{"id":596620,"date":"2026-04-11T08:16:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596620\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T08:16:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T08:16:35","slug":"stawnichys-offers-100-sausage-rings-in-exchange-for-mundare-thieves-capture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/596620\/","title":{"rendered":"Stawnichy\u2019s offers 100 sausage rings in exchange for Mundare thieves\u2019 capture"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a steady stream of customers at Stawnichy\u2019s Mundare Sausage<\/a> on Friday, coming in and out of a brand-new door that replaced one destroyed in an after-hours break-in.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been a long, busy two days after two thieves busted into the store on Wednesday night. Stawnichy\u2019s says in their nearly 70 years of business, they\u2019ve never had a break-in until this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve been kind of lucky that it hadn\u2019t happened for so many decades,\u201d said Kyler Zeleny, assistant general manager and a member of the Stawnichy family that runs the beloved small business in eastern Alberta.<\/p>\n

Stawnichy\u2019s has operated in Mundare, Alta., about an hour east of Edmonton, for decades and is famous for its Ukrainian garlic sausage, or kielbasa.<\/p>\n

So much so, the town populated by descendants of Ukrainian homesteaders is also home to the world\u2019s largest sausage statue \u2014 a 42-foot-tall replica of the millions of links the company produced and sold since the 1960s.<\/p>\n

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\u201cNobody can top their kielbasa,\u201d said long-time customer Sharon Ewasiw, who drove over from Lamont on Friday morning to stock up on sausage. \u201cNobody \u2014 the best in Alberta.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ewasiw and several other ladies were loading up for this weekend\u2019s for Orthodox Easter celebrations.<\/p>\n

\u201cPepperoni, kielbasa, ham, paprika, bacon,\u201d said June Tichkowsky, listing off her grocery list.<\/p>\n

\u201cGarlic \u2014 can\u2019t forget the garlic \u2014 and radishes and onions and cheese,\u201d Ewasiw piped in.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t4:48
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tStawnichy\u2019s Mundare Sausage celebrating 60 years\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The ladies explained their bounty all goes into a basket they take to church to be blessed before this weekend\u2019s dinner. It\u2019s an annual event that, this year, came with a little more excitement than normal following the store being broken into.<\/p>\n

RCMP responded to a business alarm on Wednesday around 11:45 p.m., after two thieves smashed in the front door window and broke in.<\/p>\n

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Security camera video shows them jumping over the front counter, grabbing the cash register and yanking it free from its electric cords before fleeing out the broken door.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey did some really quick kind of counter-top hopping. They did about three \u2014 looked very parkour-esque \u2014 and they grabbed our cash machine, and went out the front door,\u201d Zeleny said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey were in here for about six seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the thieves perhaps didn\u2019t make off with as much moolah as they hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike most businesses \u2014 and if there\u2019s any criminals listening \u2014 there\u2019s usually no cash in registers,\u201d Zeleny said, explaining there was just a bunch of quarters and dimes in the machine.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo if you see anyone or hear anyone with about $80 worth of change in their pockets \u2014 that might be our culprits.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, the thieves did cause several thousands dollars in damage to the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe smaller the business, the harder it is for them to kind of absorb those costs,\u201d Zeleny said.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:52
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAlberta food company Stawnichy\u2019s offers lifetime Mundare sausage in exchange for ink\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Zeleny said he showed up early Thursday morning with his dad to board up the front door and window.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThose become very long nights for small businesses and then trying to figure out how to open the next day.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo they get $90, but we have to pay for $4,000 or $5,000 worth of damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thankfully, they had a spare door and helping hands to get things back into working order once the sun came up.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn small towns, we try to look out for one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

The stolen cash register was found broken and ditched in a snowbank, Zeleny said, so a new cash register was acquired. A glass company from Vegreville got the ball rolling on replacing smashed glass.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin one day, it didn\u2019t really look like we had been broken into.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeleny fears if thieves broke in once, they might do it again \u2014 either at Stawnichy\u2019s or another small business.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want them in our communities, we don\u2019t want them coming back. And we want to see justice for places like this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope they realize the amount of damage they\u2019ve done to only get $80 worth of coinage, maybe not to do it again \u2014 but we\u2019re kind of hoping that we can figure out who the culprits were.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To that end, the family business \u2014 with grandma\u2019s approval \u2014 is now offering 100 rings of their Mundare sausage for the person who helps find the suspects.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe offered, with Baba Jane\u2019s blessing, we can give 100 free rings of sausage to anyone who can help us find who these individuals are,\u201d Zeleny said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nearly $1,000 worth of good quality, local product.\u201d<\/p>\n

RCMP said the recovered cash register will be analysed by Alberta RCMP forensic identification services.<\/p>\n

Police are searching for two suspects.<\/p>\n

Suspect one was wearing:
\u2022 Red hoodie with a black sweater with white stripes down the arms and white writing on the back
\u2022 Black track pants with stipes
\u2022 Red gloves
\u2022 Red mask
\u2022 Black baseball hat
\u2022 Red running shoes
\u2022 Believed to be between five feet, eight inches and six feet, two inches tall, with an average build<\/p>\n

Suspect two was wearing:
\u2022 Grey\/ Dark green jacket
\u2022 Grey pants
\u2022 Grey running shoes with a white bottom
\u2022 Grey gloves
\u2022 Black mask with a white pattern
\u2022 Believed to be between five feet, six inches and six feet tall, with an average build<\/p>\n

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Vegreville RCMP is also requesting the public\u2019s assistance for dash camera footage, or surveillance footage in the areas between 51\u00a0 and 53 avenues along 50 Street in Mundare, from between April 8\u00a0 at 11:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. on April 9.<\/p>\n

Anyone with footage that appears helpful, or has know who may have committed the crime, is asked to contact Vegreville RCMP at 780-631-2750.<\/p>\n

Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n

Anonymous tips can also be submitted to Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS) or online<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn the kitchen with Stawnichy\u2019s Mundare Sausage\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a steady stream of customers at Stawnichy\u2019s Mundare Sausage on Friday, coming in and out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[49,48,1849,2169,226320,44,226319],"class_list":["post-596620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-consumer","tag-crime","tag-mundare","tag-news","tag-stawnichys-mundare-sausage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}