Meat+Poultry - February 2024 - 39

Kaminski] says, no, this is for Bobby Anderson
and Floyd Little and Pete Duranko and all the
Bronco line; we gotta make sausage for them.
And here we are, Deborski and Kaminsky's Old
Style Sausage. "
OLD SCHOOL
Deborski and Kaminski's Old Style Sausage
was the name of the company the first two
years and it became Old Style Sausage when
the company moved to its current location.
But the original crafting in small batches has
stayed the same.
Every piece of meat is hand trimmed and
Deborski believes that good in equals good out.
Rather than herb and spice mixes, Old Style
uses fresh cilantro, fresh green onions, fresh
garlic, frozen IQF brick blueberries and fresh
Granny Smith apples in the formulation of its
chicken apple sausage.
" So we're using fresh every point of the
way that we can and we think it makes a big
difference in the product, " Deborski said. " We
also do a lot of custom recipes, so we work
with chefs to develop recipes for them. There
is a lot of labor involved, but we think our
chefs appreciate it. "
The Louisville facility puts out roughly
6,000 lbs a week and what the company makes
today, gets shipped to Denver, a little over 30
minutes south, tomorrow to get worked out
of frozen inventory. With that volume in the
small footprint, Old Style Sausage does rely
on a Handtmann stuffer to get sausage in the
casing quickly.
" That's our primary stuffer, " Deborski said.
" It's been a good piece of equipment for us.
They've supported it well. "
The company employs eight, going to 10 in
the summer when school lets out and sees its
busiest times of the year from the beginning
of the spring through about the end of
November. Then a seasonal lull in the business
provides a little bit of a break to, " ...shine the
place up again and put things back in order, "
Deborski said.
Old Style ships to 26 cities nationally,
most are single pallet, LTL, and they go to
distributors such as Altamira, Gordon Food
Service, Shamrock Foods, Sysco Food Service,
US Foods, as well as a couple of high-end
specialty foodservice distributors. Everything
is foodservice except for one small retail
SURVIVAL AND GROWTH
Sixty percent of Old Style's business is
dedicated to supplying three- and four-star
rated Michelin hotels, and when COVID hit
many of those hotels suffered. But Old Style
Sausage made it through by participating in
Boulder Valley School District's The School
Food Project.
Many from the Deborski family were
students in the Boulder Valley district including
Mike, his kids and nephews, so the project
held a special place for him. The project works
to bring up the quality of foods in the district
to give kids better choices at the school, and
potentially keep them away from less healthy
alternatives, especially in the high schools.
" We partnered with them and we're
providing our high-end sausage products that
they serve at the school level, " Deborski said.
" So it's our Italian sausage and our brats and
they've had great success with it. They've been
a great relationship, and it really helped us
through COVID. "
Approximately 60% of Old Style's business
is high end, three to four star Michelin rated
hotels and COVID had a significant affect on
their business, and consequently, Old Style
Sausage's business.
" But it all turned out okay, " Deborski said.
" All of our customers are back and all of our
volumes are back, so it all worked out. "
Currently, Old Style services five different
hotel brands throughout the United States, four
of which want Old Style to grow with them and
get into more units. Fifty years of production in
a 1,600-square-foot space has put the company
at its maximum capacity.
" We actually grew out of our building to the
point that we have other companies copacking
and packaging for us, " Deborski said. " We grew
beyond it. "
Deborski would love to move into a new
and bigger building and believes Old Style will
at some point, but for right now he is taking
small steps to get to that point. He currently
has the plans for an addition to the existing
www.meatpoultry.com | 02.24 | MEAT+POULTRY
39
outlet, a high-end specialty market, Atlas
Valley Purveyors.
" The guy had to convince me that it was
a fit for us to do business and he's one of the
best customers I got right now, " Deborski said.
" Maybe not the biggest, but one of the best. "
" So we're
using fresh
every point of
the way that
we can and
we think it
makes a big
difference in
the product. "
- MIKE DEBORSKI
http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - February 2024

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