4-generation, 120-year Seltzer’s family tradition keeps on smokin’ in Palmyra

Seltzer’s Smokehouse Meats are still smokin’ nearly 125 years after they put Lebanon County on the map with their unique bologna products.  

The company’s legacy lives on today as little has changed in the way the bologna is made since Harvey Seltzer lit his first wood-smoked fire at his Lebanon County business in 1902.

In recent years, however, the company has gone through changes to help it grow. Those changes are keeping Seltzer’s as hot as the coals that smoke a variety of bologna items.

The company has expanded to provide meat lovers a retail store at their headquarters in the 200 block of Railroad Street in Palmyra and recently has returned the Smokehouse Meats Experience, which is a tour of their smokehouses, the fairly new one-room museum, and retail store.

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“We used to give tours all the time,” said tour guide Perry Smith prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. “So the fourth generation wanted to get the tours back, and it took them a while, but we got the tours back about a year and a half, two years ago.”

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The tours are gaining in popularity, according to Samantha Cureton, Seltzer’s general manager.

“So we have walk-ins available every day, from 10 to 2,” said Cureton. “Then we do bus tours as well.”

The bus tours, which hail from predominantly the Mid-Atlantic region, are what have driven tour numbers upward, she said.

“So the bus tours we can do about, right now we have for next year, 56 scheduled,” Cureton said, adding when asked how they have increased.  “When we first started, we had maybe 12 bus tours. Now for next year, we already have scheduled 56. We’ll have a tour every week from April all the way through to October next year.”

Buses from what she said are mostly from the East Coast come to Palmyra to take the tour and sample and buy various Pennsylvania-based products at the retail outlet, which is a recent addition to the business as is the museum that showcases the company’s history and numerous of a bygone era.

“Right now, a majority is from the East Coast. So a lot of the Pennsylvania area for sure. But as we’ve been doing outreach, we get some from Delaware, we get some from Maryland, we get some from Jersey,” Cureton said.

The tours extend to the farthest reaches of the East Coast, too.

“We have a bus tour that’s women who live in Florida that want to do a seven-day tour. So their bus drives from Florida up to North Carolina, they do a couple days there, then they come up to Maryland, they do a day there, then they come up to Pennsylvania and they’ll do days here,” she said. “And then we want to have like a whole plan scheduled out for it. So we’re able to do that with them as well.”

On a recent day when the temperature felt more like winter than fall, a tour bus from the Breezewood area came to town carrying about 30 church members of Breezewood Wesley United Parish.

The members split into two groups with one heading immediately to an area where a five-minute video was shown explaining the company’s history. That tour segment included interviews with Smith and fourth-generation CEO Austin Wagoner, who noted that few competitors smoke their meats like Seltzer’s on such a large industrial scale. 

Smith says on the video that Seltzer’s dominates about 90% of the smoked meats market.

Before the video ends, another employee states that the meat is smoked with hardwoods, hickory and oak to give it its distinct flavor. The product is made with a unique blend of spices and 100% beef, along with a 3-day natural hardwood smoking process that distinguishes it as Lebanon Bologna. 

“92% of the product is smoked beef and the rest consists of salt, sugar and spices,” Wagoner says on the video. “We continue to do things a certain way because it brings a higher quality. It keeps people employed who have been with us for generations. There are certain things that are done by hand, like tending the fires that we can’t without getting rid of some of the quality and some of the uniqueness of our product.”

While Cureton later told LebTown the company has about 80 employees, Smith told the tour group that he’s a “newbie” with more than four decades at Seltzer’s.

“We have multi-generational families who have worked with us for years and they make this possible. I’ve been here 44 years and not too long ago I was one of the younger ones here,” added Smith.

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After the video ended, the tour group moved into the company’s one-room museum, which contains various historic pieces and an area of current products and past collaborations. Smith noted that the company has partnered in the past with other businesses, including Snitz Creek Brewery, which was a collaboration to create a smoked beer.

“Snitz Creek came to us about 12, 15 years ago and met with (then-owner) Craig (Seltzer) and said, ‘Hey, we want to use your name and call it Seltzer’s Smokehaus No. 7 smoked ale,” Smith said. “There were two bags of hops and we smoked them in the smokehouse, and it became a smoky beer.”

Smith also noted before the tour headed to the wooden smokehouses that the company has created a smoked coffee that is a big seller now, adding it tastes like a cup of espresso and would be available to sample at the end of the tour. 

The visit to the company’s 12 smokehouses is the highlight of the 30- to 45-minute tour.

Before heading indoors, Smith warned that as a working smokehouse the smell of smoke lingers in the air; if individuals can’t stand to breathe it, they should leave the building.

The wood smokehouses are what makes Seltzer’s meats unique since their competitors use stainless steel structures as part of their smoking process. There are other factors involved in the creation of Lebanon Bologna.

Smith said the fires have to hit 120 degrees for six hours and reach a pH of 4.7. “Runners” filled with slabs of meat hang on the smokehouse chamber door and are checked with a pH meter, he added. He noted the process takes about three days and that these are three critical control points that must meet U.S. Department of Agriculture requirements.

Smith told tour attendees that the company has a second plant in Lebanon where the meat is mixed and placed into casings. Once the meat has been packed, it is shipped to the Palmyra facility to be smoked. Afterwards, the meat is either sliced and packed for retail sale at its store or prepared for shipment to grocery stores and other buyers.

“We slice everything three quarters of an ounce per slice and we package it in 6-, 8-, 12- and 16-ounce packages. So once it gets to that point, it gets put in here (processing room) and then everything down here or through here is automated,” Smith said. “A label gets put on, inkjet printing with the nutritional information, then it gets boxed and ready to ship.”

Even if the meat is smoked the old-fashioned way, modernization of some processes have contributed to greater sales. 

“Part of what I have brought to this company is putting computers into production, which is something that we didn’t necessarily have before. However, we’re always going to smoke things by hand because that’s the core of our product, that’s the core of our company,” Smith said. 

Patrick Trexler, who led the church group from Bedford County, said he enjoyed the tour, which ended with a visit to the retail store for free samples and shopping opportunities. (Cureton told LebTown the store contains more than just Seltzer’s products, with nearly all having a specific connection to Pennsylvania-based businesses.)

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One of the newest offerings to sample is the Lebanon Bologna stuffed with cheese. Members of the tour group were asked to fill out a customer questionnaire if they had sampled that new product.

Trexler said the group would also tour the National Christmas Center in Middletown and Hershey’s Chocolate World during their trip before ending their one-day visit to Lebanon and Dauphin counties by touring Hershey’s Sweet Lights display.

“It was very cool to see everything that they did. I think it’s cool how they will never get away from the wooden smoke houses when most people are going to stainless steel, but they are also trying to advance the technology that they use and that sort of thing,” Trexler said. “But keeping to the recipe and keeping to the way they have always done things, so that was pretty cool. Their tradition is a big thing.”

If you go

Anyone interested in touring Seltzer’s at 209 N. Railroad St., Palmyra, individually or via tour bus, can contact Seltzer’s officials via email at tours@seltzerslebanon.com or by calling 717-798-9155. Tour information can also be found on the company’s website.

Cureton said Seltzer’s will also have products for sale during the 2026 edition of the Pennsylvania Farm Show, which runs Jan. 10-17 at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg. Their stand is located in the Main Hall, which is the building located on the south end of the complex near Maclay Street.