A Truly American Success Story

Up front some disclosure: I endorse Omaha Steaks on the radio. This is actually really cool because I’ve been a customer of theirs for over 20 years. Now, more than 20 years after I first gave Omaha Steaks as a gift to someone, I get to tell people on the radio about them.

I’m an actual customer of a great American success story. They offered to let me interview their CEO, Todd Simon. Todd, sadly, became the CEO of Omaha Steaks last week when his cousin, Bruce, died. Todd and Bruce had worked together as partners in a business their fathers shared. Todd and Bruce were the fifth generation. Todd now carries on the family legacy.

Instead of doing politics, I wanted to share with you all the story of a great American success story, which interestingly begins as a story of religious persecution.

In the early 1900’s, father and son JJ and BA Simon fled religious persecution in Riga, Latvia. They wound up in New York City, passing through Ellis Island. Not content in the city, the father and son boarded a train intent on hopping off when they got to land that looked like Latvia.

Arriving in Omaha, NE, they got off the train and went to work. By 1917, they had established what became known as Omaha Steaks. In the 1920s, they started selling steaks to the train company and over time passengers who had passed through Omaha and eaten the steak on the train started calling to see if the company could ship steaks to them at home. Using waxed paper and ice, the company started shipping steaks. The mail order business exploded later in the 1950s and it was one of the first companies to adopt a new technology called toll free calling so customers could bypass the expensive long distance charges of the 1970s.

The whole story and the company are fascinating, including their forethought in how to stock up and handle orders as the global pandemic reached American shores. I hope you’ll listen to my interview with Todd Simon.

Lastly, if you go to OmahaSteaks.com and put ERICK in the search bar up top, you’ll get a great deal from Omaha Steaks.

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