30+ years of business
Kim and Gloria Jorgenson are both natives of Waubay, with Kim growing up on a farm south of town, and Gloria being raised on a farm north of town. They were high school sweethearts, and married in June of 1975.
At a young age, Kim decided he wanted to be a meat processor; he worked for eight years at a meat locker in a neighboring town and in that time gained much knowledge and a good feel for the business. During this time, they started their family, having two sons and a daughter.
In November 1989, after a lot of hard work and planning, Kim and Gloria realized their dream and Jorgenson Meat Processing opened for business. Over the next few years, they added two more daughters to their family. Jorgenson Meat was truly a family operation!
Today, the Jorgensons’ two sons remain active in the business, with Loren heading up the slaughter operation, and Adam in charge of cutting. Their daughters have gone on to nursing and teaching. Gloria oversees the packaging and retail part of the business, and Kim is in charge of his entire empire, including sausage, curing and smoking, creating new products, and anything else that may come up!
Expansions
In 1997 the building was expanded with the addition of a large retail area, a huge freezer, a sausage cooler and sausage area with smokehouse. Several years later the Jorgensons added a Wild Game facility across the street; this enabled the continuation of custom processing during hunting season.
The retail part of the business was moved to Highway 12 and Main in May of 2006 when a building became available.
A month later Kim achieved another of his goals: The Purple Cow Ice Cream Parlor opened for business! In June of 2014 the retail portion of Jorgenson Meats was moved into part of the Purple Cow building, giving people the option of buying meat and ice cream all in one easy stop! The former retail store is now used for packaging, cooling and freezing.
