The importance of well-educated, -prepared leaders in the workforce
Powering the next generation of community leaders
September 7, 2026
ST. CLOUD – A century-old St. Cloud meat-market tradition is entering a new chapter, one that Salchert Meats’ owners said is rooted in preserving the past while building for the future.
Co-owners and -operators Katie and Jeff Fuhrmann and Chris Greuel said growth has never meant leaving the company’s history behind, but rather building on what previous generations created while positioning the business for the next generation.
Katie said this philosophy is at the heart of Salchert Meats’ latest move: bringing Oshkosh-based Silver Creek Specialty Meats into the Salchert Meats family.
She said the addition expands Salchert Meats’ production capacity and adds specialty meat products and established distribution channels.
But the Fuhrmanns said the move is about more than expansion.
Katie said it reflects their long-term vision of preserving Salchert Meats’ identity while expanding the products and services customers have come to expect.
She said it’s the same mindset they have had since taking ownership of Salchert Meats in January 2019.
“The big thing is staying true to our roots,” she said. “We haven’t added a lot of products – we’ve done a little product development. The biggest thing we added was to increase our custom processing and slaughter business and open our new retail store.”
A slice of history
Starting in Mount Calvary, Katie said the Salchert family’s history in the meat business predates the company’s official establishment in 1928.
She said the family later moved to Marytown before establishing roots in St. Cloud, where they purchased a meat market started by another family in the late 1800s.
Nearly a century later, Katie said the business remains both a hometown butcher shop and a full-scale meat-processing operation, as she, Jeff and Greuel serve as its fourth-generation owners.
Today, Katie said Salchert Meats processes animals for farmers and customers, produces sausage and specialty products, handles wild-game processing and operates a retail store that draws customers from throughout the region.
She said the business has grown significantly since 2019 through a measured approach, building on its existing strengths rather than reinventing it.
Protecting what makes Salchert special
When they purchased Salchert Meats – which The Business News first highlighted in its Feb. 21, 2024 issue – Katie said she and Jeff brought complementary skills to the business.
She said her experience included working as a cheesemaker at LaClare Creamery, which was founded by her family, while Jeff brought experience in finance, marketing and data analysis, along with a master’s degree in finance.
Katie said Greuel – who became a co-owner/-operator in 2020 – brought a background in meat processing to the ownership team.
She said the division of responsibilities across management, operations, retail and processing has helped the company grow while preserving the hands-on expertise that has long defined the business.
Today, Katie said each owner has a defined role.
Jeff, she said, handles business management, including finance and maintenance, and oversees the slaughterhouse; she focuses on operations, retail, sales and marketing; and Greuel oversees animal processing and sausage making.
Katie said the arrangement has allowed the company to expand without losing the hands-on knowledge that is critical to a business with such a long history.
“It has helped us [to have Chris on the ownership team] because he is boots on the ground every day within our team, and it allows me to focus on the retail and sales side of things and Jeff to focus on finance and business development,” she said. “That’s pretty demanding, and I can’t be behind the counter and be cutting meat in the back. Bringing Chris in [as an owner/operator] has allowed us to continue to grow – you can only grow as far as your team allows you to.”
Katie said Greuel’s role is about more than production.
“He is extremely knowledgeable about all things Salchert…,” she said. “He helps us stay true to those roots even as we become more efficient.”
Katie said this connection to the business’s history has become especially important as Salchert Meats has grown.
Since purchasing the company, she said its size has more than doubled, driven by growth in custom processing and slaughter, expanded production capacity and investment in the retail operation.
Though most customers live within 30 minutes of St. Cloud, Katie said the retail operation draws customers from across the region and beyond.
“We have people from all over, whether visiting the area because of Road America, fall colors or family,” she said. “They often make Salchert a stop. We get people from Texas, Alaska, Florida, California and even New Jersey. We get a lot of visitors from people who moved away and come back home.”
Katie said such loyalty is built not only on Salchert Meats’ products but also on the way the business serves its customers.
“Between the quality and freshness of the product, when people come in, they know they will be taken care of – they know they will have a good experience,” she said. “People say all the time, ‘Hey, thanks for being nice.’”
Bringing tradition to new customers
The Fuhrmanns said they had been exploring shelf-stable products, such as snack sticks and summer sausage, for several years – looking for convenient, portable options that still reflected Salchert Meats’ traditional production methods.
The idea, Katie said, was personal, too.
“We have four kids, and we’re busy,” she said. “We go to a lot of sports events and are constantly on the go, and snack sticks are such an easy grab-and-go item.”
With her family’s needs helping shape the product, Katie said Salchert Meats began experimenting with clean-label, shelf-stable goat-meat snack sticks, initially making them for her parents to sell at farmers’ markets.
Then, she said she learned about Silver Creek and discovered its Simply Snackin’ line was remarkably close to what Salchert Meats had been trying to create.
“That product line is absolutely, to a T, what we were trying to create and build at Salchert,” she said. “We were focusing on a clean label and product we feel good about feeding to our kids. We wanted to offer additional protein options, including grass-fed [beef], chicken, turkey and venison. All the things we were offering through our goat snack sticks, they were doing with other proteins we eventually wanted to add.”
Katie said Salchert Meats began working with Silver Creek more than a year before the companies formally came together, with Silver Creek producing snack sticks for Salchert Meats.
She said the relationship eventually led to Salchert Meats acquiring Silver Creek in May 2026.
“Being able to bring snack sticks to the market is why it made sense to bring Silver Creek into the Salchert family,” she said. “It allows us to continue our growth, and we just couldn’t do it under one roof.”
Katie said Silver Creek has 12 employees and specializes in sausage and specialty products, complementing Salchert Meats’ core custom-processing operation.
At the same time, she said the companies are different enough that they complement one another.
“The businesses are so different,” she said. “At Salchert, the majority of what we do is custom processing, and Silver Creek is all sausage making.”
Katie said those differences are part of what makes the combination work.
She said Silver Creek fills gaps in Salchert Meats’ capabilities while allowing the St. Cloud operation to continue focusing on its core business.
Katie said Silver Creek’s products already reach customers across Wisconsin and northern Illinois, with Simply Snackin’ products sold at Woodman’s, Festival Foods and some Sendik’s stores, and its Jim’s Blue Ribbon products available at local gas stations and grocery stores.
The acquisition, she said, allows Salchert Meats to bring its products and philosophy to customers beyond St. Cloud while expanding into wholesale markets that have not traditionally been a major part of its business.
Growth that honors the past
The Fuhrmanns said the goal is not simply to build a bigger business.
“We had been working on strategic growth, and our long-term vision is to position it for the next generation,” Katie said. “We want to continue [the business] as long as we possibly can and add our value to it just like the Salcherts have.”
Katie said that perspective means adding production without sacrificing quality, expanding distribution without compromising the retail operation and offering convenient products, such as snack sticks, alongside those made using methods that date back generations.
Silver Creek, she said, provides another way to strike that balance.
“The big thing for us is that it allows us to do more,” she said.
But what Silver Creek produces, and how it produces it, Katie said, is particularly important to the fit.
“The products they make are very traditional and stay true to the Old World, old German sausage making using the natural smokes, long acidification and things we are doing at Salchert that keep us true to our roots,” she said. “They are such a natural fit for us.”
Katie said the same philosophy extends to Salchert Meats’ customer experience that customers frequently comment on.
She said customers come for the steak sandwiches, brats, snack sticks, summer sausage and other products, as well as custom and wild-game processing.
But, Katie said they also come for the personal service that comes with being a local business where customers know they’ll be taken care of.
“I find that extremely important that if somebody asks for something and you have it, they’ll get it,” she said. “That’s what keeps people coming back to us. They could go anywhere, but we work really hard at doing a good job on our product and taking care of people in our store.”
