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A Hot Dog That Cuts The Mustard
Usinger family's sausage selected for Salt Lake City Olympic Games

Thursday, August 3, 2000
By Janice Lloyd
USA TODAY

Debra Usinger remembers being a tiny child looking for the elves in her family's factory in Milwaukee. "They were always sleeping, of course," she says. "And we could never find them." Usinger, 46, now a vice president of Fred Usinger, Inc., a gourmet sausage and specialty meat company that will provide the frankfurters for the Salt Lake City Olympics, says the elves are still very much at the heart of her family’s old-fashioned values for sausage-making. "I’ve grown up in an environment of magic and whimsy," says Usinger. "We were always told that part of the German tradition was that elves made sausages in the dead of night."

The family traditions can be linked back four generations to Frederick Usinger, who came to Milwaukee in the 1870s from Wehen, Germany, where he learned the art of his craft. He met his wife in Milwaukee. They married, lived above the store, would make sausages during the night and sell sausages on the street the next day. Now, the Usingers ship their products all over the country. They make more than 70 different items, including all-beef salami, beerwurst and liver sausages. All fresh ingredients are used up front, and a special smoking procedure is the final touch. "Our niche is high quality, old world," says Debra, who oversees the gift catalog that can be found on www.usinger.com.

"You’ll find our products in areas that are specialty food stores or in areas with strong European background." Despite the growth of the business and the purchase of an off-site distribution center, the family has stayed put in its original building on Old World Third Street. "I imagine it to be what it was like when my great grandfather was here," says Debra. "I’m glad my dad had a strong historical vision not to change anything. We’ve always been very protective of it." The marble countertops, tile floors and smoking process are leftovers from great grandfather. Some of the ingredients have changed though - and that’s how the family got its Olympic job with the Salt Lake City Games.

In 1995, the Usingers started making Certified Angus Beef Products. When Salt Lake City chose Certified Angus Beef as its official supplier for the 2002 Winter Games, the Usingers were picked as the frankfurter supplier. "We literally searched to find the best hot dog in the U.S.," says Don Pritchard, director of food services for Salt Lake City. "We had a huge summit meeting. The culmination was a meeting in their plant. It was really fun. We took corporate chefs out there to make sure everything was 100% quality. We tried three different cases. We could have talked about sausages for days. The last day was eating hot dogs all day." The result is a quarter-pounder that is already gaining notice. "I’ve been getting calls from all over, including the NFL," says Pritchard. And as far away as Australia.

"We’re going to serve the hot dogs in Sydney this summer at a hospitality tent at the Olympics," says Pritchard, adding that he had some interesting dealings with customs in Australia, but finally got the green light to ship 5,000 pounds of the hot dogs to their shores. "The Australians are really taken with it as well and are very supportive of our raising the quality on franks."

Pritchard says Salt Lake Organizing Committee President Mitt Romney likes the Usinger’s entrepreneurial spirit and is committed to making the Games memorable for everyone. Sometimes the shared hot dog at the stadium with a parent or friend can be a big part of that memory. So how many hot dogs will be needed for those memories? Pritchard’s calculations put it at 1.6 million. Those Usinger elves are going to be stuffing in some overtime hours.

Murals of the elves were painted for the store at the turn of the century. The artwork is part of the history still decorating the walls. "The last mural has an elf sleeping on a stool," says Debra Usinger. "Underneath it says in German ‘Beautiful dream.’ "It was my great grandfather’s dream," she adds. That dream carries a dignity - and one that rarely refers to the product as a hot dog. Sausages, frankfurters or wieners are much more palatable names to the family.

But Debra Usinger begrudgingly accepts that most Americans refer to frankfurters as hot dogs. "It doesn’t really matter," she says. It especially won’t matter as long as the family’s product gets the kind of reviews at the Olympics that would make great grandfather most proud. The Salt Lake organizers want to be able to say this is the gold medal of hot dogs. The elves would sleep very well on their stools with that accolade.

"Copyright 2000, USA TODAY. Reprinted with permission."