If anyone out there is interested in owning their own Hungarian sausage maker, you may be in luck. The historic Gyulai Húskombinát Rt. (Gyula Meat Plant), which has been making a variety of meat products out in the eastern border town of Gyula since 1868, is desperate to find a new buyer. According to various news reports, the GH has been running deeply in the red for some time, and its owners and creditors have lost their appetite for further investment.

The company's CEO, János Ruck, told state newswire MTI on Tuesday that part of the problem is the price of hogs, which has risen from roughly Ft 280 a kilo on the hoof a year and a half ago to roughly Ft 340 now. The company had revenue of around Ft 12 billion (€46 million) last year from a product line ranging from dry sausages to boiled sausages, cold cuts, meat "cheese" products, and yummy slabs of pure fats. Apparently, the majority owner, a certain HAGE-Nagisz Group of Nádudvar, which controls 77% of the shares, has been casting about for a new owner, but with no luck so far. Ruck said that the plant, which currently employs a staff of 600 - half as many as in recent years - has been starved of the investment needed to keep it competitive.

So again, if you or anyone you know might be interested in getting a historic European food business on the serious cheap, now's your chance. Just make sure to let the folks at HAGE-Nagisz know we sent you, so we can get a few tons of cold cuts for a finder's fee.