This is one in a series of articles about iconic foods in Iowa
By mid-morning at the Iowa State Fair on Wednesday, Aug. 19, the line at the Iowa Pork Tent already snaked down the hill, curling toward the double doors. A second line formed at the Chop Shop, the tent on the eastern side of the building that sells just one thing: pork chops on a stick.
People are patient. They always are when the payoff is something as specific — and as beloved — as the pork chop on a stick.
“We have people clear up this street corner, and then clear up the hill was the line. It was awesome,” said Jamie Helmrichs, who helps run the Iowa Pork Tent and the Chop Shop during the fair.
Three days earlier, on Aug. 16, fairgoers had similarly lined up for one of 1,776 free pork chops on a stick that the Iowa Pork Producers Association gave away in a patriotic gesture.
Iowans, Helmrichs knows, will stand in line for an opening, for a giveaway or for the experience itself. But the pork chop on a stick is different. It’s not a one-time stunt. It’s a part of the fairgoers’ ritual at the Iowa State Fair. You get your lemonade shake-up, your cheese curds, your peppermint bar and, as Helmrichs puts it, a “chop on a stick.”
Over nearly three decades, that bone-in chop, held aloft like a meat flag, has gone from a clever idea to a kind of edible shorthand for the fair itself.
A State Fair, a crisis and a big idea
The Iowa Pork tent has been part of the Iowa State Fair for 45 years, but the pork chop on a stick is a relative newcomer — 27 years old, by Helmrichs’ count. It was born, he said, not just out of a desire to feed fairgoers, but out of a crisis.
Iowa leads the U.S. in pork production at roughly 14 billion pounds annually, and it raises nearly one-third of the nation’s hog inventory, according to the Iowa Pork Producers Association. At any given time, Iowa farmers are raising around 24 million pigs, meaning there are about seven to eight pigs for every resident.
But in the late 1990s, “There was a lull in the market, like the hog market in ’98 was a bad deal for a lot of places, a lot of farmers,” Helmrichs said.
The question became: how can you help an industry hurting at home by grabbing attention on the state’s biggest stage?
“It was going back to the drawing board and what can we do to help promote that industry — a unique way to be able to broadcast a good product or sell a good product that people can still get in the store,” Helmrichs said.
At the time, the fair was riding the everything-on-a-stick wave. If it could be skewered, it could be sold and eaten while people wandered. Pork producers saw an opportunity, but not one that involved hiring an army to thread cubes of meat onto wooden sticks.
“What’s a way that we can put a piece of meat on a stick that’s not labor intensive?” Helmrichs said.
The solution was as simple and as Iowan as it gets: Use the bone.
“It was being creative with the rib bone, which is actually the stick on the stick. So that was our claim to fame and making it unique without adding a lot of extra labor for us to be able to promote it,” he said.
The result: a French-cut, bone-in chop with a built-in handle. A walking pork chop, it was introduced at the fair in 1999.
From experiment to trademark
Early on, no one knew if fairgoers would embrace the pork chop on a stick.
“The first year, we did not have these Southern Pride grills,” Helmrichs recalled, referring to the sophisticated equipment the pork tent now uses to produce a uniform product. “We actually had flat tops up here. And it was hot. There was no shade whatsoever, and we were learning as well.”
The pork tent ran out of chops that first year, selling 6,000. Then it ran out again the second year, with 12,000 sold. Staff scrambled to local grocery stores, asking what they could do to get more chops. “Which was a good feeling as well,” Helmrichs said ― a problem born of success.
Still, it wasn’t an instant legend. “The first three or four years were kind of a struggle to build that up,” Helmrichs said.
But slowly, the lines grew. The numbers climbed. Eventually, Helmrichs said, sales hit a record of 67,000 to 68,000 chops during the fair. Now, they tend to stabilize in the 50,000 to 55,000 range.
“It’s our top seller with the Iowa Pork Tent,” he said.
The numbers are staggering when you zoom out: The pork tent’s 50,000 pork chops over the 11 days of the fair is just half its goal of 100,000 servings of pork overall, including a pork loin sandwich, shredded barbecue pork sandwich, Iowa pork burger, the new Hawaiian hog sandwich ― a quarter-pound brown sugar pork belly on a stick ― and the Picnic in a Cup with a base of Fritos. Also on the menu are baked beans, barbecued shredded pork and coleslaw, all drizzled with barbecue sauce and topped with a slice of brown sugar pork belly.
The chop became so closely associated with the Iowa Pork Producers Association that the group took steps to protect its brand. “This is actually a trademark product that we’ve built up over the years. We really take it to heart. It’s one of our key pieces,” Helmrichs said. “We went through the whole trademark process, and nobody can actually replicate this and sell it. It’s Iowa’s chop.”
There are “renditions” of pork chop on a stick elsewhere, he conceded — but not with this bone, this cut and this story.
A chop you can chase beyond the Iowa State Fair
Despite its fairground fame, the pork chop on a stick isn’t an unattainable novelty. It’s rooted in a cut any home cook can, at least in theory, obtain.
Think of a crown roast of pork. Instead of a whole roast, the bones are cut into individual chops. At the grocery store, ask for a French-cut pork chop.
How to cook a pork chop on a stick
Behind the counter at the pork tent, the process is more science than spectacle. The pork chops take roughly 45 minutes to cook. Each rack in the two Southern Pride grills holds 22 to 24 chops, with a total of 400 to 420 cooking at any given time. They’re not seared over an open flame, but inside what Helmrich describes as an oven-like device set to 325 degrees. To get that blistered, caramelized exterior people expect, the cooks spray the chops with an unflavored browning agent.
“It adds zero caloric value. It adds zero flavor,” Helmrichs explained.
Seasoning is intentionally minimal — no rubs, no secret spice blends, not even salt and pepper. Customers can add their own flavorings and sauces, such as barbecue, after they purchase a chop.
“We actually use (a wood smoker) this year to give it kind of that smoked flavor,” one staffer explained, adding that the staffers leave any further seasoning to the customers because of allergies and preferences. “So then anybody can have it.”
For the Iowa Pork Producers, the real secret to producing the savory, juicy chops is not a marinade; it’s technique — and their crusade against overcooked pork.
“One-hundred-forty-five degrees is the most ideal temperature that you can get that piece of meat where it’s healthy to eat, but still has all the juice, be tender and not dry, and that is the key to cooking good food,” Helmrichs said.
For years, the old guidance of 160 degrees clung stubbornly to home kitchens and restaurant grills.
“It was such a hard feat for us to get over because we were taking so much more away from the product itself,” Helmrichs said.
Even now, there are still customers wary of a faint blush in their pork. “We find it all over the state where the old idea is still there, where you still got to cook it to be safe. That’s not the case,” Helmrichs said, citing updated federal guidance.
At the fair, every perfectly cooked chop is both a meal and a message.
Lines, loyalty and the guy who ate six pork chops in one day
If the pork chop on a stick has become iconic, it’s not just because it photographs well. It’s because people build their fair days around it.
“This has to be something that people have on their agenda for the fair,” Helmrichs said, alongside hot beef sundaes, walking tacos and selections from the annual list of the Best New Foods at the Iowa State Fair.
Some take that agenda seriously.
“A gentleman on Saturday came back and got six chops on a stick,” Helmrichs said. “He was first in line in the morning, and it was the last thing that he stopped and went back to his car (with) that night. It was six different times.”
Staff tried to steer him toward the discounted six-pack for $50 instead of paying $9 per chop.
“He said, ‘I didn’t want to carry it around. I wanted it hot and fresh. I didn’t want to have to worry about putting it anywhere or walking around with it or anything,’” Helmrichs said. “So he’d rather just buy them individually and call them good.”
The man might have ducked “down the hill” at the second Iowa Pork Producers Chop Shop near the entrance to the Fairgrounds on the Grand Concourse for another pork chop or two, Helmrichs joked, but it doesn’t bother him. All of it, he noted, is still cooked at the new building that debuted in 2023 across from the Agriculture Building on the Grand Concourse. The $1 million makeover replaced a 35-year-old structure.
“That’s definitely commitment, and that’s stuff that we like to see because it’s fun knowing that the product we cook is good enough in quality that it keeps people wanting more and coming back,” Helmrichs said.
In 2023, Des Moines Register readers voted the pork chop on a stick their favorite fair food, beating out favorites such as cheese curds, pickle wraps, turkey legs, funnel cakes and more.
The chop as a fair language
Over 27 years, the pork chop on a stick has become more than a clever solution to a bad hog market or a way to get protein into a strolling crowd. It’s become part of the fair’s shared language.
People plan their day around it, clutching it in family photos and bringing out‑of‑towners to “do it right.” The chop’s bone handle is as recognizable as the Sky Glider overhead.
New items — the pork belly on a stick, the Hawaiian hog, the Picnic in a Cup — have joined the lineup, but they haven’t dimmed the original’s glow.
“Those haven’t really taken away from the chop on the stick, which even shows more of how iconic that really is. We still get lines,” Helmrichs said. “And for a Wednesday, this is kind of crazy.”
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Susan Stapleton is the entertainment editor and dining reporter at The Des Moines Register. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, or drop her a line at sstapleton@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: How Iowa’s pork chop on a stick became a State Fair icon
Reporting by Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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By Susan Stapleton, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
