Six Clover Valley Farmers’ Market vendors, along with local ag co-ordinator Jeannette Cawston, attended the annual North American Farmers Direct Marketing Convention at the Wisconsin Dells on Feb. 15-20.
Altogether, more than 500 farmers from across Canada and the U.S., as well as a few from the U.K. and Caribbean, were on hand.
Most make their living selling their own products directly to consumers.
Pre-conference tours are a big part of the event. This year, convention-goers had a choice of five different three-day tours.
The first stop on Tour ‘B’ was at The Elegant Farmer. When the original owner was ready to sell, he had a prospective buyer but didn’t feel comfortable, so he sold it to a couple of his employees.
The business consists of a 10-acre U-pick apple orchard and a very well-stocked farm market, which includes a bakery.
Their signature item, Apple Pie Baked in a Paper Bag, was named “best pie in America” by the Wall Street Journal, and is trademarked and distributed far and wide.
The pie is available online for $19.99, plus shipping.
The second stop was at Borzynski Brothers Farms. The brothers have been farming for 15 years and boast extensive land holdings in four states.
With 10,000 acres of vegetables, they are the largest cabbage growers in the U.S.
A new $1.3-million, 12,000-sq.-ft. timber frame store, Borzynski’s Farm and Floral Market, is daughter Kristin’s project.
“The market is a side business,” she said. “It creates goodwill.”
She said she had wanted to buy The Elegant Farmer and expressed frustration that the owner had been unwilling to sell to them.
“We wouldn’t have kept the place,” she explained. “We wanted the Pie Baked in a Paper Bag.”
The bus tour also visited Reiman Publications’ visitors center in Greendale, Wis. Reiman publishes 13 glossy ad-free magazines, including Country Woman, Farm and Ranch, and Birds and Blooms.
Like their publications, the visitors centre is filled with nostalgia.
The main floor features a Norman Rockwell exhibit of a complete collection of Saturday Evening Post covers, as well as a replica of Norman Rockwell and his triple portrait.
The central attraction at the visitor center is the test kitchen, “where cooks test reader-submitted recipes for their magazines and books.”
Readers submit 90,000 recipes each year, of which 3,000 are published.
Merchandise also was available. Of all the stops on Tour ‘B,’ this undoubtedly was the one that had the largest sales.
“No wonder,” observed one happy shopper. “Look at the price of these cookbooks!”
Lake Geneva Packers, Inc. and Country Meats, founded in 1965, is now in the hands of the next generation—the children of original owners John and Rita Leahy.
This full processing plant currently handles about 20 beef and about 75 sheep per week. By comparison, the proposed abattoir in Emo will process about 20 beef when it begins production.
Lake Geneva processes all of the animals it slaughters, whereas meat from the Emo plant will be processed at area butcher shops.
You would hardly know the building contains a slaughterhouse. The store front is bright and clean, and there are sample stations with various sausages and cheeses.
The 90 some people from the two buses on this leg of the tour have filled the retail area, but it is not uncomfortably crowded.
Kathy Vorpagel, one of the owners, guided us through the plant. She showed where the animals are slaughtered, where the carcasses are processed, and where sausages are made and smoked.
The entire plant is very clean, with Vorpagel noting the offal is picked up every other day.
“The economic argument for an abattoir in the Rainy River District is unquestionable, and a small, well-run plant like this is no different than any other small industrial enterprise,” Kim Cornell, a Devlin beef producer and farmers’ market vendor, said of Lake Geneva Packers.
“I have been to several small plants in Ontario and elsewhere, and if they are built and operated to code, they are not an issue,” Cornell stressed. “Odour is not an issue.”
Local greenhouse grower Donna Lowey was impressed by the meat shop.
“My father was a butcher with his own meat shop/grocery store so I really appreciated Lake Geneva Country Meats.
“This is a beautiful retail store featuring their own cuts of beef, pork, lamb, and an endless variety of fresh and cooked sausages,” Lowey noted.
Other stops on the tour included a large number of orchards that sell apples and apple products, like cider, cider donuts, and apple pies.
Most feature “agritainment,” with petting zoos, hay rides, goat walks, pig races, corn mazes, jumping pillows, haunted pumpkin patches, and pumpkin cannons.
The three-day convention followed the tour. There were workshops on production of apples, berries, and vegetables, as well as leadership development and salesmanship.
There also were entertaining and practical presentations on such topics as varied as using cash registers to team building and providing positively outrageous service.
The conference was mostly about exchanging ideas, and “What flew and what flopped” sessions were very popular.
Lowey summed up the six-day event by saying, “I learn by watching customers.”
“At Lake Geneva Country Meats, the customers seemed to be professionals wanting to eat healthy,” she noted. “In talking to them, I learned that they were very concerned about where their food was coming from.
“I always enjoy visiting new businesses. It gives me an opportunity to learn and try new ideas with my own business,” Lowey concluded.
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