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A bratwurst is a food product consisting of pork and a combination of spices wrapped in some kind of casing.
A bratwurst also is the product that grew Johnsonville Foods from a regional maker of sausage to a company with a worldwide following, and not just in brats.
If a date could be attached to Johnsonville's growing into prominence in the food processing industry it might be 1978, the year Ralph C. Stayer, son of the company's founders, became president of the company. Launa Stayer-Maloney, Stayer's sister, served bratwurst, a then-unheard-of product outside Wisconsin, at a party in Fort Wayne, Ind. "Once we got them to change the way they pronounced brats [instead of the word to describe misbehaving children], we had them sold," she said. "Ring bologna and hot dogs didn't work, but brats sold like hotcakes. You never really believed that bratwurst was going to take us around the warld or coast to coast."
Our focus is always on making great-tasting food, fun food," said Stayer." It isn't if it tastes good there's good, there's great, and there's where in the hell can I get more of this? That's what we're shooting for.
The first statement of our mission is, We have the moral obligation to be the best sausage company in the world. We're doing other things, but our main focus is sausage, andour main focus will continue to be sausage."
Today, Johnsonville Foods, with corporate offices Kohler, two plants near Johnsonville and fuor other facilities, has 600 employees. The company's success comes from a combination of products people will kill for," said Stayer, plus a determination that the business be run in the right way -- "60 Minutes can come where they want and publish whatever they want, and we don't care because we're above-board."
While the company's products have grown beyond just sausages to include fast-preparation meats and pasta and sauces, sausages still put the bacon on the table, so to speak Stayer sees Johnsonville Foods as having small-town family mentality -- we target making great sausage first, and everything centers fron that. The belief has always been that the people making it are making great sausage, and everyone else is here to help them."
Johnsonville works with hog farmers...