Esskay Meats is a Baltimore-based meat company, specializing in hot dogs, sausages, and ham. The company has its roots in a 1919 merger between the separate meatpacking concerns of William Schluderberg and Thomas J. Kurdle. The resulting entity was initially known as the Schluderberg-Kurdle Co., but soon became popularly known as "Esskay", based on the phonetic pronunciation of the founders' paired initials. Esskay, which as late as 1966 was still slaughtering its own cattle, promoted its products through the slogan "Taste the difference Ka-wality makes!" The company also sought out unique approaches to advertising, most notably utilizing the talents of two burgeoning satirists/pitchmen, Jim Henson and Stan Freberg.