Our Early Years
From our early years as one of Cleveland only Kosher beef slaughters we have seen many changes in the in the marketplace. In the 1930’s and 1940’s Max’s sons Dave, Al and Aaron expanded the retail store and began processing meats for many other retailers, eventually helping to form Consolidated Packing/Lion Brand Meats. As the slaughtering business disappeared from Cleveland the processing emphasis leaned toward smoked meats and sausages.
In 1958…
In 1958 the brothers incorporated the company as Diamond K. Meats and trademarked the name Chef-Ko. Years later Aaron and Al ventured into other businesses while Dave continued to grow Chef-Ko and change with the times. Soon after that Dave’s son Ken began took the reigns and furthered the company’s growth by pushing the company toward specialty items and focusing on niches that were often overlooked by larger manufacturers. This became our concentration. We began looking to other manufacturers for their specialty items. Our manufacturing was slowly down sized as our growth in these niches blossomed.
In the late 1980s…
In the late 1980’s Ken assumed the leadership role and welcomed his son Jeremy (“J”), who took the reigns and lead the company into a variety of specialty areas that are the company’s current concentration. We currently offer specialties such as; All Natural Lines, Kosher Lines, specialty frozen foods and bakery items, custom packaged smoked meats, close outs in a wide variety of areas, retail ready beef, and many others. We are also great at finding products to suit your needs let us know what you are looking for, we’ll find it. Because of our flexibility we can customize our programs to meet your needs whether you are a huge chain or a small private store. We offer store door delivery, warehouse programs (either conventional programs or pre-selected for your stores). We are experts in marketing specialty items and can help you to capture many sales that you might not even realize that you are missing. While these niches are our specialty don’t overlook us for your conventional needs. We offer competitive programs on fresh beef, pork and a large number of national brand names.
The future of Chef-ko
The future for Chef-Ko is similar to the history. We will continue to watch market trends and keep our customers one step ahead of their competitors. Chef-Ko will continue to be an open company where our staff and our vendors work together to provide you with the finest quality and best service you will find anywhere.
