Meat + Poultry - February 2009 - 27

ECONOMIC LINKS

Fortuna's Dry Sausage Sampler - Some
of the most popular dry sausages include:
Abbruze, Soppresata, Caccitorini, Baby
Genoa, Pepperoni and Hot Soupy. (Photo
courtesy of Fortuna's Sausage Co.)

Heinle says one of his top sellers
during these tough economic times
are what he calls the "misfits," the
products that are the result of a tie
linker that makes a bratwurst or
wiener too long or short. "In October and November, people came
in specifically to buy the odd-sized
brats and wieners because they're
$4 a pound instead of $6 a pound,"
Heinle says. "People are being more
cautious with their dollars."

Predicting the future

years is people driving from several
miles away to purchase the company's products. But Heinle says less
people drove long distances to the
Sausage Shoppe in 2008 because of
high gas prices.
"We saw this occur especially
around Father's Day and the Fourth
of July when gas was getting close to
$4 a gallon," Heinle says.
The question for Heinle, Stoysich
and other sausage makers is how to
deal with this matter. Do you pass increased costs on to customers or find
another way to manage them?
"We're committed to holding our
prices at the current levels despite
some of the increases," Stoysich says.
"We're going to eat those costs. The
last thing I want to do is start raising
prices in this economy. You want to
try and be as fair as you can and understand that everybody out there is
hurting. If I can sell the same amount
of product that I did last year...I
would rather do that and eat a little
of the raw-material costs than raise
prices and scare off folks."
Fortuna-Stannard says her company's costs went up about 60 cents a
pound in 2008. While Fortuna Sausage didn't pass food costs on to its
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customers, it did pass on some of the
shipping costs with smaller orders.
Heinle has looked for other ways to
save money. For example, he held off
on any major renovations or expensive
equipment purchases in 2008.
"We are fortunate that the equipment is
holding its own," he says. "The only thing
we bought new this year was a scale."

"If I lose one customer
in a week, I pick up
three new ones. It's
a good sign for the
business, and I'm very
optimistic now."
Heinle even skipped the annual
regimen of resurfacing his store's parking lot last year. "It saved us $1,800. It
doesn't sound like much, but it is."
What Heinle says the business has
going for it is his customers are willing to pay a good price, up to $7 a
pound, for premium sausages. "Some
people say they are overpriced, but
those who know the products realize you can't get anything better,"
Heinle says.
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Looking ahead, what do sausage makers think 2009 will bring? If January
is any sign, Fortuna Sausage will have
a good year. Fortuna-Stannard says
business in early 2009 started off better than last year at this time. She says
the business received a lot of referral
business after the holidays.
Stoysich says 2009 is a question
mark. "Is it going to get any worse?" he
asks. "I certainly hope not. I think we'll
see some slim weeks around here. My
hope, at least for our business, is that
if people are going to give up buying
the big-ticket items, at least they will
be willing to come see us and treat
themselves to a good meal."
Dewey also expects some slow
times in 2009, especially at the beginning. "Honestly, though, I look
for ward to some slow times as
long as they don't last too long,"
he says. "Then I only have to work
eight-hour days instead of 10- and
12-hour days."
This is the third recession Lott's
business has been through.
"This is the worst one, though, and
I'm watching it like a hawk," he says.
"But we'll dig out of this. It's going
to be fi ne."
Larry Aylward is a freelance writer from Cleveland.
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e-mail at: meatpoultry@sosland.com.
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Meat + Poultry - February 2009

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