This family tradition sells

PERSONAL TOUCH: Kelly Thomas, owner of Becoming Italian Today, with her crew packaging sausages in South Kingstown. From left, Paul Constanza; Thomas; her father, Charlie Thomas; and Scott Goodenough. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
PERSONAL TOUCH: Kelly Thomas, owner of Becoming Italian Today, with her crew packaging sausages in South Kingstown. From left, Paul Constanza; Thomas; her father, Charlie Thomas; and Scott Goodenough. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Kelly L. Thomas started making Italian sausage with her father when she was a child.

The joy from making food and spending time with family evolved over time and eventually culminated in her starting a company in the village of Wakefield in South Kingstown called Becoming Italian Today LLC.

The Italian-themed company is multipronged, as it makes and sells sausages, puts on cooking classes and takes people on private tours of Italy.

Thomas, of Italian descent, started writing the business plan for B.I.T. while studying in the last year of graduate school at the University of Rhode Island in 2002. After graduating, she moved to Italy to brush up on her Italian and to explore food markets. She planned to stay for three months, but stayed for much longer.

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“Three months ended up turning into five years,” she said with a laugh.

For those five years she lived in a city called Bassano del Grappa in northern Italy, and spent her time eating and discovering a side of Italian culture she says was unique in every way. The time spent there opened her world up to a plethora of new foods, tastes and experiences, which would ultimately help with the blueprint for B.I.T.

“I made a lot of interesting connections with small buyers, manufacturers, restaurants that did things that were a part of exactly what I was trying to promote with Becoming Italian Today,” she said. “One day it just hit me that becoming Italian is something anyone could do. … It’s about taking the time to stop and put together good, quality ingredients and spend time with family to cook and make memories.”

Thomas eventually returned to the United States in 2008, right as the economy crashed and Rhode Island plummeted into the Great Recession. The economic downturn made her hesitant to start a business, but she ultimately decided to move forward with the idea.

She started out doing cooking demonstrations in different places in South County and making sausages with an old family recipe. Today, she makes and packages the all-natural sausage in a U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved refrigerated facility. The pork sausage is hand-trimmed, marinated in wine and seasoning and sold in various grocery stores and restaurants in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York.

She’s cultivated long-standing business relationships with different vendors, which is something that’s important to her and her business philosophy.

“I’ve found that you can work with a lot of people, but something that’s long-lasting makes a lot more sense for a small company,” Thomas said. “We’ve developed loyal customers and we’ve demoed in these stores for years. … With larger markets, you’re one in a million. In other markets, you’re able to be you and make a connection with customers and that’s what gets me up every morning and into a cold room where I work for hours.” •

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