COLLEGE STATION — A national love of outdoor cooking has met with a boundless supply of unwanted mesquite trees to produce a $20 million-a-year Texas industry.
Chips and chunks of mesquite and other woods such as hickory from several Texas processing companies have found a sizzling market for this commodity that often has a dubious reputation.
“Even the huge charcoal companies that dominate the market now have begun to create their own mesquite products,” said Dr. Judd Michael, Texas Agricultural Extension Service forest products marketing specialist. “That’s an indication that the ‘big boys’ are worried. The little boys are doing something right.”
The “right” combination is a nation where consumers own some 12.3 million outdoor grills, according to the Barbecue Industry Association, and Texas landowners have 52 million acres of mesquite they don’t want.
Grilling gurus in the early 1980s began to take note of the special flavor absorbed by foods cooked over mesquite. As a result, about 15 million pounds of mesquite smoking chips and cooking chunks — and a like amount of hickory — are burned in U.S. grills every year. A variety of brands are sold at most grocery chains across the nation.
That’s good news for Texas since mesquite has no known insect or disease pest and spreads readily by seeds or sprouting from its crown. It also grows everywhere in Texas except in the piney woods, according to Stephan Hatch, Texas Agricultural Experiment Station range scientist in his book, “Texas Range Plants.”
With the rapid acceptance of the flavorful cooking wood, by both the restaurant industry and consumers, as many as 70 processors of wood chunks or chips flared up in Texas during the early 1980s.
“They looked at the $600 million a year charcoal business and thought if they could get even one-tenth of that, that would be great,” said George Wartsbaugh of Ennis, Barbeque Wood Flavors president. “The wood chunk business itself is pretty substantial but not compared to the charcoal business. It’s a specialty, a niche. It won’t go away, but it’s not ever going to be as big as the charcoal industry.”
Now only about five companies handle the business in Texas, according to WW Wood, Inc., president Jerry Lawson of Pleasanton.
Michael said wood chips and chunks processing is not the type of business that a person can enter easily. An operation requires large amounts of capital and enough knowledge about wood handling and processing to be competitive with the larger, established processors.
“And the biggest problem that I see is the marketing network,” Michael added. “These processors have put a lot of time and energy into developing the markets. People may think it is easy to cut mesquite, chop it up, bag it and sell it. An individual might be able to service a couple of local stores that way, but they won’t make any money at it.”
He said large retailers seek companies that can promise and deliver large, consistent supplies — that requires cooperation among the harvester, the landowner and the wood processor.
Harvesting mesquite is a tedious job. Unlike a tall straight pine tree, the mesquite branches out, often near ground level, into many spindly limbs. Most chippers and chunkers prefer mesquite logs from 6-10 inches in diameter, preferably 24 inches long, according to Lawson.
“Mesquite removal is pretty easy on the land, because the type of land is different than that of East Texas where the pine forests are harvested,” Michael said. “In East Texas, loggers have to be concerned about the bottomlands and wetlands that are more sensitive to heavy harvesting traffic.”
Michael also noted that mesquite removal is not as mechanized.
Landowners also have to be willing to have the wood cut and hauled. Promises made by early, short-lived companies often still impact the remaining companies, according to Wartsbaugh.
“Some of the people who got in and got out had the ranchers all excited out the business at first. Now that those people are no longer in business, ranchers still remember their promises,” he said.
Lawson said that because some landowners in recent years questioned whether they had been paid adequately by harvesters, some chip and chunk processors now pay landowners a $10 per cord stumpage fee, based on the amount of wood brought in by the harvester. Other landowners may allow the wood to be cut and hauled away by harvesters for no payment as an expense-free way to clear their pastures.
“The thinking still is there that mesquite is worthless. It’s mind-boggling,” Lawson said. “But if people don’t live in an area where there is a processor like ours, they might not be aware that mesquite has value.”
Still, Lawson said mesquite is not making a lot of people rich at this time. His company deals with about 200 harvesters, about 99 percent of whom are people who lost other jobs.
“They were unemployed but were able to get a chain saw, an old truck and a trailer,” Lawson said. “So, they now are into a little business. There are a lot of families putting bread on the table by harvesting wood and bringing it to us.”
That’s a change from the first few years of the wood chips and chunks industry in Texas, Lawson said. “In the early days because of lack of volume and size, we had to stop buying wood at times during the year,” he said. “Now we buy 52 weeks a year, and we buy whatever they bring in.”
He said that at current prices, about $85 a cord, harvesters usually cut within 100 miles of a processor in order for the venture to be economical.
“All the companies would have to do is pay haulers a little more and the radius would increase,” Michael said. “So, when the good supply is used up in the vicinity of the processor, they will either have to pay more to have it hauled farther or they’ll have to add another processing facility nearer the fresh supply.”
Michael said, based on the current locations of the chip and chunk processors, that issue probably will not be a factor for the industry for several years.
Lawson also doesn’t envision a day when mesquite trees are purposely planted in orchard-like rows.
“With 52 million acres that have mesquite in Texas and the annual regrowth, and with our business using about 10,000 to 12,000 acres worth a year,” Lawson said, “we’re growing a heck of a lot more in this state than we’re using by many, many, many times. I can’t even imagine when we’d be on the level playing field.”
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