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Straw, as children learn from the classic children’s fable, is not associated with durability.

Yet when Mitch Prudden talks about the success and durability of the family-owned Steve’s Meat Market his father bought 41 years ago, he talks about building with straws. In this case, each straw represents the diversified elements of the business.

“I really think that’s what did it — the straws,” he said.

The straws blend in the display cases that circle the showroom of the business on De Soto’s Lexington Avenue. In addition to the fresh red cuts, sausages and hamburger familiar to Americans, there is a section of kosher products for Jewish customers and a complete standalone case of products processed according to the dictates of Islamic law. A sign on the wall lists the prices of cuts of buffalo meat and the plant processes from 700 to 900 deer annually.

All this has evolved in the years since Steve and his wife, Charlene, bought the then-closed locker plant in 1968, ending an apprenticeship in the business that began when he started working in a grocery store/locker plant at 12 years of age. In doing so, he was following in the tradition of a family with a history in the Kansas City meat industry.

“My mother’s side of the family were all in the business,” he said. “They were Henrys of Henry Meat.

“I thought, ‘Those butchers are eating better than us, so I’ll try that.’”

Although it was hardly as distinctive as it is now, the De Soto locker plant was a bit different even before he re-opened it, Steve said.

“They had men with suits selling sides (of beef),” he said. “We started as a small custom place with a small retail space up front.”

But just as Steve built on to the building six times in the past four decades, the family has added the straws that diversified the business.

Early, the business started serving restaurants. That remains an important part of the business, Steve said. The customers aren’t chains, which are supplied by corporate contracts, but individually owned restaurants looking for quality and something more distinctive.

“They’re looking for fresh,” Steve said. ‘There is a difference.”

The business took a different twist when Steve became friends with a Middle Eastern man who once owned a convenience store in De Soto. His friend started selling meats from Steve to his friends.

In time, Steve met the buyers and developed friendships at a dinner in Lawrence that would eventually eliminate the middleman.

“I remember going to a two-story house and having boiled lamb,” he said. “It was the first time I had bread with olive oil.”

Today, Steve’s Meat Market is just one of 10 in the United States with a federal permit and a religious exemption, Mitch said. Moslems from Lawrence, Kansas City and cities throughout the Midlands come to De Soto to buy meat killed and butchered under Islamic law. On certain days each week, that means the customers kill the animal themselves after purchasing it from area farmers at a market in the back.

From the Moslem market grew an ethnic market catering to those from Asian and African countries who want the types of meats they knew in their homelands.

“They cook like my mother,” Steve said. “My mother prepared a lot of things from parts that get thrown away nowadays.”

And just like the restaurant owners, those buying the ethnic meats want it fresh.

“We can trace our meat back to the pasture,” Mitch said. “You can’t say that about meat you buy at a supermarket. It’s really rare you can do that.”

With a federal permit, the plant can and does ship meat throughout the United States and overseas, Steve and Mitch said. Regulations are stricter, but the Pruddens find the federal inspections more “consistent” than those performed by the state.

The straws of diversification have not only built the business but help it withstand the huff and puff of recession, Mitch said.

“We’ve seen a little drop off from our restaurants, but our counter sales are stronger,” he said. “More people are cooking at home.”

Mitch and his wife, Pam, pretty much run the business now, Steve said, proud that the business is succeeding into a second generation.

“A brother-in-law of mine gave it 60 days when I bought it,” he said. “And you never know when you open a business like that. We’ve been very fortunate.”

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