About me and the idea of making sausages
I'm Klaus Kretzer, born and raised in Germany, but live since 1992 in Iceland. My (Icelandic) wife and I have always wanted ti live in the countryside and in 2007 it finally happened, we moved from Reykjavík to Skaftafell in southeast Iceland where my wife is employed as manager of the southern part of the Vatnajökull National Park. No steady job awaited me, so I saw it as a great opportunity to develop my own ideas that I had had in mind for many years. The first project was a photo book with images of ice, taken at the Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon, where I had worked several years ago on the boats.
Next, I looked around here in Skaftafell. There were the sheep, roaming freely during the summer months in this grand landscape. And there were the crowds of tourists , also roaming the mountains in Skaftafell. Then I remembered an old idea that I wanted to tackle but obviously not on my own: making sausages from mutton, really good sausage, not the mass-produced goods you get in all supermarkets. I knew and appreciated smoked and air-dried sausage in all its local variety from Germany. Originally the idea was to lure a German butcher to Iceland to make such sausage. That would indeed have become a costly affair, so I decided to try it on my own. The raw material was there, the potential customer base also so I saw a limited risk in this approach. I bought some books on sausage making, tinkering a smoker (which I still use) and started at home in the kitchen with the sausage making (during my studies of agriculture, I had jobbed at a butcher's, so I had a vague idea of the methods and devices that are used in this tasty industry). The result was surprisingly good, as friends and family confirmed.
Next, I had to make the sausage according to food laws. In Iceland there is a governmental institution (Matis), which provides proper facilities and equipment to small producers in the food industry. I bought 10 sheep of my neighbours, deboned them in the food processing facility at Matis and started with the sausage making. In summer 2011, I sold the sausage in the Information Center of the National Park here in Skaftafell. The response was convincing, within two weeks everything was sold out. The next step was obvious, I needed my own production plant. I built a small facility in our garage, received recognition from the Health Department and bought 85 sheep. I sold the sausage in the summer of 2012 here in Skaftafell. Now, in the fall of 2012, I'll be buying and processing even more meat. Right now I'm negotiating with some nearby hotels and specialty shops in Reykjavík and hope that my sausage will soon be available there.
Klaus Kretzer, Skaftafell in autumn 2012
Next, I looked around here in Skaftafell. There were the sheep, roaming freely during the summer months in this grand landscape. And there were the crowds of tourists , also roaming the mountains in Skaftafell. Then I remembered an old idea that I wanted to tackle but obviously not on my own: making sausages from mutton, really good sausage, not the mass-produced goods you get in all supermarkets. I knew and appreciated smoked and air-dried sausage in all its local variety from Germany. Originally the idea was to lure a German butcher to Iceland to make such sausage. That would indeed have become a costly affair, so I decided to try it on my own. The raw material was there, the potential customer base also so I saw a limited risk in this approach. I bought some books on sausage making, tinkering a smoker (which I still use) and started at home in the kitchen with the sausage making (during my studies of agriculture, I had jobbed at a butcher's, so I had a vague idea of the methods and devices that are used in this tasty industry). The result was surprisingly good, as friends and family confirmed.
Next, I had to make the sausage according to food laws. In Iceland there is a governmental institution (Matis), which provides proper facilities and equipment to small producers in the food industry. I bought 10 sheep of my neighbours, deboned them in the food processing facility at Matis and started with the sausage making. In summer 2011, I sold the sausage in the Information Center of the National Park here in Skaftafell. The response was convincing, within two weeks everything was sold out. The next step was obvious, I needed my own production plant. I built a small facility in our garage, received recognition from the Health Department and bought 85 sheep. I sold the sausage in the summer of 2012 here in Skaftafell. Now, in the fall of 2012, I'll be buying and processing even more meat. Right now I'm negotiating with some nearby hotels and specialty shops in Reykjavík and hope that my sausage will soon be available there.
Klaus Kretzer, Skaftafell in autumn 2012
