Burgers’ Smokehouse has undergone many expansions, additions and upgrades, but the important aspects of its business haven’t changed. The company still uses its traditional curing methods; it’s just applying its traditions to a wider range of products, and at a larger scale than ever before.

It took 55 years for Harper’s Country Hams of Clinton, Ky. to become one of the nation’s leading producers of cured ham. Yet in only a few hours, a massive fire turned the 100,000-square-foot plant into pile of twisted steel and smoldering rubble.