Members of the Pruett's Signal Mountain Market team pose with the TrimChick chicken at the store's launch event for the company.
Contributed photoTrimChick, a local company which offers a healthier cut of chicken by removing the fat and turning it into biodiesel fuel, is spreading its wings through its first local consumer-based sales option.
Already available in the Big Y supermarket chain based in the Northeast, TrimChick spokesperson Will Wilson said he chose Pruett's Signal Mountain Market to debut the product here because it is locally owned, which allows him to bypass corporate hassles.
"It's very competitively priced now, but prices will continue to drop as we get more support for it," he said.
TrimChick is a subsidiary of Southeastern Sales, a Red Bank business started in 1975 by Dave Wilson which he now runs with son Will Wilson, who said their main business is to help chicken processing plants become more efficient.
Four years ago, Will Wilson said they were working on a project with local processing plant Pilgrim's Pride, where they discovered a way to turn leftover fat cut from the chicken into biofuel.
"It was kind of a happy accident that came out of our base business of trying to use every part of the chicken and trying to make the process more efficient," he said.
Wilson said he noticed there was a lot of fat left over, and gas prices were really beginning to escalate at that time, so creating alternative fuel seemed like an ideal way to simultaneously decrease waste and produce something of value.
"The consumer gets a leaner, more healthy piece of chicken and gets to know they are doing something for the environment," he said. "Our main thing is our advocacy effort, which is set up to try to get processors to start using their fat to make fuel."
He said Blood Assurance buses in Chattanooga run off biodiesel fuel supplied by TrimChick. The company has also been working with local restaurants including Formosa, Taco Mamacita and Champy's Chicken, each of which put forth a penny for every pound of chicken they sell to help offset the costs of turning fat into fuel for the Blood Assurance fleet.
He said the company also plans to expand its offerings beyond just breast fillets as the TrimChick idea grows in the Chattanooga area.
For more information, visit the TrimChick website or call 877-3781.