Charles S. Armitage, who founded Uncle Charley's Sausage Co. in 1988, has announced plans to sell the business. The announcement comes less than a year after his son and eventual successor, Charles “Chas” Armitage Jr., was killed in a plane crash.

Uncle Charley's has an 18,000-square-foot plant in Vandergrift, Pa., where it employs about 45 people, reports the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The 79-year-old Armitage Sr. returned to running the business after his son died, resisting at the time offers to sell the business. He told the Gazettethat he has recently told his broker to put the business up for sale, as he and his wife are retired and his three other children do not want to enter the business. The company could be sold by the end of the year.

“I'm not sure I want it to, either,” he said.

Armitage says that the company's sales are up over last year and that the facility has the capacity to produce more than its current output. He hopes that the company will remain in its current location with its current employees.

“I think they'd be dumb to get rid of them,” he says of the eventual new owners. “The name is here. The brand is here, I hope to find a buyer that has good sense and knows what they're doing.”

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette