Fred Usinger Inc.
1030 N. Old World Third St., Milwaukee
Industry: Old-world European-style sausages and smoked meats
Employees: about 125
Fred Usinger Inc. (which is commonly known as Usinger’s Famous Sausage), one of Milwaukee’s iconic manufacturers, has fed sausage-lovers for more than 130 years. The company makes sausages and cured meats using old-world techniques passed through the family since its founder, Fred Usinger, established his own sausage-making shop in Milwaukee in 1880.
Today, Usinger’s makes sausage from about 130 different recipes. Many of the sausages are made in multiple sizes and shapes, and some are smoked or unsmoked – giving the company a huge range of potential products, said Frederick “Fritz” Usinger, the company’s president.
The company’s best-selling sausages are usually made of beef or pork or a combination of the two. But it also makes sausage from veal, chicken and turkey.
The majority of Usinger’s products are made using old-world European recipes and techniques.
“About 65 percent of our sausages are what we’d call ‘heritage,'” Fritz Usinger said. “Some are our great-grandfather’s recipes. Others have been tweaked or added over the years.”
While its best selling core products are old world style, Usinger’s adds new products to its lineup every year, said Debra Usinger, Fritz’s sister and the company’s director of retail operations and corporate services.
“Profiles change with food all the time,” she said. “Sausage is the basic building block of what we do. But with meats and spices, there is so much flexibility. That makes it a lot of fun, especially with things like our chicken sausages.”
Usinger’s is owned by the Usinger family. Fritz and Debra are the only two family members that work in the business.
The company has about 125 employees in its two facilities. The company’s best-known location is its headquarters at 1030 N. Old World Third St., where it occupies about 60,000 square feet of space. The Third Street location houses the company’s offices and a retail store. Usinger’s also does its raw ingredient processing from its Third Street location.
Usinger’s also has a 50,000-square-foot facility in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, where it does its smoking, cooking, packaging and distribution.
The company’s original smokehouses are in its Third Street location. It built new smokehouses at its Walker’s Point location about six years ago.
“We could have built modern, faster smokers” Fritz Usinger said. “But we didn’t want to change the flavor and characteristics of the product. That plant is state of the art, but it incorporates old-world manufacturing methods within its walls.”
Eventually, Usinger’s will move all of its production to its newer facility in Walker’s Point. The company does not have a firm timeline on its move, nor does it know what it will do with the unused space in its headquarters building.
The company had a small increase in sales in 2010 and expects continued growth this year.
“Because we’re specialty manufacturing and we’re not scoring huge volume home runs, our growth has always been slow and small,” Fritz Usinger said.
Late last year, Usinger’s introduced its own line of pre-packaged sauerkraut, flavored with apples, onions and bacon. The company recently launched two new chicken sausages – an Andouille with red beans and rice inside it, and another with feta cheese and pears.
The company is preparing new marketing plans for its smoked bacon and whole hams, which it believes could increase sales of both products. Bacon has developed a cult-like following on several food-related web sites, and artisanal products have seen increased popularity in recent years.
“With the slow food movement, where people appreciate all of these local and regional and artisanal things, we’ve seen a nice appreciation from that,” Debra Usinger said.
