Meat + Poultry - June 2010 - 83

KIOLBASSA SAUSAGE
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of a sponsorship agreement, created the
Grand Slam Griller for the stadium. As
part of the agreement with the Astros,
Kiolbassa is allowed to market and sell
the product at the stadium and offer the
Griller at retail stores in the region, using the Astros logo on the label of the
products. "We put our name in very
small print, on the back of the package

"We've talked about
getting into other
segments of the market
but our core competency
is smoked sausage."
because we want the Astros brand to be
the main brand on the front."
Besides its more traditional sausage products, Kiolbassa also manufactures its version of a Polish kolache,
an Old World-style specialty featuring
a skinless, all-beef sausage wrapped in

dough that is baked around the sausage, not unlike a pig in a blanket, but
with a bovine twist. Kiolbassa ships its
sausage to a San Antonio-area bakery,
which wraps the sausage in dough and
ships them to retail customers. One
of the biggest customers is the Valero
chain of convenience stores, which are
well known in the region for their kolache offerings. The Kiolbassa-labeled
kolaches are baked fresh and sold in
about 200 Valero locations to date.

Focused on the future
Kiolbassa officials still pride themselves on maintaining relationship
based business partnerships, with loyalty as the cornerstone. This explains
why the company has worked with the
same lenders and insurance companies for many decades. "In fact, I have
some brokers that work for me and we
made a deal on a handshake; there

kOLLSTOCK

are no contracts. Our handshake is as
good as our word and our word is all
that we are as people. You won't find
many companies out there like that."
Through the years, the company
has toyed with the idea of diversifying
its product line and it processes a small
amount of bratwursts that are vended
at Astros games and a limited number
of cured, smoked hams for sale around
the holidays. "We've talked about getting into other segments of the market
but our core competency is smoked sausage," says Johnson. Appealing to a diverse customer base, however, is part of
the company's growth plan, including
recent negotiations with officials from
the U.S. government's military bases
that resulted in putting Kiolbassa products in all of the commissaries throughout the state of Texas and several more
in New Mexico. The company is also
on the lookout for more traditional food-

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Meat + Poultry - June 2010

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