Sargento celebrates 70 years of cheesemaking, community and family
Alex Garner, Sheboygan Press
7 min read
PLYMOUTH — Wanda Witt wanted to work for a good company when she started out in her career.
She said so in her résumé for Sargento more than 30 years ago.
Witt didn’t know a lot about the company then, but she can now say she found a good one in the local cheesemaker.
“I’m very proud of what Sargento offered to me, and how I grew with them,” Witt said. “They did play a big part of who I am today.”
Wanda Witt, senior director of planning and supply at Sargento, has been with the company since 1990.
Sargento Foods, with headquarters at 1 Persnickety Place, is celebrating 70 years of business, product innovation, community enhancement and contributions of the Sargento workforce.
“It's a great testament to, first and foremost, my grandfather who started and created just an amazing business. More importantly, just an amazing philosophy of how he conducts his business,” CEO Louie Gentine said.
Gentine said 70 years also speaks to the work of the “Sargento family” of 2,500 employees and those who came before.
Sargento was founded by Louie’s grandfather, Leonard Gentine Sr., and Joe Sartori, of the Sartori Cheese family, in 1953. This was a few years after Leonard left the funeral home business and started a mail-order business for Italian cheese, an uncommon good in the industry, out of a carriage house. That building later became the Plymouth Cheese Counter.
“A lot of businesses don't make it out of the second to third generation,” Mike McEvoy, executive vice president of operations, said.
Though Sheboygan County has a handful of enduring family businesses — Kohler Company, Sartori Cheese and Wigwam Mills are in their fourth generation of ownership — multigenerational businesses are less common. Some estimates say only 15% of family-owned companies could make it to the third generation.
As the company hit milestones over its history — like experimenting to make shredded cheese and reaching $1 billion in revenue — putting people first, whether in the company or in the community, has been a lasting tenet of Sargento.
Witt, equipped with two cheese-grading licenses, started in quality assurance in 1990. She was 23 years old. Supported by Sargento’s tuition reimbursement program, she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees while working full-time.
She then held roles of production and master data supervisors before becoming senior director of planning and supply. Witt oversees five company areas.
“It's a lot, but I love it,” Witt said. “It keeps me busy. Even though some days are crazy, I wake up the next morning, and I'm excited to come back to work.”
Witt said she feels Sargento supports a work/life balance, especially allowing her to maintain a part-time role when she was raising three kids. She eventually came back full-time.
A history of innovation
Innovation dates back to Sargento’s early days when it launched shredded cheese in 1958, now a staple in customer’s refrigerators, Louie said.
“That was an opportunity that allowed us to get a bigger distribution across the United States,” he said.
Products that followed included burgercheese (round cheese slices) in 1960, cracker cheese in 1966 and taco cheese in 1969.
Sargento sold an experimental sourdough pizza in 1979 and Dairyland Lite cheese with reduced sodium or cholesterol a few years later.
Sargento also led the way in packaging, from vacuum-sealed packages to resealable bags with a zipper.
The Slide-Rite technology earned the company the 2001 WorldStar Packaging Award in the retail food category from the World Packaging Organization.
One of the early successes for Sargento was the process of using vacuum sealing to keep cheese fresh as possible for the consumer seen in this Sargento archive photo.
Recent years have brought cheese and stick dip snacks, ultra-thin sliced cheese and a variety of Balanced Breaks snack packs.
“Our vision is to be the most innovative, best loved, real food company,” Louie said. "That, to me, provides us a great runway and multiple pools of opportunity for us to continue to innovate for our customers, to build the Sargento brand and to leverage the culture — the how we do business here at Sargento — in a number of different areas across the entire grocery store.”
The company reached $364 million in net revenue by the time Leonard passed away in 1996. The company reached $1 billion in revenue in 2012 and now stands at $1.8 billion.
Louie said Sargento hitting $2 billion will be another company milestone.
Climbing sales has been accompanied by several expansions and acquisitions, like moving headquarters back to Plymouth in 1972 and recently buying Baker Cheese, based in St. Cloud, known for string cheese.
A worker at Sargento Baker Cheese facility, pulls completed packages of string cheese off the assembly line, Tuesday, November 22, 2022, in St. Cloud, Wis.
In 1998, a company spokesperson said Sargento’s Kiel plant had led to a 20% increase in operations five years after it opened.
Sargento has sites in Plymouth, Elkhart Lake, Kiel, Hilbert and St. Cloud.
"It's limitless in my mind of what we, the Sargento family, can accomplish in the generations to come,” Louie said, adding the company is investing in automation, the business and workforce.
By 1994, the second generation of Gentines had followed in their father’s footsteps in leadership after growing up in the company.
“My father put the value system in place in this company,” Lee Gentine, former president of Sargento’s consumer products division, said. “It was an environment — at a time in the '60s and '70s when people didn’t always get along with their parents — that we all chose to gravitate back to.”
When they were younger, siblings Leonard Jr., Louis, Larry, Lee and Ann cleaned, cut grass, stapled boxes and loaded trucks at Sargento, according to a Sheboygan Press article.
Before succeeding his father Lou’s 32-year tenure as CEO in 2013, Louie grew up in the family business, too. He washed trucks and worked in marketing, accounting and procurement.
“What's been really neat for me is having the opportunity to work closely with so many people in the Sargento family,” Louie said. “It has given me a greater appreciation for all the work that goes on for us to be collectively successful.”
Sargento CEO Louie P. Gentine describes the growth of the company under his family’s leadership during a Thursday, November 9, 2023 interview in Plymouth, Wis.
Louie actually washed Duaine Conrad’s truck, who is a 35-year tenured truck driver. He has driven more than 4 million miles over his career, going all over the country, except the Pacific Northwest. Conrad is also the 2023 recipient of the Founders’ Ring, a company honor for any employee who makes significant contributions and embodies the values of Sargento’s founder, Leonard.
He said he’s stayed so long because Sargento is family owned. People look out for each other.
“They treat you like family, you're not a number,” he said. “When you walk through the front office, (and) I can hear my name. ‘There goes Duaine.’ Where do you hear that from another company this size?”
Sargento CEO Louie Gentine presents truck driver Duaine Conrad with the 2023 Founders' Ring.
McEvoy said the “family” mentality extends to the communities Sargento employees live in. Community is one of the company’s key stakeholders.
In the area, Sargento has donated $6 million to United Way campaigns since 2016 and volunteers have given more than 44,300 hours of service since 1992, according to the 2022 company impact report. The company also donated more than 607,000 pounds of cheese to nonprofits, following $2 million worth of donated cheese to nonprofits during the pandemic.
“I truly believe we need to be working and living in strong communities that are continuing to grow,” Louie said. “From the very beginning, my grandfather got a lot of support from the local communities — Plymouth and Elkhart Lake.
"Without that support, we wouldn't be in the place that we are,” he continued.
Duaine Conrad smiles in front of a Sargento truck.
Sargento also has impacts in other parts of Wisconsin. It has partnerships with the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, Milwaukee Bucks and Milwaukee Habitat for Humanity to address hunger and housing needs. Last year, $185,700 was donated in total to the teams. The company also has sponsored 35 Habitat homes in the Milwaukee area since 1992.
McEvoy said: “We've been able to do that for 70 years, and the goal is to keep going for another 70. And who knows where it goes after that.”
