Columbus Craft Meats (variously known as Columbus Salame, Columbus Sausage Company, and Columbus Foods, Inc.) is an American food processing company specializing in

salami Salami ( ; : ''salame'') is a ''salume'' consisting of fermented and air-dried meat, typically pork. Historically, salami was popular among Southern, Eastern, and Central European peasants because it can be stored at room temperature fo ...

and other prepared

delicatessen A delicatessen or deli is a grocery that sells a selection of fine, exotic, or foreign prepared foods. Delicatessens originated in Germany (contemporary spelling: ) during the 18th century and spread to the United States in the mid-19th centur ...

meats, founded in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

in 1917. Their current headquarters are in

Hayward, California Hayward is a city located in Alameda County, California, United States, in the East Bay subregion of the San Francisco Bay Area. With a population of 162,954 as of 2020, Hayward is the sixth largest city in the Bay Area, and the third largest in ...

. Their products are sold at supermarkets locally and nationwide, including

Costco Costco Wholesale Corporation is an American multinational corporation which operates a chain of membership-only big-box warehouse club retail stores. As of 2021, Costco is the third-largest retailer in the world, and as of August 2024, Cos ...

Safeway Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain. The chain provides grocery items, food and general merchandise and a variety of specialty departments, such as bakery, delicatessen, floral and pharmacy, as well as Starbucks coffee shops, and veh ...

, Cost Plus and

Trader Joe's Trader Joe's is an American grocery store chain headquartered in Monrovia, California, with 597 locations across the US. The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe in Pasadena, California. In 1979, the chain was s ...

. Their

artisanal An artisan (from , ) is a skilled craft worker who makes or creates material objects partly or entirely by hand. These objects may be functional or strictly decorative, for example furniture, decorative art, sculpture, clothing, food ite ...

products, including specialty

salumi (: , ) are Italian cuisine, Italian meat products typical of an antipasto, predominantly made from pork and Curing (food preservation), cured. They also include bresaola, which is made from beef, and some cooked products, such as mortadell ...

, have been praised by food critics.

History

Columbus Craft Meats Charcuterie Trio combination open

Italian immigrants Peter Domenici and Enrico Parducci founded what was then the San Francisco Sausage Company in 1969. The company moved its production facilities to

South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially termed "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. History P ...

in 1967. They introduced deli meats to their product line in 1974. Albert Piccetti was president of the company for 40 years, and died in 1998. Columbus Salame hired Studio Hinrichs, in association with

Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around ...

, to revamp their company logo, emphasizing their Italian heritage, including use of the

Bodoni Bodoni (, ) is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone (typography), Didone or modern. Bo ...

typeface. On August 28, 2009, a leak at their South San Francisco facility sent 200 pounds of

anhydrous ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pungent smell. It is widely used in fertilizers, ...

into the air, sickening more than two dozen people. The company paid $850,000 in penalties, and agreed to facility upgrades to settle a lawsuit filed by

San Mateo County San Mateo County ( ), officially the County of San Mateo, is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 764,442. Redwood City, California, Redwood City is th ...

. They opened a new $31 million processing facility in Hayward in 2011, replacing their former facility in

, which had been devastated by a fire. Endeavor Capital, a private equity firm, acquired majority control of the company in 2006. In 2012, the company was sold to another private equity firm, Arbor Investments. On November 27, 2017, Austin, Minnesota based Hormel Foods purchased the company for $850 million.

John Piccetti

Co-owner John Piccetti has coauthored a book, ''Salumi: Savory Recipes and Serving Ideas for Salame, Prosciutto, and More'', with cookbook author Joyce Goldstein, Charcutier Francois Vecchio, and David Rosengarten.

References

External links

Columbus Foods websiteColumbus Craft Meats Blogweblog featuring a facility tour, 25 October 2011
{{Hormel Food and drink companies established in 1917 1917 establishments in California Companies based in Hayward, California Food and drink in the San Francisco Bay Area Sausage companies of the United States Food and drink companies based in California Hormel Foods 2017 mergers and acquisitions

History

John Piccetti

See also

References

External links