Whole Hog Now

Owens Sausage Began as Sideline

Unknown Dallas Newspaper
December 1973

By Blair Case, Business Writer

Clifford Owens has more time to reflect on the success of Owens Country Sausage now that he has turned the company’s operating reins over to his son, Jerry Owens.

He’s still amazed things worked out the way they have.

“Shoot, I was just trying to make a living,” the senior Owens said. “I started selling sausage commercially in 1926 using a recipe my father developed. At first, I peddled door-to-door in Dallas and later took orders over the telephone. It was just a sideline.

“I was killing two pigs a day when Jerry came along in 1933 and I thought I was doing pretty good.

“We had just gotten our first grocery store chain account the day before Jerry was born and my wife and I were packing sausage that night when we had to stop for the baby. I was left with all that sausage to pack and had to call neighbors to come over to help.”

Today Owens Country Sausage employs more than 200 employees at Spring Creek Farm in Richardson just two miles north of the farm where Clifford Owens slaughtered his own hogs.

The modern packing plant produces sausage and meat products distributed over a five-state area. Annual sales are approaching $20 million.

Jerry Owens says his working relationship with his father hasn’t changed much now that he is president and his father is board chairman.

“Jerry is 40 years old now, and I thought it was about time he took things over,” the senior Owens jokes. “But I’m going to be watching him real close.”

Explaining the marketing concept, Jerry Owens said, “We get hogs in one morning and ship them out the next morning ready for the counter. Our entire marketing concept is based on freshness.”

The Owens handle their own distribution in order to maintain quality control all the way to the grocery store counter. They have no intention of going public.

The prime cuts at Owens Country Sausage go into the sausage. Lard is the basic by-product. Clifford Owens says the sausage is every bit as good as the sausage his father made during hog killing weather back in Kaufman County, Tex.

The elder Owens claims management is a tougher job than the one he held when he slaughtered the hogs and made the sausage himself.

“Back then,” Owens said, “I had time to lay down for a while at night. Policy making, though, isn’t tough. The only other member on the board besides Jerry and myself happens to be my wife. We don’t have many arguments.”