SHENANDOAH - For the second year in a row, David "Lucky" Lukashunas of Lucky's Corner Deli & Kielbasi Shop, Shenandoah, won a "Reserve Grand Champion" award at a meat processors convention earlier this month.
Lukashunas attended the annual convention of the Pennsylvania Association of Meat Processors on May 2 to 4 at the Hayes Learning and Evaluation Center, Pennsylvania Furnace, located near State College. The association membership includes meat processors, slaughterers, packers, custom operators, game processors, butchers, ham curers, wholesalers, caterers and retailers, along with suppliers of machinery equipment, supplies and services to operators.
The plaque Lukashunas received is proudly displayed in the store next to last year's award in front of a large plastic pig on a refrigerated display case.
"Last year, I decided to give it a try and put our stuff through. Maybe it was luck last year," Lukashunas said Wednesday in the store. "There are a great deal of people who put in more than 20 products to enter in each category. There were several hundred products that were entered into the different categories. Ours was entered into the 'East European' category. Fortunately, we won again for the 'Reserve Grand Champion' award."
Lukashunas won the award for a specialty item: Tyrolean sausage. It was one of three products he entered.
"I put that in because it is a rarer type of product. There aren't many people who have that," he said. "It seems to be something new that is really taking off quite a bit throughout the whole area. I have people from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, Reading coming here. We have people coming from Virginia who call ahead order large amounts that will last them for weeks."
Lukashunas said that making the specialty sausage is not an overnight process.
"When we do the process, it takes about 28 days to finish out," he explained. "We have a controlled environment where we keep a relative humidity of 70 percent in our curing stage. We keep the humidity down until our product loses its moisture content, making it a dried, cured meat. In the Tyrolean that we do, we use pork and beef. It comes out with a similar taste almost like the salami that most of us are used to, but with a deeper, smoked taste and aromatic value. It has a distinct smell and flavor of its own."
He said going to the convention and entering his products is a lot of work, but it is also a lot of fun getting to know others in the business.
"It's at a point where it's not competitive for us," he said. "There aren't many people who do this. You have to put hours in that are ungodly, and there are only a few of us who will work that much and that hard. If you don't love it, then there's no sense in doing it."
Lukashunas said the award is a positive for the Shenandoah community.
"It's nice to have something like that come back to our town," he said. "It's a positive note for our community to do such work, especially with the Kielbasi Fest coming up. I'm proud of our town"
The seventh annual Kielbasi Festival in downtown Shenandoah will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, with Eastern European foods, crafts, live polka music by Shenandoah All Star Polka Band, and a strolling accordion player. Shenandoah's three "Kielbasi Kings" - Lucky's, Capitol Food Market and Kowalonek's Kielbasy Shop - and Mrs. T's Pierogies will be on hand.
He said that he comes up with a new item for each festival. While not divulging what the item is, he did give it a name: Polska Pocket.
Lukashunas began the business in 1998 at Centre and Vine streets in Shenandoah in a shop of about 300 to 400 square feet. His current location about a block away just west of Boyer's Food Market is about 4,000 square feet.
"We're packed in here," he said. "We just added a new walk-in cooler, and we have another smoker to install this year. It just keeps on going forward."
While he has many ideas on how to move forward and come up with new products, Lukashunas credited his family for the support in everything.
"My family is by my side. Without my family, I wouldn't be where I am today," Lukashunas said.