This Is How Spam Is Really Made

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. Keep watching the video to see this is how Spam is really made!

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Why is Spam... Spam? | 0:13
They have the meats | 0:52
They also have the non-meats | 1:25
Those cans, though | 2:25
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Spam gift boxes | 3:56