By Rod Bacon<\/p>\n
After a hiatus due to the untimely passing of its owner, Parillo\u2019s Sausage is in the process of being rebranded and expanded.<\/p>\n
The 73-year-old business was closed in January due to the inability of second-generation owner Marc Parillo to operate it because of ill health. Marc\u2019s daughter, Marisa Rahman, officially reopened it in November and is in the process of significantly expanding its market. In the interim she sold the company\u2019s proprietary spices online, something her father never did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI obviously know the recipes so I sold the spices on my own,\u201d she said. \u201cI built a website and sold them on Etsy and they did pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rahman, who is currently employed full-time as a partner\/sales director for a software company, has been involved with Parillo\u2019s Sausage since she was 10 years old. At that age she wasn\u2019t making sausage but over the years when her father suffered a couple of heart attacks she ran the business totally on her own.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why it wasn\u2019t hard for me to pick it up now and run with it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The business was started in 1951 by Rahman\u2019s grandparents, Joseph and Ruth Parillo, in their garage on Elbern Street in Saratoga. In 1971 they purchased the building at 90 Washington Street in what is now a historic district of Saratoga Springs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Parillo family had a sausage business in Italy and some of the recipes could have originated with them. In any case, the recipes have been modified over the years to conform to market trends. Marc, for example, completely removed the sugar from the breakfast sausage and some special spices have been made a bit more spicy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe recipes have definitely changed but I wouldn\u2019t say there\u2019s been a dramatic change,\u201d Rahman said.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s signature offerings include sweet and hot Italian links, bulk sausage, and breakfast sausage. These are complemented by their proprietary seasoning blends that have been perfected over generations.<\/p>\n Throughout the company\u2019s history their commercial customers have been primarily in Saratoga and Warren counties. They provide products to seven Hannaford Supermarkets as well as restaurants and pizza parlors in the area. Longtime clients include Mama Mia\u2019s, the Barrelhouse, West Side Sports Bar & Grill, Country Corner, Pope\u2019s Pizza, and Pizza Etc. There are also a handful of diners in Warren County.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span>\u201cPoopy\u2019s diner uses a lot of sausage,\u201d Rahman noted.\u201d<\/p>\n Rahman has ambitious goals to expand well beyond the local area. Her business plan, which she wrote with he help of Matt Hosek, a business advisor at the Small Business Development Corp. at the University at Albany, includes establishing national distribution and exporting to Canada.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Locally, she plans to strengthen wholesale connections with restaurants and grocery stores, modernize her facility to conform with USDA standards, expand retail sales and product offerings, and grow online sales by launching direct-to-consumer e-commerce with a focus on high-demand regions for Italian cuisine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n While the company\u2019s tried-and-true recipes will still be available, new offerings will include leaner, lower sodium varieties; possibly plant-based options; and seasoning packs which are currently available online.<\/p>\n To provide retail sales, Rahman converted a small office into a space containing shelves holding seasoning packs. She plans to install a small glass-door refrigerator to sell sausages and possibly some cheeses. At first, this area will be open three days a week when the sausage is being made.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Currently, Rahman and her daughter, Alexa, comprise the entire staff. In addition to helping her mother make sausage, Alexa, who will start law school next year, is the company\u2019s legal advisor and bookkeeper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what I\u2019m going to do when she goes to school,\u201d Rahman said. \u201cShe\u2019s been awesome and I\u2019m going to be lost when she leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n In the not too distant future Rahman is going to have to hire a part-time employee that may turn into a full-time position. While part of the process is mechanized, there is a fair amount of manual labor involved. The knowledge of how to use butcher knives is paramount as well as the physical strength to lift a 58.2-pound container of ingredients over one\u2019s head and put them into the hopper, where they come out of the grinder at the other end. It is then mixed by hand before being pushed through a shoot, put into a bucket and then into the stuffer for the final process of creating either link or bulk sausage that is put into bags.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhen my daughter and I put the mixture into the hopper we have to cut it in half to lift in up there,\u201d Rahman confided.<\/p>\n Rahman\u2019s mother, Cheryle, who had been the bookkeeper for Marc, wanted to close the business permanently when her husband died and at first Rahman agreed with her. But then she had what she calls \u201can epiphany\u201d and\u00a0 <\/span>decided she had to keep the business going.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to honor my dad,\u201d she said. \u201cHe did an amazing job of growing the business and having the customer base he had and it was just too hard for me to let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n To start to process of rebranding the business she first contacted Greg Connors, president of Saratoga Economic Development Corporation. SEDC has a small business startup initiative and Connors introduced her to Hosek at UAlbany. Hosek met with her several times while he and his research librarians helped her put together her business plan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing process,\u201d Hosek said. \u201cI\u2019m sure we\u2019ll have other meetings as she moves forward with her plan.\u201d<\/p>\n They were able to show her that market analysts predict that the sausage market will grow substantially in the coming years with a focus on natural, healthier options. U.S. market revenue is estimated to reach $23.4 billion this year.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Parillo\u2019s closed, it seemed quite traumatic for people who had liked them over the year\u2019s,\u201d Connors said. \u201cI think the economic impact for that niche market will be significant.\u201d<\/p>\n Rahman agrees. \u201cMy mother transferred the business to me and I want to blow it out of the park,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n For more information about the offerings of Parillo\u2019s Sausage go to https:\/\/parillosausage.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Rod Bacon After a hiatus due to the untimely passing of its owner, Parillo\u2019s Sausage is in the process of being rebranded and expanded. The 73-year-old business was closed in January due to the inability of second-generation owner Marc Parillo to operate it because of ill health. Marc\u2019s daughter, Marisa Rahman, officially reopened it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":89,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news"],"yoast_head":"\r\n