The Faber Sausage Company Story
According to Drew's records, Libbie and Hermann Faber started the Faber Sausage Company on April 13, 1961. FinancingLibbie's brother Aaron, recalls... "Libbie told me Hermann was going to
start his own sausage company and needed some financial help. I was all
excited. I had an accountant that worked for me check out the requirements
for selling it in California, which I figured to be a larger market than
Arizona. Also, Since he was the accountant for the Usinger Sausage
Company, the largest sausage maker in Wisconsin, he had access to recipes
and information on how to do things properly and efficiently." Aaron goes on to say... "I thought that
this would be a sensational company. I was thinking in terms of hundreds
of thousand of dollars to get it started and maybe more as we expanded.
Libbie then told me they didn't want a big company and only wanted to
borrow a few thousand, which I sent."
AdvertisingHermann made the most of his advertising dollar. After trying newspaper ads, he decided radio was the most effective medium for him because he could target his audience. He tried several stations with various formats--top 40, easy listening, classical, and news. KOOL, KOY, KPHO, and later KPHX were his most frequent choices to air the commercials. He asked all the retail customers where they heard the spots and made his decisions to buy time based on that guerrilla market research. The most remarkable thing about the commercials is that he never used an advertising agency. Whenever he felt the spots needed to be changed, he would write several 60-second spots, then call the radio station and make an appointment to come in to cut them. He voiced the spots himself. The radio station engineer would mix Hermann's prerecorded harmonica playing (German folk songs) into the background. With his German accent (which was especially thick whenever he was reading) and referring to himself as "that little old sausage maker," the commercials couldn't have been cornier. But in the world of advertising, that can spell success. He won awards from advertising organizations. He believed the shop could never have made it without the radio spots.
Safety Hermann was always concerned about safety.
There are a lot of ways to get injured in a sausage plant. Drew
remembers once when the family was on vacation in Milwaukee and touring
various sausage plants, Drew noticed that all of managers were missing a
finger or a limb! Hermann never lost any of his body parts. Drew did
cut the tip of a finger on the meat slicer... and Harvey did lose the tip
of a finger in the grinder.
The DogsThe sausage company was located in an industrial area… 9233 N 10th Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85021. There was always a watch dog for security. Drew didn't think that having a dog in the yard would protect the inside of the business, but Hermann explained that the criminals don't know that the dog couldn't get inside.
The first dog was Butch. Butch actually belonged to the electrical business to the south of the plant. But, there was no fence between the two lots in the beginning. The buildings were both owned by the same landlord. The dogs that watched the yard were: Popeye (Airedale terrier mix,) Thor (German Shepherd,) Bruno (German Shepherd,) and Dobie the Doberman. All of the dogs came from the dog pound.
Ironically, Thor died from complications resulting from a thunderstorm. (Thor is the Norse god of thunder.) During a storm, he broke threw a door's window. He suffered major cuts as a result. Hermann found him in the morning in a pool of blood. He took him to the vet, but the vet couldn't do anything for him and put him to sleep.
Bruno was lame! He wouldn't bark at
strangers…. and that was his job! Drew started calling him
Bone-head. Libbie didn't like that. Eventually, Bruno had to
be taken back to the pound and replaced with a more vicious dog.
Circuit Breakers Thunderstorms are common in Phoenix in the
summertime. If there were a chance that a particular thunderstorm
had blacked out Sunnyslope, then Hermann would have to make a late night
run to the plant to reset the circuit breakers. If he hadn't made
those late night trips, a lot of meat would have spoiled.
The Retail Sales AreaAudrey remembers that in the beginning, Libbie would bring platters of sausage out of the walk-in cooler when a retail customer would come to the store. They originally planned on being mainly wholesale. They ended up being mostly retail, but the wholesale side was still significant. Drew's earliest recollections of the retail sales area was a used refrigerated display case located in the sausage kitchen itself. The sausage kitchen had a swamp (evaporative) cooler. It was very uncomfortable in the summertime.
Later on, they added on and moved the retail sales area so it was right next to the office area. (The office area consisted of a cabinet, a desk, a chair for the desk, and two folding chairs.) The office area / sales area had an air conditioner! The new sales area had a brand new display case and a brand new meat slicer. It was very nice.
The TruckThe truck was a 1955 Chevrolet Panel Truck. It had a freezer on the inside. They would plug the freezer in to chill it down before making deliveries. (The freezer couldn't be plugged into the truck's electrical system. It had to be plugged into an outlet on the outside of the plant.) Libbie nicknamed the truck Mary the Meat Wagon. The kids would also use the truck when it was time to move out to Arizona State University. Drew remembers one time when he was driving on a fast stretch of Roosevelt or Washington and it shifted! The truck was an automatic and it shifted after he got going faster than 45 or so. It was a four-speed-automatic! Hermann would have the truck painted every
few years. The engine was rebuilt numerous times.
Personal Ethical ProblemsDrew had two issues with the sausage company. Both were a result of being sent to Hebrew School:
1) Why couldn't the sausage company be kosher? Answer: because there wasn't very much demand in Phoenix for kosher sausage. 2) Why was it open on Saturdays? Answer: because most people in this country expect retailers to be open on Saturdays. Even though Drew understood the answers, it was difficult to reconcile these because He was alternating working Saturdays at the plant and going to Hebrew school. On one hand he was learning about Jewish tradition and on the other he was working on Saturdays!
Libbie handled most of the sales tasks but
she never even tasted any of the sausage that contained pork. (The
all-beef varieties were: salami, knockwurst, and garlic weiners.) Although
Hermann was proud of the low fat content of his products, he never allowed
the kids to eat schmeerwurst, because of its high fat content. The Last Chance for a Sausage HeirHermann was a third generation sausage
maker. He wanted one of his children to take over the business. Drew
didn't like the heat and noise in the kitchen. Hermann was
frustrated because Drew was Hermann's last chance to take over the Faber
Sausage Company. All of the other children had already moved on to
other things.
After the last of the children graduated
college and moved away, Libbie wanted to retire. Hermann and Libbie tried
to sell the business. They were even willing to let Hermann continue to
run the kitchen. There were no takers. It was closed some time after
June 1977. The SausageLinked sausage: Regular Weiners (pork and beef) Garlic Weiners (all beef) Knackwurst (same as the Garlic Weiners but a quarter pound each) Bratwurst (Sheboygan style Bratwurst) Weisswurst (Bavarian Bratwurst, Bockwurst, Kalbswurst, white hots) Breakfast Links Hot Italian Sausage Sweet Italian Sausage Kielbasa (Polish Sausage) Fresh Kielbasa (around Christmas and Easter and once they got a freezer, year round) Portuguese
Linguica (a late addition to the many varieties)
Cold Cuts: Yachtwurst (ham with garlic) Berliner Ham (ham, no garlic, Christmas time only) Braunschweiger (liverwurst) Smoked Liverwurst Black Tongue (blood and tongue) Headcheese Salami Beerwurst (summer sausage) Thuringer (heavy smoke and sour, Drew loved it.) Bologna (pork and
beef)
Rings: Cervelat (same as Thuringer, later replaced by the Cervelat chub) Ring Bologna (same as the slicing bologna and the regular weiners) Sweedish Potato Sausage (fresh in the Winter, frozen the rest of the year) Liver ring Blood ring Schmeerwurst (Fleischwurst: high-fat, heavily smoked, spreadable)
Chubs (about 1 pound except as noted): Cervelat (same as the Thuringer, but in a chub) Salami Hard Salami Summer Sausage Stick Bologna (about 2 pounds)
Wholesale Only Red Label Salami (higher fat than the other Salami) Red Label Summer Sausage (higher fat than the Beerwurst) Chorizo
All images were restored by
Long Beach Photographer Drew Faber. © 2008 Drew &
Dan Faber |
