RJ’s Meats: Where quality, service, community rise above all else

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

July 21, 2025

HUDSON – The national chain Arby’s has coined the phrase, but in West Central Wisconsin, it’s RJ’s that has the meats.

Since its founding in 1970 and transfer of ownership in 1987 – when Co-owner Rick “RJ” Reams bought the meat processing facility and retail store from its first owner – he said RJ’s Meats has taken the last five-and-a-half decades to prove itself as a cornerstone of the Hudson community.

Reams’ wife and fellow co-owner, Anne, said it’s not unheard of for RJ’s customers to shower its employees with gratitude for the business’s work and longevity.

“That’s the thing that makes coming to work fun – the unexpected connections with the people,” she said. “Every third day, somebody says [to us], ‘Thanks for being in business in our town.’”

With no additional locations other than its 1101 Coulee Road retail store and processing facility, Reams said he and his team have had to get creative in the limited space they are currently in, and have historically leased.

“When I bought the business, we shared the building – a 4000-square-foot building with a Tom Thumb convenience store – and we had 1,200 square feet,” he said. “Then, in the fall of ’95, they left. We signed a lease with a family who owns the property for the whole building, and we have gotten creative with our space there… We still lease from them, but we are bursting at the seams, quite literally.”

Though they supply “a few restaurants” with their high-quality, nationally award-winning meat, Reams said to enjoy RJ’s at home, one must shop the old-fashioned way.

“Everything is sold right out our front door,” he said.

‘Something that was meant to be’

Reams said when he got his start at RJ’s in 1977 – known then as Jim’s Meats after its founder, Jim Schmitz – there weren’t a lot of employment options for young high schoolers such as himself.

“[Working at Jim’s Meats] was [the job] that everybody waited for,” he said. “Every two years, it would turn over, because you’d start at 16 [years old] and leave after [your] senior year. I happened to be in the right year.”

Though meat processing is something Reams said has always interested him, he didn’t consider where the job at Jim’s would take him.

“I was interested in it and didn’t know it,” he said. “I always enjoyed meat. I was always at my dad’s side when he’d be grilling or doing anything, and I would make homemade beef jerky for everybody to share. So, it was, I guess, a natural [progression] – something that was meant to be.”

However, Reams said he didn’t jump straight into the business after high school, instead deciding to serve in the U.S. Air Force – where he got the nickname “RJ” – until 1982, and ultimately rejoined the Jim’s Meats team in 1986.

“I knew when I got out of the Air Force I had done everything in that career field that I wanted to, and I knew I wanted to get back into the meat industry,” he said. “I wanted to own a butcher shop in Wisconsin. I just didn’t know where. I had no clue it would end up being in Hudson.”

Nor, he said, did he know the butcher shop he would own would be the one where he first learned the trade.

“I just walked right back into the position here, [but] had never thought about owning it until almost a year later when Jim called me up and said, ‘That’s it – I’m done training butchers to go someplace else,’” he said. “[Jim] said, ‘I’ll put in a good word for you [with the landlord] if you want to take it over or buy [the business]. I won’t sell you my name, [but] I’ll sell you my inventory and equipment.’”

So, a year after coming back to work for Jim’s Meats, Reams said he purchased the business – now known as RJ’s Meats.

Legacy business dreams

Nearly a decade after buying the business – according to the website, rjmeats.com – Anne left her full-time banking job in 1995 to work alongside her husband at RJ’s.

“We had [just] had our third child and shortly after, the opportunity to occupy the whole building where we’re located came to us,” she said. “The workload got larger, and Rick wasn’t going to be able to juggle all of the balls [by himself].”

At the time, Anne said she was excited to join her husband in the world of being one’s own boss, before reality quickly set in as RJ’s Meats grew.

“I was kind of a smart aleck at that time, and when I left the bank, I thought I was going on to a six-hour-a-day, easy-street, keeping-up-with-some-stuff kind of job,” she said. “But the job grew [as] the business grew.”

Similarly, over the years, Anne said the RJ’s staff grew as her and Rick’s three sons – Anthony, Aaron and Joe – all joined the company, followed by their nephew Cody, per the website.

“I was [probably] 12 when I actually got my first real paycheck,” Joe said. “But one of my earliest memories was helping my mom empty one of the coolers while my dad and older brothers were in Canada fishing, and I was [roughly] three [years old].”

Though he admits that as a child, he didn’t spend as many hours learning the tricks of the trade as his older brothers – “I was smart enough to play sports” – Joe said he started working full-time at RJ’s after graduating high school.

“I was just working the counter, closing shifts, daytime shifts – whatever we needed – and then went to [the University of Wisconsin]-River Falls for school for a few years,” he said.

Joe said he returned home after a short stint in college and took on “more of a managerial role” at RJ’s.

“Then I was cutting meat full-time, transitioned over more into the bakery – [where RJ’s makes buns and rolls] –  and learned the ropes of bookkeeping and taking over the stuff that my mom does,” he said. 

Learning the ins and outs of RJ’s Meats, Joe said, is a step in his parents’ succession plan for the business.

“The succession plan has been in progress for a while,” he said.

‘Coast-to-coast’ support

Reams said it’s the people he’s met and had the opportunity to work with who invigorate his love for the industry, with Joe following in his father’s footsteps.

Anne said she and all of the RJ’s employees are regularly met with a more-than-welcoming attitude.

“Being in the same place for all these years – where people see you and share their lives with you – it’s hard to describe that to the younger employees, because they don’t have a lot [of experience] to go on [because] they’re new in the workplace,” she said. “But over the years, I’ve [told them not to] be surprised if somebody says, ‘I’m so glad you guys are here’ [or] ‘we love you guys’ – just be prepared for it.”

The loyalty Anne said she and her family have earned from customers at RJ’s is a result of the shop’s longevity – something Reams said he personally experiences every day as he approaches 50 years in the business.

“I’m seeing great-grandchildren of customers from when I was in high school, and I waited on them, and it’s really special to be a part of their lives and to grow with them,” he said. “That’s what I live for. That’s why I wanted to do this in the first place – to give people something great [and] ensure quality.”

When RJ’s Meats was “going through a rough spell in the mid-1990s – the red meat industry was bad” – about the time Joe was born, Reams said the support they received spread much further than the West Wisconsin region.

“I found myself talking with someone about the Wisconsin Association of Meat Processors (WAMP),” he said.

When he purchased the business from Schmitz, Reams said he wasn’t made aware of any trade associations for people in his line of work.

“Jim had told me I was on my own – that he didn’t know of any trade associations,” he said. [But] thanks to a gentleman [I met, I was] introduced to WAMP. I made numerous friends who have shared the same passion I’ve got for meat, and they’ve shared a lot with me from all parts of Wisconsin.”

Shortly thereafter, Reams said he also joined the American Association of Meat Processors.

“[I have] friends from coast to coast now, literally, who keep me energized,” he said. “We’ll talk quite frequently throughout the year on different projects, and some of them [have] become like family to me.”

Joe said he also feels that familial experience both with his colleagues in the industry and with the customers at RJ’s.

“I know any job can just be a job, but for us, we’re so public-facing that I get to wait on the same customers week in and week out, and I get to watch their families grow,” he said. “But the first time I ever [thought] maybe it’s something I want to do long term, was actually the first time I got to go to the [WAMP] convention when I was 19.”

Experiencing the energy of a trade-specific convention where he was surrounded by like-minded people with similar passions, Joe said, solidified his love for the meat processing industry. 

“Getting to see all of these people… sitting in on the classes there and [learning] how and why things work – you get to nerd out with people on the thing you do for a living,” he said.

New ideas = bigger business

Once the RJ’s name was on the sign, Reams said he got to work implementing his ideas for the shop.

“I’ve had some winners, and I’ve had some flops – there’s no doubt about it,” he said. “But that’s what success is – finding out what your failures are, building on those and getting back up.”

One of his “winners,” Reams said, was the introduction of smoked meats.

According to the website, RJ’s acquired its first smokehouse in 1992 and that “prior to [it,] all bacon, hams, ring bologna and any other smoked meats were purchased from vendors.”

The goal of the smokehouse, per the website, was to create smoked items in house.

However, more products, Anne said, required additional staff – something she said RJ’s didn’t have many of when they acquired the business.

“For quite a long time, [we had] either four or five employees, [and] if we lost one, we’d hurry up and get that fifth one back,” she said. 

When they added smoked meat and the shop got busier, Anne said that number increased into the teens.

“[Then], during COVID-19… we found [the lowest number of employees we need] to function was 23,” she said.

In order to help their employees and themselves maintain a work-life balance, Anne said they decided to close RJ’s on Sundays – and, though a pandemic-era decision, Reams said the change still remains today.

“When I took over the business, we opened seven days and on Sundays, the meat department was open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., so we scaled that back to noon to 3 p.m.,” she said. “When COVID hit, business was unbelievable because people weren’t able to go to the restaurants, so it was only a few days after the country shut down [that] I told everybody, ‘We are closed on Sundays [because] this business is crazy right now, and I want everybody to have a day of sanity’ – a day where they knew they wouldn’t be called in.”

Another change, Reams said, was obtaining higher-level certifications from both the state and federal governments so he could sell products from RJ’s to a larger customer base.

“I found out in Wisconsin, we could have the state come in and inspect us, which was a step above [our] retail exemption,” he said. 

State inspectors, Reams said, helped him get RJ’s Meats on track with food safety programs for the smoking and curing of meats.

Up next, he said, was becoming a federally inspected meat plant, which happened in 2015.

“We can sell literally anywhere in the country,” he said.

However, just because they can, Reams said, doesn’t mean they do, as he wants to ensure the quality of his products will not wane in transit.

“The quality has got to be there – that’s what I built it on,” he said. “I want the customers to have the same experience every time they come back, and scaling it up has been a challenge, because sometimes I feel we have to sacrifice quality, which I’m not willing to do. But having USDA inspection is a big leg up already for the boys and what they want to do [with the business].”

‘A good foundation’

The possibility for growth that remains in the business, Anne said, is what excites her when thinking about her sons taking over RJ’s Meats.

“They have a perspective of having seen the whole picture for so many years and such, but they, at the same time, have a fresh take on employee relations, what people like to do in their spare time and what they like to cook and eat,” she said. “There are a lot of neat skills and knowledge that they’re building, [so] I know they’re… starting from a good foundation.”

Having grown up in the same facility he now helps manage, Joe said he’s excited to carry on the honor and duty of operating a community cornerstone such as RJ’s Meats.

“There’s not an inch of that store where I can’t think of something that happened there – good, bad or otherwise – random surfaces that I have cut my fingers on and whatnot,” he said.

Similarly to his dad now serving the great-grandchildren of people he waited on when he was in high school, Joe said he’s experiencing that generational growth as well.

“I have some customers I see [who], when I started working, they had a [small] kid and now that kid is in high school…,” he said. “I [also hear], ‘I remember you when you were this small.’”