BBQ has always been one of our favorite flavors.  BBQ pizza, ribs, chips, sauces, and rubs—We just love BBQ!  When we set out to make the BBQ stick we decided there were a lot of them out there, so we needed to give it a twist. We have always had sweet tooths and decided we needed to make a sweet BBQ snack stick. We made one batch and passed them out to a bunch of people at our retail shop. Almost every customer asked if they could buy some right then and there. We had not made enough sticks to do that, but told them to have all the samples they like! BBQ was made once, and became an instant hit so we left it alone and started packaging it right away.

We had been given a sample of a spice pack for jerky and snack sticks. We made a batch of the sticks and really liked the flavor, but thought something was missing. After Jeff and Doug had talked, Jeff mentioned that we did not use any other ingredients and maybe this is the right place to try something new. So we went to the spice room, searched through box after box to give it that something special when we saw the jalapenos on the shelf. We knew that was the missing link. Lil Zip snack sticks with jalapenos for a mild kick!

When our dad started the business in 1977, he was speaking with some friends about how to make a great summer sausage. A friend of his from New Glarus, WI gave him a recipe, and we have never changed it!  If it is not broke, don't fix it! That is how our original snack stick was created—same great taste, same great recipe since 1977. We hope you enjoy what hard work and friendship has created here.

Every now and then you have an idea in your head that you want to work on. For us, this idea was the pizza snack stick. Doug was craving pizza when driving to a livestock sale. With nowhere to stop and buy a slice, he decided at that moment to make a pizza snack stick. He had no idea how hard this would be. 

When ordering some seasoning for this product, he accidentally ordered the wrong thing.  Not paying attention late in the day, and making a bunch of sample products, he used the seasoning anyway.  Fortunately, it really DID taste like pizza. He looked at the spice pack and decided sometimes things just work out. 

Spicy was originally called TEX-MEX Spicy, because some of the best sticks that we ever had were down in Texas. Those processors often use southwestern flavors, and we have always enjoyed their products. After a while, we couldn't figure out why people were hesitant to try it. We finally started asking, and found that people weren't sure what Tex Mex was, or how spicy it was. The named was changed to spicy and it has been a hit ever since.

Every company has a project that gives them challenge after challenge—ours is Sweet Teriyaki. Doug had tasted a great sweet teriyaki jerky that he fell in love with, while on the road with the Meats and Livestock judging teams at the University of Illinois. He would buy the product every time he saw it on the shelf. When he came home to the family business, he told himself someday he was going to make a product just as good, and perhaps even better. It took roughly 23 batches of snack sticks before, with the help of the spice company and one of their salesman, we finally got it! Sweet Teriyaki was born and, we could not be happier. It is our number one seller for a reason!