Green and gold + gelato: Sara’s Artisan Gelato partners with Packers

Matthew Day

Staff

October 7, 2024

GREEN BAY – Siblings Sara Kwaterski and Jonathan Santaga – co-owners of Sara’s Artisan Gelato – said they hope an official partnership with a certain storied, local football franchise will help spread the word of their business even more.

Initially, exclusively a wholesale product, Sara’s Artisan Gelato is now available at its year-round location in Ashwaubenon (933 Anderson Drive), at its seasonal shop in Fish Creek (4192 Main St.), as a dessert option in numerous Northeast Wisconsin restaurants and sold in more than 30 grocery stores across eastern Wisconsin – as far north as Wausaukee and south as Kenosha.

And now, the sibling co-owners can add an official partner of the Green Bay Packers to the list.

Gelato meets frozen tundra

Just before the Packers’ 2024 season kicked off, Kwaterski and Santaga announced Sara’s Artisan Gelato had officially partnered with the professional team from their hometown.

“We were pretty excited about it when they approached us,” Santaga said. “Being a kid growing up in Green Bay, you always wanted to play for the Packers, but now I get to do business with the Packers – which is almost just as cool.”

Kwaterski said the relationship with the team originated in the early stages of Sara’s Artisan Gelato.

She said she’d had a job in high school working for Bill Tressler, who as president of Hinterland Brewery – located in the Packers’ Titletown District – had developed strong connections with the team.

“He pretty much got me a meeting with the important people at the time,” she said of Tressler. “I’m not the best salesperson, but the product – I like to think – speaks for itself. The (Packers) liked it and that was kind of my ‘in.’ The (cafe under Ariens) sledding hill was my first (opportunity), and then Bill at Hinterland was one of my first wholesale customers, too – he put it on his menu – and he really helped get my foot in the door with the Packers and Delaware North.”

The global hospitality company Delaware North operates foodservice for Lambeau Field.

Kwaterski said though the meeting was intimidating, it was ultimately successful.

Suddenly, she said, her just-licensed gelato was being sold at 46 Below (the fast-casual restaurant on the ground level of Ariens Hill) and to fans during games on the stadium’s club level. 

From there, Kwaterski said the relationship with the Packers grew, with the team incorporating Sara’s Artisan Gelato for catering at several events. 

Short of an official partnership, Santaga said, initially the gelato had to be sold generically, with no name recognition allowed.

But when the foodservice representatives asked to supply blank serving cups ahead of this year’s football season, Santaga said he broached the subject of using branded cups – “to help build awareness of the business and credibility.”

“(The Packers) said, ‘yes – but only if you agree to go into this partnership with us, for this marketing deal,’” he said. 

Kwaterski and Santaga said they jumped at the opportunity – a three-year partnership with an option to extend – which includes not only branding their product for sales at Titletown and Lambeau Field but digital marketing benefits and – most excitingly, they said – advertisement during Packer games.

“We get time (featured) on the jumbotron and during the concourse ads in the stadium,” Santaga said. “I think there are three or four times on the rotation of the game that we actually get a Sara’s Artisan Gelato ad during the game. The last preseason game was the first game where we were actually up. It was so cool to be able to see it.”

Justin Wolf, Packers director of corporate partnerships sales and activations, said, as a family owned, Green Bay-based business, Sara’s Artisan Gelato shares the Packers’ commitment to the community.

“Their fresh, handcrafted gelato is made using Wisconsin milk and high-quality ingredients, and we’ve seen it become a local staple and fan favorite over the last several years,” he said. “We’re looking forward to sharing their treats with Packers fans and Lambeau Field visitors.”

Wolf said on gamedays, Sara’s Artisan Gelato is at Lambeau Field’s Melotte Marketplace within the Associated Bank Club Level.

As a small, local business, Kwaterski said they are grateful for the opportunity.

“Getting to work with such a big brand – it was really flattering and humbling that they were interested in working with us,” she said.

Kwaterski said the partnering has been “surreal,” because she started the company by making gelato in her parents’ basement on a used machine, with family and neighbors taste-testing her early efforts as she envisioned someday running a small and creative shop. 

“Even the fact that we’re (sold) in grocery stores (is incredible), but now working with the Packers – I just never saw this for my business,” she said. “It was never in my wildest dreams to be growing like we have been.”

Santaga said the Packers partnership also grants Sara’s Artisan Gelato access to the team’s name and logo – enabling the brand’s wholesale customers to invoke the logo and related language when they offer the gelato “trusted by legends.”

Kwaterski said she credits Santaga’s joining the operation in 2021 with helping to grow the business while allowing her to focus more on being a chef, as well as a wife and mother of two. 

“We balance each other out,” she said of the siblings’ strengths.

Quality over quantity

With the Packers partnership bolstering the brand, the co-owners said the pieces are in place to grow Sara’s Artisan Gelato – so long as the quality remains its highest.

Kwaterski said after completing her culinary arts degree, she returned to Italy – the home country of their late grandfather Aldo Santaga – to learn the art of making gelato over four weeks of study at Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna.

She said the education emphasized the importance of using only high-quality ingredients – standards she said she maintains out of reverence for Italian culture, for her customers’ enjoyment and to help differentiate from other gelato options.

“In the U.S., there are – like anything – shortcuts in the world of gelato,” she said. “There are ‘fixes’ and things you can do where you just add milk or water instead of the flavorings in there. It’s still called gelato – but it does a disservice to gelato as a whole. We do everything with really traditional techniques.”

Santaga said Sara’s Artisan Gelato is made with Wisconsin milk and all mixes are made from scratch.

Beyond the fresh-tasting results, Santaga said this approach also means the operation isn’t so dependent upon suppliers who could suddenly change recipes or prices.

Kwaterski said she features her versions of more conventional gelato flavors, such as pistachio, stracciatella and amarena cherry, but also enjoys finding new inspiration – with her only caveat being fresh ingredients.

This has led to the crafting varieties, such as:

• Chocolate chip cookie dough gelato with pieces of homemade cookie dough
• Salted caramel gelato with homemade caramel
• Banana cream pie gelato with fresh bananas
• Espresso chip gelato with real espresso
• Brown butter pecan gelato with butter browned and pecans candied in-house
• Sorbetto – or the Italian version of sorbet – made with fresh fruit and no artificial coloring
• Chocolate gelato with high-quality Belgian chocolate 

The co-owners said they’re hopeful the added visibility from the Packers partnership will boost their wholesale business, as well as drive more traffic to their gelato shops – and perhaps facilitate more wholesale customers and even another viable shop location.

However Sara’s Artisan Gelato may progress, Kwaterski and Santaga said they’re committed to maintaining the exceptional products customers have come to expect.

“Our goal for all growth for the company – for the future – is no compromise in the quality of the product, whatsoever,” Santaga said. “There’s no room for that. It’s something we agreed upon from the beginning.”

Any growth, Kwaterski said, comes with the utmost consideration of “is it affecting the quality of our product?”

“Can we get it to all these grocery stores and still have as good of a product with this growth?” she said. “The growth isn’t worth it to us if it sacrifices our same quality, so we’re really careful with that.”

Giving back

Beyond the level of care for their products, the siblings said their consideration for their customers further extends to giving back to the community, particularly to benefit children.

They said one such initiative is an upcoming year-long fundraising effort wherein Sara’s Artisan Gelato will donate 5% of sales each Wednesday to the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Green Bay.

“Our goal is always to give back to the people who support us,” Santaga said. “So in that sense, the business has been incredibly rewarding.”

With the continued community involvement and the new partnership with the Packers, Kwaterski said she looks forward to more broadly sharing the enjoyment of gelato she first experienced with her grandfather – one she remembers well, yet still struggles to articulate to the uninitiated.

“I don’t know how to describe it…,” she said. “You’ve just got to try it.”

Visit sarasartisangelato.com for more information.