MANAWA, Wis. — On a weekday afternoon, Linda Wepner got ready to serve some ice cream.
She’s the owner of Linda Mae’s Sweets, Meats and Cheese, a downtown Manawa store striving to promote products made in central Wisconsin to other Wisconsinites in the region.
Wepner said she’s proud to serve King Cone ice cream. It comes from Plover, Wisconsin.
“We grew up with the King Cone ice cream, taking my kids after the ball game,” said Wepner. “It’s really important to me to bring good stuff, all the stuff that I liked, to Manawa and share it with the community.”
Wepner said it’s also important to give the community access to local meat products.
“We have a dairy farm right outside of town,” said Wepner. “We milk 350 cows and we also keep our calves, our heifers or the beef cattle to make the steaks. At bigger places, you don’t know whether the cattle are coming from within Wisconsin, outside of Wisconsin or even out West.”
However, Wepner wanted to go far beyond just dairy products and meats. Around the store, it’s easy to find other products made in Wisconsin.
For Wepner, it’s about making sure others have pride in the state they call home.
“Having all of the products that I carry in here trying to get them locally made, we have so many good things made in Wisconsin, even local in the area that a lot of people don’t know they exist so bringing them into the store, people get to try them,” said Wepner. “They see what kind of good things we are making here in Wisconsin.”
Linda Mae’s Sweets, Meats and Cheese has only been open since April.
Wepner said she hopes the store will be a fixture downtown for a long time.