HOMEWOOD, Ill.–This week, Carl Buddig and Company was honored with the prestigious Dean’s Award at the 24th Annual Illinois Family Business of the Year Awards for their commitment to family business, supply chain management, social responsibility and emerging markets. The award and ceremony are presented by The Family Business Center at Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business. Presented in six categories, the annual awards recognize companies with exceptional commitment to family and family business. Those recognized have demonstrated positive family/business linkage, multigenerational family business involvement, contributions to industry and community, and innovative business practices and strategies.
Carl Buddig began distributing meats throughout Chicago in 1943. He and his family worked hard to earn the trust of meat packers and retailers, treating each with same honesty and respect they valued in their own family. The idea of family was at the heart of everything Carl did, including relationships with employees and customers. With Carl Buddig & Company celebrating 75 years of family ownership, the fourth generation of Buddigs have now entered the business. Today the company has grown to almost 2000 employees. Or, as the current management team sees it, 2000 families who are all part of the Buddig family.
“We consider our employees, sales associates, customers and the community to be an extension of our Buddig family,” said Bob Buddig, 3rd Generation CEO. “We are honored to receive an award that recognizes our commitment to family, and we will continue to pass down the values that have served us well as a family and a business for generations to come.”
Carl Buddig and Company collaborates to bring high quality lunchmeat, sausage, and ready to eat meals to consumers nationally through various channels from grocery to food service and convenience stores. In addition to the quality sliced lunch meats American families loved for generations, the Buddig family of products has expanded over the years with the acquisition of the Old Wisconsin Sausage Company in 1981. The recent acquisition of CBQ also brings ready to eat meats to the table and the company will launch Kingsford brand BBQ Ribs and entrees this December. Carl Buddig & company continues to expand, developing new product innovations to meet changing consumer needs in the US and through export.
Nourishing the extended Buddig family also includes giving back to the company’s community and the neighborhoods where Buddig’s large workforce lives—most within 30 minutes of their plant. In addition to individual philanthropy from the family to help support the community, Carl Buddig is a high touch organization with employees at all levels contributing to charitable activities year-round through the Cancer Walk, local food drives and volunteer days. Most recently, Carl Buddig & Company donated 250,000 pounds of meat to the Greater Chicago Food Depository and coordinated multiple volunteer days on site to package the meat for distribution.
“Family businesses like Carl Buddig and Company that achieve tremendous success and growth while still remaining true to the essence of family business are the quiet heroes of our economy and our communities,” said Anne Smart, director of the Loyola Family Business Center. "We recognize Buddig's efforts and congratulate them for 75 years of a job well done.”
About Carl Buddig & Company
Based in Homewood, Illinois, Carl Buddig & Company has been feeding family traditions for nearly 75 years with the very best in taste, variety and convenience. Carl Buddig & Company is the family-owned parent company of Buddig lunchmeat, Old Wisconsin hardwood-smoked sausage and snack products and CBQ pre-cooked ribs and barbecue entrees. Buddig offers an assortment of quality, thin-sliced lean meats for sandwiches, snacks and special recipes including Buddig Original, Premium Deli and Fix Quix® products. Old Wisconsin sausage and meat snack products are handcrafted and smoked over real hardwood fires. CBQ offers restaurant-quality, ready-to-eat barbecued meats, ribs and heat-and-serve entrees. To learn more, visit www.buddig.com and www.oldwisconsin.com.
About Family Business Center at Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business
The Family Business Center at Loyola has been supporting its member businesses and families, their employees and communities for 26 years. In 2016, the Family Business Center joined four other centers of excellence as part of the Loyola Business Leadership Hub. The Loyola Business Leadership Hub connects businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies to the experts, research, and resources in the Quinlan School of Business, Loyola University Chicago and the global Jesuit network of colleges and universities.
As part of the Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business, the center upholds the Jesuit tradition of excellence in education, focusing on responsible leadership and development of the whole person. For more information, visit LUC.edu/fbc, or follow us on Twitter via @LoyolaFamilyBiz.
About Loyola University Chicago
Founded in 1870, Loyola University Chicago is one of the nation’s largest Jesuit, Catholic universities, with more than 16,600 students. Nearly 11,500 undergraduates call Loyola home. The University has four campuses: three in the greater Chicago area and one in Rome, Italy, as well as course locations in Beijing, China; Saigon-Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Vernon Hills, Illinois (Cuneo Mansion and Gardens); and a Retreat and Ecology Campus in Woodstock, Illinois. The University features 13 schools, colleges, and institutes, including the Quinlan School of Business, Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing, Stritch School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Communication, School of Continuing and Professional Studies, School of Education, School of Law, School of Social Work, Graduate School, Institute of Pastoral Studies, Institute of Environmental Sustainability, and Arrupe College of Loyola University Chicago. Ranked a top national university by U.S. News & World Report, Loyola is also among a select group of universities recognized for community service and engagement by prestigious national organizations like the Carnegie Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service. To learn more about Loyola, visit LUC.edu, “like” us at Facebook.com/LoyolaChicago, or follow us on Twitter via @LoyolaChicago or @LoyolaNewsroom.
Source: Carl Buddig & Company