In
1975, Bartel's two son's, Ramon and Anthony, brought the "family"
to their father's second family business and, in a way, paid
homage to what their father and his father had done forty years
before. Ramon, with his engineering background and Anthony,
with degrees in art & design, brought two needed skills to the
company to help it grow and expand with new packages and products.
In the late '70's, SACO introduced its first truly unique product
-- SACO Cultured Buttermilk
Powder. This dried, Cultured Buttermilk Blend quickly became
a kitchen staple, and is widely used by food writers, editors,
and recipe developers. It offered all the benefits of real Cultured
Buttermilk in cooking and baking, without the hassle of buying
fluid buttermilk, using a small portion in a recipe, and then
throwing (usually) the rest down the drain when it spoiled in
the fridge. And here's the surprise: SACO Cultured Buttermilk
is the only REAL buttermilk, fluid or dry, that you can buy
today! Curious?
The Sanna's success with the dry buttermilk now linked their
dairy business to the baking section of the grocery store, hence
the introduction of their next two innovative products, SACO
Baking Cocoa and SACO real
Chocolate CHUNKS.
Now that SACO Foods was in the chocolate business, a berry good
idea popped into their minds; an idea to develop a chocolate
especially formulated for creating chocolate dipped strawberries.
Ta Da! Dolci Frutta was born;
the first hard chocolate shell for coating strawberries... and
cherries, and dried apricots, and star fruit, and orange slices,
and mandarin sections, and bananas, and dried pears, and kiwi,
and dried prunes (yes prunes!), and grapes, and nuts, and...,
and..., and...!!! You get the picture!
But aside from the variety and uniqueness of SACO's products,
the quality of what they make and what they do has always been
the priority of the generations of the Sanna family. It shows
in the foods they produce, the long-term loyalty of SACO's employees
and customers, and the care they take in the workplace and natural
environment.
In 1995, SACO built a new packaging facility and warehouse in
Middleton, Wisconsin. This award-winning design was a far cry
from the closed-environment of the typical industrial-park building.
Lit primarily by natural light through an extensive use of glass,
the high-ceilinged and airy interior is sunlit and bright. Outside,
in harmony with an adjoining natural wetland, SACO spurned the
use of traditional grass landscaping (and its dependence on
pesticides & fertilizer), and restored the surrounding acreage
to its pre-farmland, natural Wisconsin prairie habitat. Summertime
is an ever-changing sea of flowers, prairie grasses, and the
constant hum of bird and bee activity.
So, if you were to drop by for a visit someday, you'd probably
find Ramon engineering some new piece of equipment, Anthony
involved in designing a package or new product, and Bartel,
active and at work everyday, enjoying his mid-eighties, looking
forward to his nineties, and taking pride in the success of
his second family business.
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