Home is Here

Although they make and sell widely different products, a common theme ties the history of Silver Spring Foods and McDonough Manufacturing together: Their founders started their businesses in Eau Claire decades ago and both enterprises continue to thrive here.

Silver Spring was founded in 1929 when Ellis Huntsinger started growing horseradish and other crops near Eau Claire. Huntsinger, to make some extra income, decided to bottle some of that horseradish by hand and what eventually would become Silver Spring Foods was born.

In the late 1800s, Frank McDonough knew through the time he spent in sawmills that better equipment was needed, and he set out to build custom-made sawmill equipment that would exceed in quality what was available at the time. The mill on the banks of the Eau Claire River would survive the depletion of the state’s white pine forests and remains a vibrant operation today, albeit in a new location on Eau Claire’s north side.

Eric Rygg, Silver Spring’s president, is the great grandson of Silver Spring’s founder and clearly knows his horseradish.

He can give a deep dive on the chemistry of horseradish and “what actually makes it hot and why, and why is one root hotter than the next and one batch hotter than the next.”

Through research, Rygg said, the company found that the heat from horseradish is “actually the plant’s defense mechanism. You put horseradish in your mouth, it’s not hot. Start chewing on the root, it releases this enzymatic reaction that creates a volatile compound” that in turn creates the heat.

Ellis Huntsinger would be surprised to see all the ways horseradish is being sold these days: with beets, cranberry, cream style, extra-hot, fresh ground, seafood cocktail sauce and nonGMO prepared. Silver Spring is the top American horseradish seller and is distributed in Europe, Japan and Australia.

While horseradish remains important in the company’s product lineup, Rygg said he knew that in today’s marketplace, it would be important to have diverse offerings.

“For a long time I viewed this as a horseradish company,” Rygg said, “but I changed that idea to ‘we are a condiments company.’ Our mission is as simple as to make food taste better.

“That’s the value we bring, to make your sandwich a little more exciting,” he continued, adding that every decision about whether to add a product is based on whether it “brings excitement and flavor to the food.”

While Silver Spring remains a horseradish company, a move into mustards and similar products almost a quarter century ago has proved beneficial. The mustard lineup now includes the famous Beer’n Brat Mustard (with “eye-watering heat” the company says), Jalapeno Mustard, Stone Ground Mustard and a new arrival, Everything Bagel Mustard.

In developing a new product, Rygg said, the three factors to consider are whether the company has access to the ingredients and the capability to make it, whether it tastes good, and whether there is a demand for it. The Everything Bagel Mustard met those criteria, Rygg said.

“It was a trend,” he said. “Everything bagel was going nuts. So we thought we could develop this into a great mustard. And I like it.”

Eric Rygg took over running the company in 2018; his mother, Nancy Bartusch, remains the chairwoman and CEO. One of the management innovations that Rygg brought to the company when he became president was the development of 30 “fundamentals” in 2019 that, as the company says, “are the foundation for our unique culture” and are also known as “The Huntsinger Way.”

Rygg said he realized that the annual employee review process at the company “was getting a little bit stale. It was almost just a formality.” With the help of a consultant, the company looked at the traits and behaviors of the best employees. A long list was narrowed to the 30 currently in place. They include: do the right thing, always; make quality personal; be a great listener; make healthy choices; keep things fun; and “give it zing” every day.

The important aspect of the funamdentals is they don’t just exist on paper, Rygg said. The company focuses on one each month and makes sure employees have adequate chances to discuss it.

For example, every meeting with three more people “will take a couple of minutes to talk about this fundamental,” he said.

The fundamentals have been integrated into the hiring and employee review processes, Rygg said, adding, “It’s been awesome for me to see our employees talk about these things and not only how it affects them in the work environment, but at home and with their families.”

A big boost for Silver Spring came in 2021 when Huntsinger Farms hosted the statewide Farm Technology Days – after agreeing to host it in 2020 and seeing the pandemic push the event back a year. Rygg said the company agreed to wait a year because of all the work – he says about 80 percent – that was done in 2020 and he didn’t want that effort wasted.

As for the future, Rygg said the company is looking to grow, but only in the areas where it knows it can succeed. For example, it purchased Brede Foods of Detroit, Mich., which gave it another source of horseradish and the Farmers Brand of horseradish.

“No one is doing horseradish on the scale we are doing it,” Rygg said. “I do not take for granted how we got here.”

At McDonough Manufacturing, Sue Tietz is the fourth-generation owner and serves as the president/CEO, and her son Matt serves as vice president and owner, keeping the family ownership secure.

While Frank McDonough was able to establish the original factory on Galloway Street, McDonough died in 1904, and the company directors eventually concluded they would have to liquidate the assets. But when John Kildahl came in and reviewed the books, he decided to buy the company He then passed it on to his son, Jack, and then to Jack’s daughter, Sue Tietz. In 1989, the company moved to its current factory on Melby Street near the airport.

Matt Tietz said it made sense for someone to open a sawmill-equipment factory in Eau Claire because of the plethora of sawmills that dotted the rivers here during the logging boom. “I think we had 11 or 12 sawmills up and down the Eau Claire and Chippewa rivers,” he said.

McDonough worked at a mill and “he was used to repairing and working on the machinery,” Matt said, and considered the equipment he worked on “junk,” so he wanted to “build my own stuff.”

It turned out that a lot of people wanted the equipment that McDonough went on to build. “He just went down the street and started building great machinery,” Matt added.

Two events almost brought an end to McDonough’s dream, however. The log boom gave out, so the local sawmills eventually closed, and McDonough died. The Board of Directors tried to run the company, Sue Tietz said, “and it did’t go very well.”

By 1920, the directors wanted to concentrate on their careers so Sue’s grandfather was hired to liquidate the assets.

“When grandpa got to looking at the books, he thought maybe he would like to give it try,” Sue said. “So that’s how it got into our family.”

Matt Tietz said it is ironic now that McDonough doesn’t sell any equipment in the town where sawmills once prevailed. But Sue Tietz said it makes sense from many perspectives for a sawmill equipment manufacturer to stay in Eau Claire.

“We are right in the middle of the country,” with good transportation options, she said. “If we were on the West Coast, shipping to the East Coast would be a deterrent” and vice versa.

Besides, she said, the workforce here through the years has proved to be an invaluable resource that would be hard to replicate elsewhere.

Matt Tietz said they have for decades drawn skilled employees from “the farming community,” adding, “when you are a farmer, you learn how to fix stuff” and those skills translate well onto the factory floor.

“We’ve been blessed with a good workforce in the Midwest,” Matt said. Today’s McDonough’s staff of employees, he added, “is by far the best crew we have ever had.”

“We really just have a great team,” Sue Tietz added. The key to building a great workforce at McDonough, Matt said, is “we hire great attitudes. Obviously, you have to have some talent. But we really try to hire great attitudes.”

Like Silver Spring Foods, the company has assembled its fundamentals, 32 of them, which the company says encapsulates what makes McDonough different from other companies.

They include: treasure, protect and promote our reputation; find a way; show meaningful appreciation; deliver legendary service; and work on yourself.

“People want to work for a great company,” Matt Tietz said, “and they want to work for a company where they have authority and a say and can have some input. That’s how we operate today.”

Both Matt and Sue Tietz said it is vitally important for McDonough to continue to innovate in the types of equipment it makes, and that means drawing the customer into the conversation.

“Listening to our customers really is what it boils down to,” Matt Tietz said. “And being open minded and to just try something.

“You have to have the highest quality equipment that we can possibly put out,” he continued, but sales won’t continue “if you’re a hard company to deal with. There’s a reason that people wait two years for our equipment.”

Matt Tietz said that the sawmill business itself has been changing drastically, with smaller operations selling out to bigger operations, many of them still family businesses. The average sale amount for McDonough has increased about four-fold, he said, adding, “A lot of that has to do with consolidation.”