Two Chefs, One Mission

Gastros Craft Meats was founded by Owen Doyle and Travis Gervasio, two friends who met while studying at Johnson University and bonded over a shared belief that real food deserves real craft. Both brought extensive culinary and hospitality experience to the table, along with a frustration they could not shake: the salami and charcuterie available to most Americans was, frankly, not good enough. Made quickly, with fillers and chemical shortcuts, it bore little resemblance to the deeply flavored, time-honored product that charcuterie is supposed to be.

So they decided to do something about it.

From Food Truck to Craft Meats

In 2015, Owen and Travis launched Gastros from a humble food truck, serving handcrafted sausages and links at farmers markets and festivals across New England. It was a start rooted in community, in showing up, in letting the product speak for itself. That foundation of doing things the right way, one batch at a time, has never left them.

Over the years, Gastros grew beyond the truck and into a full-scale artisan meat company, now operating out of a USDA-inspected facility in Waltham, Massachusetts. Their focus today is squarely on dry-cured salami, a category where their commitment to old-world methods truly shines.

Handmade From Start to Finish

Gastros uses the same scale of professional drying equipment as the national brands, but that is where the comparison ends. Every salami stick they make is cut, stuffed, tied, and hung by hand, in small batches, with careful attention to every detail. The process begins with selecting heritage Berkshire pork, then carefully seasoning each batch with real ingredients like dry red wine, bourbon, fennel, or Calabrian chili. The mixture is packed into natural casings and then the salami does what great salami is supposed to do: it rests, ferments naturally, and slowly develops flavor over weeks of dry-curing.

No heat processing. No quick-cure chemicals. No fillers. Just time, salt, and living cultures, the way it has been done for centuries.

Old-World Technique, Modern Integrity

The Gastros mission is straightforward: to honor old-world methods while creating salami that today's tables can be proud to serve. That means sourcing only from small American family farms raising 100% purebred, pasture-raised Berkshire pork, known worldwide as among the finest pork available. It means no GMOs, no antibiotics, no mystery ingredients. And it means never compromising on the time and care required to make something truly worth eating.

For over a decade, Owen and Travis have stayed true to that mission, and the result is a product with real depth, real flavor, and real integrity behind every slice.