A French-Canadian Butcher Started Smoking Meat in South Barre in 1962. Six Decades Later, the Nation’s Biggest Sausage Company Bought Him Out.

Some of Vermont’s best origin stories happen in unlikely places. This one starts in a farmhouse in South Barre, moves to the back of a filling station, and ends — for now — on the shelves of Costco.

In 1962, a French-Canadian butcher named Roland LeFebvre opened a smokehouse he simply called “Roland’s,” and the address made perfect sense. South Barre was then a dense immigrant community built around the granite quarrying industry, and the workforce that had settled there was as diverse as any in New England.

They had come in waves — first the Scots from Aberdeen, then Northern Italians who brought centuries of experience cutting marble and granite, then Swedes, Finns, Norwegians, Spaniards, and finally French Canadians — and with them came their languages, their cultures, and their food.

LeFebvre built his recipes to serve all of them. The sausages had to pass muster for the large Italian community in particular, people who knew exactly what good cured meat was supposed to taste like. He brined his bacon and ham in Vermont maple syrup and smoked everything over corncobs and maple wood shavings. Eventually Roland’s outgrew the farmhouse and moved into the back of a gas station down the road, where it kept right on going for years.

Clean Labels and a National Foothold

The company that grew out of that filling station is now one of the top-selling meat snack brands in the Northeast.

The modern chapter began in 2006 when Chris Bailey — a farmer, chef, and former U.S. national team cyclist — acquired the operation, renamed it Vermont Smoke & Cure, and made a bet that consumers were ready for something the meat snack industry had rarely offered: a clean-label stick made with antibiotic-free meat and no artificial preservatives. He launched what the company called “Real Sticks” in 2010, and the timing proved right. The line found an immediate foothold in natural food stores and specialty grocers across the country.

From Hinesburg to the Big Leagues

In 2012 the company left central Vermont, moving 50 miles west south to Hinesburg and converting a former cheesemaking facility into a full-scale smokehouse — a transition that required financing from Community National Bank, the Vermont Economic Development Authority, and the VSJC Flexible Capital Fund. Vermont Smoke & Cure earned B-Corporation certification, built an employee ownership structure, and steadily expanded its retail footprint.

Roland's Recipes, Johnsonville's Reach

Then in 2020 came the capstone: Wisconsin-based Johnsonville LLC, the largest sausage brand in the United States, acquired Vermont Smoke & Cure. The company continues to operate independently out of Hinesburg under its own name, with its own leadership and recipes intact. Johnsonville’s scale has opened doors — Costco, BJ’s, Walmart, Kroger, Giant — that a filling station smokehouse in South Barre never could have reached.

Roland LeFebvre’s maple-brined, hardwood-smoked recipes are still in the mix. He just couldn’t have imagined where they’d end up.