How Jim Zuber Helped Landjaegers Go Mainstream
A New Glarus sausage maker turned an old world Swiss snack into a familiar sight at checkout counters across Wisconsin, building Zuber’s Sausage Kitchen through ingenuity, endurance and a drive to make one niche product exceptionally well.
Long before landjaegers appeared beside cash registers in convenience stores across Wisconsin, they were a deeply regional food — a dry, smoked sausage familiar in communities such as New Glarus and Monroe but largely unknown beyond them.
Jim Zuber helped change that.
Through persistence, experimentation and a few deceptively simple innovations, the New Glarus High School graduate transformed the traditional Swiss snack into a widely distributed Wisconsin product. At the height of his business, Zuber’s Sausage Kitchen in Monroe was producing thousands of pairs of landjaegers each week and sending them to hundreds of locations around the state.
Sadly though, Zuber died Oct. 2, 2023, at age 63, following years of declining health after a severe stroke. He left behind more than a sausage company. He helped create a market, established a recognizable brand and made landjaeger familiar to generations of Wisconsin travelers, hunters and tavern customers.
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