Imagine a small meat processing company that actually has customers crying about its products. To verify this reality, you need to go no further than Sarasota, Fla., where there is a world class, Old World-style family business known as Geier's Sausage Kitchen.Five generations of the Geier family,whose roots go back to the small town of Selb,Germany, trace their meat skills and beam with pride at their journey to prominence in the world of small meat companies.Karl Geier and his wife Gisa recall their family's venture into the meat trade when nearly a century ago, their farm family began harvesting livestock and making their own sausage for others who raised livestock."They began selling a lot of meat and my father opened his own meat shop in 1929,"said Karl Geier. "I began working in the meat business at the age of 14 and learned as an apprentice the skills of the meat business. In 1959,I came to the United States to work for a large sausage company in Michigan."By 1981,I was ready to move to the warmer climate in Florida. Since I had a non-compete agreement with my former employer, Florida was a good choice. We built a small shop on a mini golf course and sold our sausages there. We later bought the whole thing."The small shop has seen numerous expansions in their enterprise in southern Sarasota and eventually they constructed a plant in the northern part of the city where they moved most of their production to keep up with demand.
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