Eric Gutknecht grew up elbows deep in sausage making. His parents immigrated to Colorado from Switzerland in the 1970s, bringing with them two generations of sausage-making experience.
Eric was three years old when his parents joined a Denver sausage business founded by another Swiss immigrant and purchased the company in the 1980s. Eric notes, “Packing sausage was cheaper than daycare,” so he spent his days learning the trade at his parents’ elbows.
Differentiation is key to the success of smaller meat and poultry processors. After all, the big chains can produce generic bricks of ground beef and steaks cheaper than any mom-and-pop processor in the country.
However, a growing segment of consumers want something better than a generic cut of meat. A slew of ongoing consumer studies shows that shoppers increasingly value meat and poultry sourced locally from producers dedicated to environmental stewardship and humane animal husbandry.
