Greatness starts and ends with something simple. Successful entrepreneurs understand and embrace this. For Nate Kraft, founder of Krafty’s Meat Market, it is all about making food taste good. This is simple to understand and important – we all love good tasting food.
Our Story
Since the April 17, 2021 soft opening
of Krafty’s Meat Market, Northwest Iowa is enjoying a taste of something new. We are now being treated to some unique flavors that we did not enjoy a mere two weeks ago. My family visited Nate’s family business and reviewed the selection of locally sourced fresh meats, cheeses, breads and ice cream desserts. And what a selection they have!
Let’s touch on Krafty’s signature offering: bratwurst.
Fifteen flavors of brats are available right now. Some are flavors you know and crave like tomato-basil, onion and garlic, pineapple and pilsner. Others are less common like Jamaican Jerk. And the fresh brats Nate was preparing when I stopped in yesterday – gummy bear brats – are a flavor my family had NEVER before experienced. By year’s end we will all enjoy 50 different flavors of brats to choose from.
Krafty’s Meat Market is a family business.
Nate’s family comes to the Corridor region from Southern Minnesota and is a great example of the quality folks we wish to attract with the Corridor’s www.GetALakesLife.com initiative. The Kraft family has been vacationing in Okoboji for years and long ago set the goal of moving to the region. Daughter Jasmine is studying at Mankato State University and has been working at Snappers in the summers. Nate’s wife Tina works at JBS in Worthington, MN.
Nate himself benefits from 17 years of experience in the protein business.
I also have met Nate’s dad, a grocer with 30 years of experience, while he has been helping out at the market. With all of this experience in the meat business, you might think launching this startup would be easy, but understand that the simple concept of making food taste good requires overcoming a great deal of complex issues. The Krafts had to oversee the design and construction of their building, decide what products to produce in the market and which products to source from others, decide on what equipment to utilize, develop food safety protocols including writing a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plan and comply with a variety of local, state and federal regulatory requirements. The Kraft family successfully overcame many, many complex issues over the past few months.
I have enjoyed getting to know Nate and his family as they prepared to launch Krafty’s Meat Market. I find Nate to be humble, hungry and smart. He is thankful for the opportunity to operate his business and is grateful for the folks who have stopped by to shop his selection of locally-sourced and naturally-produced foods. Greatness does start and end with something simple like making food taste good. While a great deal of complexity hides behind the curtain, Nate sure does make the complicated look easy. And does the food taste good? I’ll just say my family enjoyed Krafty’s butterfly pork chops last night and they were fresh and full of flavor!
