KunzlerPlant.jpg

The Kunzler & Co. plant along Manor Street in Lancaster.

Kunzler & Co., a more than a century old Lancaster city-based hot dog and ham maker, is in talks to be acquired by Montgomery County-based Clemens Food Group.

Kunzler and Clemens released a joint statement confirming negotiations after an inquiry from LNP | LancasterOnline. 

“Both companies are working toward a final agreement that will allow (Clemens Food Group) to take possession of all Kunzler operations and locations,” the joint statement said. “Until the purchase agreement is executed, no further details will be made public. Both parties are excited to bring our operations together to best meet our customers’ needs.”

The companies did not say how long negotiations would take.

Clemens is a sixth-generation family-owned business founded in Hatfield. Clemens pork brands include Hatfield, Farm Promise and Prima Porta. According to the National Hog Farmer, a trade magazine, Clemens Food Group is the country's fifth largest domestic fresh pork processor.

The privately-held Clemens has about $2 billion in revenue annually, according to an October report in The Philadelphia Business Journal.

Clemens Food Group owns Country View Family Farms LLC, a Middletown-based hog procurement and production company that is building a $47 million hog feed mill project capable of producing 8,000 tons of feed a week in Union County, according to Lancaster Farming.

Kunzler & Co. is led by Chris Kunzler III, the great-grandson of the founder Christian Kunzler, a German immigrant who invested his $700 life savings to start a sausage-making business in Lancaster city. Headquartered at 652 Manor St., the company also operates a plant in Blair County near Altoona where it processes other products, including bacon and luncheon meat. The company makes more than 500 different meat products.

In 2017, LNP | LancasterOnline reported Kunzler had annual sales around $150 million and about 600 employees, 300 in Lancaster. About 170 employees at Kunzler are members of Local 152 of the United Food & Commercial Workers, according to a 2018 LNP | LancasterOnline report. The union’s representative did not respond to a call from LNP | LancasterOnline on Friday.

Newsletter

What to Read Next

Tags