A year after MTN first reported that Hi-Country Snack Foods had laid off most of its employees and failed to pay them, the situation appears unresolved — and the company has gone silent. Meat suppliers and former employees say they're still owed thousands of dollars, and the last time anyone from the business communicated publicly was in April, when the company announced it was pausing production.
That April statement was the last contact several meat suppliers say they've had with Hi-Country. Attempts to reach the company since then have gone nowhere. Former employees, already burned by the payroll failures reported last year, are now watching the same story play out for the vendors who supplied the raw materials Hi-Country turned into its jerky and snack products.
Hi-Country built a reputation over decades as a Montana-made meat snack brand, operating out of the Lincoln area. The collapse of its operations — and the apparent inability or unwillingness to pay workers and suppliers — has left a trail of unpaid claims that grows harder to resolve the longer the company remains unreachable.
For the suppliers and former employees still waiting, the path to recovering what they're owed likely runs through civil court, assuming they can establish proper service on a company that, by multiple accounts, has no one answering the phone or the door. MTN's ongoing reporting on Hi-Country has so far been unable to reach company representatives for comment.