickory spam in place of bacon it makes for great tasting lunch.

    Reply

  57. This is a whole advertisment for spam but when it comes to McDonald's and Chipotle you bash their food am I missing something here ?

    Reply

  60. Actually the most Spam is produced in Austin, Minnesota which is also the home of their corporate headquarters. The plant in Nebraska may have processed more pigs but was sold off in 2018 as Hormel has moved away from the intake/slaughtering aspect of the business due to FDA regulations and unionization making it uneconomical.

    Reply

  69. I still gotta buy some. LOL. Especially since I might live in Guam someday hopefully soon. I wanna try some Spam with eggs. Maybe I'll make that on Christmas Eve.

    Reply

  73. I honestly figured Texas prison system would be number 1 for sales. Of the top 5 items sold in commissary spam is an easy number 2 only because ramen is number 1

    Reply

  79. You know what I hate the most is? Freaking fighting games spam the living SH#@ of the buttons OVER, OVER, OVER, OVER, and OVER AGAIN!.

    Reply

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