A 96-year-old business in western Kansas is closing its doors, the Wichita Eagle reports. Brant’s Meat Market isn’t closing up shop due to declining sales. Instead, the family-owned meat market will cease service, because keeping up with onerous regulations is too expensive and time consuming.
The closing announcement appeared on the shop’s Facebook page on Jan. 18.
“Brant’s Meat Market will be closing permanently due to new state regulations,” the post reads. “We are unable to continue making our family recipes as we have for the past 96 years. We have no exact closing date at this time; as soon as our products are gone, we will be closed.”
The market is located in Lucas, a community of 407 people, but its popular tourist attraction, the Garden of Eden, has helped attract visitors to the farming community in Russell County. Visitors will have one less place to shop and eat now.
The store’s Facebook page announced it was out of items on Jan. 19.
Stephanie Svaty told the Wichita Eagle that family made the decision to close the store after a state meat inspector visited the location on Jan. 10. Though they weren’t cited for violations, store officials received a 22 pages of regulations they were told they needed to start following. Svaty said the regulations killed the motivation of her 72-year-old father to continue running the store.
“They gave us a 22-page document, which would be fine if we had 10 to 15 employees, we could understand,” she told the paper. “It wasn’t feasible hiring an extra person to keep track and check things.”
The store is known for freshly-made sausages, cured bacon, and other meats and cheeses.
“We don’t freeze any of our meat, it is made fresh,” she said. “We’ve done this 96 years and to our knowledge we did not have anybody die from it or were hospitalized because of our products.”
