More groceries available in Weyauwega
By James Card
Weyauwega Star Dairy has transformed its retail space into an inventory-packed grocery store, giving more shopping options to residents in a supermarket-less town.
Three-quarters of the shelving is new and is loaded with 1,300 new grocery products.
They have a new eight-door freezer for meat products. They have Angus beef that is locally grown in the town of Lind by Waupaca High School FFA alumni Joey Gullickson.
The meat is processed by Niemuth’s and Nueske’s. They have another four-door freezer for frozen foods. There is an ice cream freezer loaded with 80 flavors from Cedar Crest, Kemps and Blue Bunny with 20 more flavors coming in. There are also sherbets, sorbets and custards.
“One thing I’m working on is getting in Berres Brothers full line of coffee. I’m talking to Mud Creek to get their bakery mixes in. They are really popular along with Namaste Foods baking mixes. They make one of the best baking mixes in the country. I’m also working with Nueske’s to get their pork products in like bacon and pork chops. We’re really going for Wisconsin-themed high-quality products. We’ve got about 1,300 grocery items at this point. We’re slowly going refine that and as the community gives its feedback we’ll keep improving. It’s a lot of stuff in one little store,” said manager John Mlsna.
“I’ve been checking prices with Festival and we’re right in line with them. We didn’t raise prices because we’re a small store,” said Mike Knaus who co-owns the business with this brother Gerard.
They still have fresh cheese curds daily and fresh Colby is on sale in June to celebrate National Dairy Month. Weyauwega Star Dairy has also branded their own bloody mary mix and they make their own frozen pizzas in-house.
Will Star Diary try to make another world’s longest piece of string cheese again and beat their record?
“We haven’t decided that yet but we might. My brother gets an aching in his body and then the next thing you know, we’ll be out there making the world’s longest string cheese again. That was fun last time. We had a big crowd,” said Knaus.