By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Brant's Meat Market, locally owned for more than 100 years, has brought home yet another award.
The market's Plainville location was recently awarded a Northwest Award of Merit for Retail from the Kansas Department of Commerce.
Brant's has a long history of Czechoslovakian specialities like ring bologna and sausages, but when husband-and-wife duo Adam and Ashley Comeau took over the business in 2018, they added some of their own recipes.
James and Marie Brant acquired the Harrison & Sons Meat Shop on Lucas in 1922. James Brant ran the business as a full-service butchery shop.
James and Marie's sons, Frank and George, ran the shop, with George's son Douglas purchasing the business with his wife in 1988.
Doug Brant was the fourth generation to run the meat market. His daughter, Stephanie, worked alongside her father starting in 2014. Doug finally retired after 30 years and the market was closed.
However, Adam and Ashley Comeau of Plainville bought and reopened the shop in 2018 and, in 2020, expanded the business to a second location in Plainville.
Adam and Ashley were not butchers or chefs. They have learned on the job, with Adam taking lessons on the old Czech recipes from Doug and experimenting with more of his own.
The business focuses on smoked and cured products such as beef sticks, jerky, bologna and brats. However, they also offer fresh-cut steaks and Kansas-sourced companion products, such as mustard, rubs, barbecue sauce, honey and cheese.
You can even pick up a recipe to try with those products and cut of the market's fresh meat.
The market is known for its ring bologna. It is one of the original recipes that James Brant brought from Czechoslovakia. His son, George, developed a pepper sausage that contains beef and pork and is a little spicier.
"Generations have purchased it and come with their grandparents," Adam said.
The Lucas store has been in the community so long that people travel there from across the region to purchase its products. The store also ships as far away as the Pacific Northwest, where families clamor for the Czech favorites they grew up with.
"Some of the products we produce are very unique, Jaternice, which is a Czechoslovakian sausage, which is really not produced by very many people. But everyone's grandparents made it, and they're used to eating it," Adam said.
Raw burger, a German speciality, is also popular this time of year.
Lucas lost its grocery store, and the meat market there became a key source of fresh meat for the community. Both stores also offer fresh ground beef from beef muscle, not trimmings.
The meat market does not slaughter its own meat. The Comeaus buy boxed beef from local sources throughout Kansas. Adam said they source from local ranchers when they can.
Both stories have accumulated a pile of other awards for their products, including:
• American Association of Meat Processors, Reserve Grand Champion 2025 for their original beef sticks
• Kansas Association of Meat Processors awards for their whole-muscle beef jerky, fresh sausage, bratwurst, restructured beef jerky and smoked ham
• Central Region Award of Merit for Retail from the Kansas Department of Commerce for the Lucas store
Adam and Ashley both have full-time jobs in addition to the meat market. Ashley is an attorney and Adam is a paramedic.
"Both sets of our parents owned their own businesses," Ashley said. "We grew up the children of entrepreneurs. It got a lot of attention when the business closed, and we thought, 'Why not us?'"
Adam said the couple's most significant challenge is time. Both husband and wife work in the stores. Adam's mother, Shirley, helps at the Plainville market, and Calvin, 7, their son, usually walks to the store after school.
Finding staffing for the back end of the store has been difficult, Ashley said.
As with many retailers, business has been slower this holiday season, but Ashley said demand remains high at both stores.
You can learn more about the markets online at brantsmarket.com and follow them on Facebook.