Robert Trofimowicz had no idea how to make pork roll—or any meat for that matter—when he bought Loeffler’s Gourmet, the meat production company in Hamilton.
Six years later, he has people from across the country clamoring for products from the business.
Trofimowicz is the third owner of the plant, which has been around for more than 50 years and has a claim as a New Jersey institution. But when he came upon it, he realized that the plant had, in a way, fallen from grace.
“When we acquired the business, we had to upgrade pretty much everything,” Trofimowicz said. “The previous owner didn’t really care about it. They were stuck back in the ’70s.”
Trofimowicz, 38, immigrated from Bialystok, Poland, a city in the northeast of the country, with his family in 1988. He was 14, had just finished eighth grade, and went straight into Steinert High School.
Language was the biggest obstacle, he said, but he got by. He did roofing for 10 years and owned a deli in Trenton, on Brunswick Avenue, before he bought Loeffler’s.
“I was a customer of Loeffler’s when I owned the deli, and I asked them if they wanted to sell it,” he said. “A week later, the real estate agent called. That’s an American dream, that you can buy something.”
Within four years of buying the company, Trofimowicz said, he had tripled its business.
He replaced old equipment, hired experienced workers to teach him the trade and, perhaps most importantly, attracted a loyal Eastern European market of Polish and Russian clientele.
“He’s really an old school European ham and sausage maker,” said Charles Blumer, owner of CEBCO, a food brokerage company representing Loeffler’s Gourmet. He and Trofimowicz developed a ham, for what Trofimowicz calls the “American end” of the market.
“In all of my years in this business, 35 years, I have never seen anybody make a ham like he does,” Blumer said. “It’s the absolutely finest product you can possibly imagine.”
Trofimowicz also makes a smoked ham, with no sweeteners, for his Russian and Polish customers.
“Everyone likes it sweet,” he said, adding: “It’s all sugar, but if it sells, I’m all over it.”
In his time at Loeffler’s, Trofimowicz has changed the kielbasa and pork roll recipes completely while keeping the bologna and hot dog recipes the same. Loeffler’s Gourmet uses no cereals, fillers, soy or liquid smoke flavor in any of its products. The products that do require smoking are smoked by burning only natural woods.
Tofimowicz has established new accounts in New York, Boston and even Los Angeles, and caters to 7-Eleven and Manhattan Bagels.
“It was a challenge,” Trofimowicz said of expanding his business and learning the ways of production. “There is so much to this, it’s unreal. The new regulations come out on a daily basis. Making the product, that’s something you got to get your hands dirty with. I learn every day.”
Although Trofimowicz mainly distributes wholesale, he also sells meat to local customers out of his plant, at very low prices: $8 for three pounds of pork roll; $2.59 per pound of kielbasa; $3.69 per pound for an 8-pound ham.
“I wish he was bigger, so that he could make more of what he does,” said Blumer, adding: “He’s an artist.”
But Trofimowicz, who now lives in Lawrenceville with his wife and two children, is more humble about his work.
“I got a steady job. I can’t complain, right?” he said. “With this economy, everyone’s got to eat.”
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