COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – For over a century the Schmidt’s family has been a part of The Ohio State Fair.

Not only is Schmidt’s the oldest vendor at The Ohio State Fair it’s also the oldest family owned and continuously operated food stand at any state fair in the United States. That fact is a point of pride for John and Matt Schmidt who represent fourth and fifth family generations at the fair.

“It’s a whole family thing.” John Schmidt “We’ve all just grown up with it and it’s a great tradition.”

“I think the fair started back in 1886, which is funny because that’s when Smith started too. But we didn’t kind of join the fair until 1914 and we’ve been here ever since,” Matt Schmidt said.

In that time, they have served a lot of sausage. 1,178,296 sausages to be exact, along with 223,140 frankfurters and 282,026 pounds of sauerkraut. But what about the cream puffs?

“The fair is one of the most popular events that we do for the cream puffs. So, we’re turning out 10,000 a day… so we’ve sold probably, in the 109 years we’ve been doing this, sold over 920,000 cream puffs,” Matt Schmidt said.

This year they’re trying something new, a lemon shakeup cream puff sold exclusively at the fair.

To learn more about Schmidt’s and to see the Fair & Festival schedule click here.