So, just months before COVID-19 hit, they launched De Boers Market, which sells beef, chicken and an assortment of fresh produce in the summer months.

The sisters know that they don’t have it all figured out. But they do know that like the farm, their business partnership is always going to be a work in progress. And like the farm, it takes conscious effort, willingness and dedication to maintain a farm family partnership that’s not only a win for the people in it but for the business and the generations to come.

All together

I was curious to find out what underlies their partnership, the processes they’ve implemented to ensure it flourishes, the pros and cons, the dos and don’ts. How do they navigate rough patches and awkward conversations? What does a successful partnership look like for them?

Tellingly, Kori cradled her four-month-old son throughout the entire interview. I say “tellingly” because both Casie and Kori juggle young children, a dairy farm and a new on-farm market. So, if the partnership dynamics and parameters aren’t tight, they realize that things could fall apart quickly.

Until the summer of 2019, the primary business was the dairy farm made up of Kori, Casie and their dad. (Their mom used to be a big part of the farm as well, but she passed away in 2011.) Both their husbands are also involved when they’re not at their other jobs.

“My husband, Jason, is a butcher by trade so he’s an integral part of the market operation,” says Kori.

“And my husband, Tom, is a mechanic, so we’ve pretty much got all the bases covered,” Casie jokes.

They didn’t just luck out on complementary-to-the-farm careers with their husbands. Luck was also on their side when it came to the new business. Unlike thousands of other businesses at the start of the pandemic, the timing of their launch was right. “By early 2020, about six months after we opened, no one could go to — and then no one wanted to go to — a grocery store anymore,” says Kori. “By that point, we already had regular customers. During the early part of COVID, we literally put their orders outside the door in a cooler for pickup. It gave us a really good push at the start.”

Initially they ran the market out of the old renovated milkhouse, but just before Christmas 2023, they opened their new store. “This year has completely exceeded our expectations,” says Kori.

“It’s overwhelming, but we tell everyone that it’s pleasantly overwhelming,” quips Casie.

Four summer students worked for them this past season and one has stayed on part-time to help after school.

So, it looks like all the external, technical boxes are checked off. But what about the internal, untechnical stuff like everyday, personal business relationships — the ingredient that can make or break a business?

Finding their groove

The north star that guides their partnership may seem at first a pessimistic approach, but the sisters are realists.

“It sounds bad, but we plan around failure,” says Casie. “Don’t always assume that everything is going to be fantastic, all sunshine and roses. People shouldn’t cut corners in a partnership. Make sure that everything is laid out and set in stone because you don’t want to get into a situation where something comes up — not necessarily that you get in a fight — but there are other reasons that it can fail. You want to have a solid foundation that will help you handle that well without putting the other person out of business or without everything completely crumbling.”

Because, unfortunately, a failed partnership isn’t just a failure for one person. It means a failure for everyone involved in the partnership, including, possibly, those in relationships with the partners.

Does this start-with-the-end-in-mind approach offer a more comprehensive view of partnerships — a proactive “hindsight is 20/20” perspective? And is this a more common approach with today’s generation? Kori and Casie think it is.

“Many people our age have seen partnerships with older generations where, unfortunately, things weren’t laid out properly. Seeing the downside of things makes you think a little more when it comes to you being in a similar situation,” says Casie.

Kori says that it’s crucial to have a comprehensive partnership agreement in place. “I think the most important things about a partnership are communication and documentation. Verbal agreements are great until there’s an issue or a conflict. If stuff is not written down properly then you end up with more problems.”

When it comes to communication, the sisters always aim to improve. “Something we’re trying — and I admit that we’re trying to get better at — is having meetings,” says Kori. “Sometimes they’re formal quarterly meetings and sometimes informal weekly meetings. I mean, we talk every morning about what needs to get done each day and we both have our to-do lists, but I think having frequent formal meetings would be beneficial. It’s a chance to be transparent and discuss goals, wants and requirements. Meetings help us prioritize those wants and needs rather than someone buying something and later saying, ‘Oh hey, I spent $5,000 on this. Hope you’re okay with that.’”

And what about those awkward moments when the siblings need to discuss something bad?

The sisters exchange grins and Casie says, “We’re siblings so we’ve spent our lives figuring out each other’s communication styles. For example, I like to argue it out and then come back in a couple hours with a better hold on the issue or some ideas on how to solve the problem at hand.”

Casie continues, “I know when to just give Kori a minute and just drop it and we’ll pick it back up in a couple hours. Five years ago, we didn’t get along as well as we do now, but experience over time and learning and growing up has helped us figure it out.”

“I think you have to grow together,” agrees Kori. “You have to be strong enough to get through the hard times and learn that things can be better and figure out how to make things work. Because right off the bat, at the beginning of the partnership, things probably aren’t so smooth because it’s like a ‘getting to know you’ phase.”

Good communication was a theme the sisters returned to several times throughout the interview. “It’s a boring answer and it sounds cliché, but communication is the one key thing that underlies a healthy partnership,” stresses Kori.

Related to good communication is respect. “We’ve found that what works best is being mindful of and deferring to people’s areas of expertise,” says Kori. “For example, in the cut room, it’s obviously Jason who’s the boss there. Animal welfare is more my area of expertise and Casie went to school for engineering so machinery and fixing the robot milker is more hers.”

“I think there were a lot more arguments before we had our children because we were working together all the time so then everyone thought that they were in charge of everything,” Kori says. “Now little things aren’t as big of an issue anymore because we have our own responsibilities or parts of the business that we’re in charge of.”

Kori says finding out who is more fitted technically or personality-wise to a role or responsibility has been part trial and error, but also an unexpected beneficial outcome of their growing families. “When we started having children a lot of the jobs got shifted around. For example, when I had my first child Casie took responsibility for the baby calves and my husband took some time off from his job to help on the farm, which morphed into him taking over breeding. When babies started coming into the picture, we had to figure out how to split up the workload because we’d be down a person for a while. Basically, those years helped us find our niches.”

Where pros and cons overlap

The types of farm conversations that drive a business forward hinge on “what ifs.”

What if we tried this? What if we replaced that? But what happens when there are several competing ideas? How do you narrow down which one(s) to try?

Kori and Casie believe that these idea conversations lead to an interesting Venn diagram intersection where the pros and risks of a partnership meet.

“It’s ironic but having so many ideas and different opinions is definitely a pro for us, especially for the butcher shop,” says Casie. “Jason’s a butcher, but he was never on the retail side, so it’s all new to us. We’re learning as we go and it’s been a benefit to have other people to bounce ideas off. At the same time, you’ve got to be careful because, if not handled properly, too many people with too many differing ideas can make things tough.”

Kori says good practice is everyone taking a step back to think over ideas. “Don’t argue when you’re fired up. Sleep on it, then come back to a new discussion tomorrow.”

Another atypical pro-risk intersection for them has been balancing starting and growing a business and family at the same time.

Kori says the mingling of family and partnership was one of the first things they wrote down on their pro list when preparing for this interview. “Having a partnership allows us time off with our kids while the business keeps going,” she says. While the new storefront means more work for the moment, the upside is that they’re all together at the store as a family most Saturdays. She and Casie alternate weekend milkings and they try to each take a week off in the summer to get away.

“On non-partnership farms, or if it’s just a couple, you never get away unless you can find someone to do chores for you,” Kori says. “While we can’t go on vacation together, our partnership means that we at least get to take some time off individually with our kids and husbands. Even if it’s as simple as just having a Sunday off, it’s nice to get that little bit of a break.”

The post Ontario sisters strike farm business partnership appeared first on Country Guide.

In a very real way, it’s the story of North American farming being told all over again, without a lot of assets but definitely with tons of courage, determination and smarts.

When the American tech company Baloch had been working for posted him to Sarnia, Ont., 20 years ago, he fell in love with Canada, which would eventually become his home, and he began to ask himself whether he really could make good on his dream of one day owning his own farm.

Like a huge number of Canadian immigrants, Baloch had grown up on a farm that produced temperate crops, and like them, and as with any farmer anywhere, he looked at the farm as part of his heritage that he would never totally leave behind.

In his particular case, Baloch had grown up on a mixed farm in Pakistan that grew vegetables, sugar cane, cotton and wheat.

After his tech company needed him to move again, this time to Edmonton, Baloch decided to take charge. For the sake of his young children, he would put down some roots, so he took another IT job in Toronto and began keeping his eyes open for an opportunity to get into farming.

That opportunity finally came in 2008, when Baloch learned about the FarmStart Incubator project. The project, which is a joint venture of FarmStart, Heifer Foundation, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, leases small plots of land to people who want to start farming and learn from each other.

Starting out with a 100 ft. by 100 ft. leased plot, Baloch surprised everyone by how much he was able to produce on that amount of land. “They were surprised that I could do it, and I joined their incubator program, using my knowledge from previous farm experience to hone my skills to what I needed to farm here,” says Baloch, who continued to work at his full-time IT job as he established his farm.

In 2009, now with a full acre of leased land at Brampton, Ont., Baloch began experimenting with a mix of 82 different vegetable and fruit crops, which he eventually narrowed down to the 10 to 12 that were most profitable for his operation.

Last year, Baloch decided it was time to buy his own land, and so this past March he made a bold move by relocating over 250 kilometres away to Rodney, halfway between the 401 and the Lake Erie shoreline southwest of London.

There were a number of reasons for the move, not least of which is that, this far south, he would gain a full month of growing season.

“I can get close to 30 more days of growing without any infrastructure,” says Baloch. “There is less snow in this area. We are in between the two snow belts, one of which goes from Detroit to Buffalo and New York, and the other from London, Ont., down to the Ottawa Valley and Quebec. We usually get one or two light snows and maybe a few freezing rainy days.”

As it turned out, the day after Baloch arrived at his new farm, the province shut down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and so he has spent this first season getting his land ready, and building infrastructure like a greenhouse and irrigation system. He is experimenting with various crops at his new farm and still had a few crops like garlic, asparagus and strawberries at his previous location that he could market this year.

Finding the right marketing model

Baloch experimented over the years with different sales models. Initially, he tried to sell from a roadside stand at the farm, but was too close to some big chain grocery stores and he couldn’t compete with their prices.

He also tried a shares-based Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, but finally decided that participating in the farmers market in downtown Toronto was his best option.

“I found out the farmers market is the best option because whatever produce I have, I can take it to the market and sell it,” says Baloch. “What I don’t have, I don’t have to worry about. But when I did a CSA or wholesale business, I needed to guarantee delivery… in farming nothing is guaranteed.”

He does some wholesale orders as well, but mainly for specialty items like red onions, specialty green and yellow beans or okra.

Despite now being two and a half hours from Toronto, Baloch continues to attend the farmers markets there on Mondays and Saturdays. Next year he will continue to sell at the Toronto farmers markets, but also plans to open a booth at the farm to sell freshly harvested produce, and his older children will also begin attending the farmers market in nearby London, Ont.

Logistics training comes in handy

To farmers used to selling huge grain volumes on international markets, maybe selling fruits and vegetables in a farmers market stall sounds nothing like real farming. Nor may it sound anywhere near as sophisticated.

As it turns out, that’s a mistake on both counts. Making it his way takes as many smarts as ever.

In fact, part of Baloch’s IT experience was helping Loblaws handle store logistics, and this has come in valuable for understanding how to arrange and manage his produce offerings and to organize customer flow efficiently and effectively.

“Companies spend a lot of money to create software to do two things: give them the capability to quickly serve a customer and also to tell the company what their customers are spending their money on, what they are buying more of, and how they can reduce their costs,” says Baloch.

He applies the same principle to serving the customers at his stall. “The moment the customer is talking to me or somebody else, the person behind is waiting anxiously and we don’t want that customer to go to the next stall without buying something from us,” says Baloch. “We have got to keep moving the line.”

At the same time, Baloch doesn’t allow efficiency to interfere with building relationships with his customers.

“We have customers who spend $10 to $20 every week, and then there are customers who are spending $50 a week, and you need to know their names,” he says. “Every time they come, you should greet them, and even if they don’t need anything, they will generally buy something unique on the stall, just because it’s on the table when they stop by to say hello.”

When it comes to running a successful direct farm marketing business, it’s a question, says Baloch, of knowing what your customers want and looking for gaps in the marketplace that you can fill, then producing the products for those markets efficiently, without added cost or additional labour.

A lot of that comes down to managing the crops to spread out the workload and timing harvests to have produce available when others don’t.

In a Canadian agriculture that for most farmers is based on just a handful of crops, this is very different thinking, and almost frightening in its potential complexity.

Baloch’s farming system is based on four-acre plot sizes and allocating resources efficiently to give the best returns. “If the question is, should I plant cabbage or radishes, cabbage is going to take three sq. ft. of space, be 60 days in the greenhouse and 120 days in the field,” says Baloch. “In 21 to 30 days, I can have radishes which I can sell in bunches for $3 at the stall. The cabbage I can sell to wholesale for $3, so why should I tie up my land for six months and only get $3 from three sq. ft. when I can get more from radishes on a six-inch square space.”

Know the numbers

Knowing the numbers and calculating exactly what a crop costs to produce — and its potential value in the marketplace — are essential elements that determine the farm plan, says Baloch. How he determines that, though, is by considering not just the cost of production and return on each crop, but also by constantly assessing his market and the demand, and taking a holistic approach to the farm operation, paying special attention to the time and labour components.

He gives an example of three main crops he uses to spread out his workload and his sales throughout the season. Baloch plants garlic in October, when he has harvested most of his other crops and is just concentrating on marketing. He harvests and dries the garlic the following July in a two-week window before the main harvest of the summer produce begins. He then has garlic to sell at the market from August into October or November depending on the yield and demand.

Onions are among the most profitable crops because he approaches them differently than most of his competitors. “The first crop I was excited about was onion,” says Baloch. “It takes anywhere from 30 to 60 days before you can start eating them as scallions. Once they mature you can take the roots and dry them out and store and use all winter long. It’s a crop that has multiple possibilities of marketing, and customers love each and every phase of it.”

Baloch plants just one crop of onions on a quarter acre in early April, but manages it so he can have onions to sell throughout the year. First, he plants them about two inches deep, so they can tolerate any light snow or late frost. As the crop grows, in early summer, when the plants reach about a foot tall, he harvests and sells a percentage of them as scallions, then as the onion bulbs grow, he can sell some in midsummer as bunching onions, and eventually harvest the remaining largest bulbs to dry and store and sell throughout the fall and winter.

The same goes with potatoes. Baloch plants a number of different varieties all together on May 10 so he has potatoes to sell until at least the end of October, and sometimes into the new year.

“These three crops give me a cushion of cash flow with less effort,” says Baloch.

Offering something unique

Baloch knows it’s important to differentiate his stall from all the others at the market, and so, while it’s important to have the staples people look for every week, he’s always got something unique or interesting for customers to try. It’s a way to build sales because people are curious.

An example is cherry tomatoes, which he calls his “wonder crop.” Every year he grows multiple varieties together and sells them as a mix of different colours and flavours, and by planting in April he is usually the first at the market with them.

“From July to the second week of September we have a lineup at our stall for cherry tomatoes and we sell a mix of six to eight species for $5 a pint,” says Baloch. After his costs for seed, planting, greenhouse costs and harvesting, he clears a 77 per cent profit on this one crop.

“We grow heirloom and unique varieties that nobody else has and I guarantee the flavour. I tell my customers if they don’t like the flavour they can have their money back and so far, this year I have only had one complaint,” says Baloch.

The surprise, though, is that Baloch isn’t growing all the crops he originally intended. Virtually none are what are normally called ethnic crops. He has tried crops including bitter gourd, bottle gourd, red carrots and others, and even began developing them for major retailers, but they’ve proved too variable in Ontario’s climate and it’s been impossible to guarantee delivery.

Moving to year-round production

Still, there seem to be opportunities everywhere he looks. He has been looking, for instance, at Canada’s huge demand for fresh, local produce throughout the winter, and he needs a greenhouse to be able to serve that market year-round, which was another reason for the move. Baloch spent years trying to build a greenhouse on his previous farm, which was close to a major highway. “We couldn’t get a permit to put up a greenhouse because there had recently been a bad storm in the area, with 120-m.p.h. winds that ripped a path through a few greenhouses close to us and blew one of them onto the highway, blocking traffic for a couple of hours,” says Baloch. “After that, we had the frame and everything ready for our greenhouse, but we couldn’t get a permit to put the plastic on it, so that was another reason for moving.”

Baloch plans to expand by adding an orchard with early-season soft fruits like blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and then later-season apples, peaches, plums, and cherries, as well as some premium, perennial crops like asparagus or rhubarb. “I don’t want to keep anything more than an acre or a half-acre at a time and different varieties so there are different buckets of operations which produce cash flow for a longer period,” says Baloch.

He hopes these new ventures could provide better opportunities should any of his children decide they want to get more involved in the farm in the future.

Lessons from childhood

Baloch grew up with a different model of farming in Pakistan, and although one of the largest farmers in their area, growing both commodity cash crops and vegetables, the family always allocated three or four acres to grow produce for the family, the farm’s workers and community members to harvest what they needed. He learned life lessons there that have stuck with him, like the importance of community.

Baloch generally donates between 7,000 and 10,000 lbs. of produce a year to local foodbanks. And now as a full-time farmer, he wouldn’t want to go back to the nine-to-five lifestyle.

On the farm in Ontario, however, he knows his story is an unusual one. He’s often asked why he’s farming, and why he’s growing produce instead of grains or livestock.

He also knows people wonder how he can make it work financially, and he admits it hasn’t been easy. He was able to use equity from his IT years to buy the farm, but he knows that he has to be very focused on costs and to plan very carefully for purchases like a new tractor he’s looking at.

The idea is to focus on balance, but also to be ready for the work.

“I make less money now than what I used to earn at my job, but I am happy,” Baloch says. “It’s a business, but it’s also a lifestyle that gives you open space and a peaceful living.”

“Can it work for someone else?” he asks.

“It may.”

The post A new farm story appeared first on Country Guide.

Extending their season into the winter this way is new for this market, but it’s typical of the way farmers markets across the country are growing more and more ambitious.

Celebrating 30 years, St. Norbert welcomes about 10,000 visitors and 130 vendors on any given Saturday in summer, says executive director Marilyn Firth. This is the first winter the market has been open for business in the new heated structure with about half the number of vendors — a significant improvement after renting a small space for the last few winters across the street in a community centre.

“The new canopy is part of a 10-year infrastructure project that was divided into three phases: landscaping and drainage, permanent washrooms, and a new structure for year-round use,” Firth says. The canopy is enclosed in winter and opens up for summer when market activity spreads onto the adjacent grounds. “In total over $1 million has been invested in the site over the past decade.”

Firth says that getting the word out that Manitoba’s largest farmers market, a non-profit co-operative, is open for business during the winter has been a challenge. Most markets in the province are seasonal, which included St. Norbert up to several years ago. St. Norbert has been open Saturdays from late fall until Christmas and then bi-weekly Saturdays until May when the market is also open on Wednesdays.

Firth says the decision to open year-round came about partly in response to hearing that during the off-season, some producers were making special arrangements with individual customers to deliver their goods, which can be inefficient and expensive. Better production techniques and greater demand for local food products has boosted the potential for year-round business.

“For many years, producers in Manitoba focused on seasonal sales, but improvements in farm technology means that the season can be extended year-round,” Firth says. “For example, many of our vegetable vendors were interested in investing in better greenhouses and storage facilities, but without a regular sales outlet, those investments were questionable. So we worked in tandem with the producers. Once we were able to offer a year-round sales outlet, the producers stepped up and made those investments, and the winter market has grown steadily ever since.”

The response to a winter market has been “overwhelmingly positive” from both the customers and vendors, she says. “People who are really committed to supporting local are thrilled to find a regular space that fits their needs all winter long. And for our vendors, it has been a really great way to extend their season.”

St. Norbert has been both a regular sales outlet for producers and an ideal place for new producers to try out their product lines, she says. The winter markets have focused more on food items but with the new and larger space, other vendors are selling a variety of products such as arts, crafts and specialty items.

Diversifying “local”

This is the first year that award-winning craft distillery Capital K has set up a booth at St. Norbert. Assistant general manager Jesse Hildebrand, who offers visitors samples of Tall Grass brand specialty spirits, says setting up at a farmers market to promote a high-quality local product is an ideal way for the two-year-old operation to reach potential customers.

“There has been a lot of interest,” he says. “I’ve been here since May and now people even come to the distillery or I see them out at events and they recognize me. It’s good for us and for the farmers market.”

Many Manitoba farmers markets are “make it, bake it, grow it,” but St. Norbert is the only one that inspects their vendors for that assurance, says Firth. Although it involves extra work, the inspections guarantee that customers get the value they expect.

“There are a few other differences at St. Norbert,” she says. “The size of our market means that there is always a broad variety of products and it’s possible to price compare. We are also able to make going to the market an event with live music and workshops and other activities.”

St. Norbert offers activities on market days and occasionally on non-market days, giving visitors a taste of the country, Firth says. “We often provide demonstrations around local food and farming. With so many young families coming out, it’s a great opportunity to share some of that knowledge. Many people have never seen a sheep being sheared, or a jeweller shaping stones, or a cook making kimchi.”

One highlight is the annual Farmers’ Festival: Home Skills for the 21st Century featuring demos and workshops that can include everything from sour dough baking and sewing skills to fish filleting and mixing cocktails.

Like many farmers markets across Canada, St. Norbert has evolved beyond, though still includes, the traditional sale of staple products such as fruits, vegetables and baked goods. It also attracts a broader multi-generational consumer base than a decade or so ago, according to long-time vendors.

Helen Eidse, owner of Strawberry Lane Fruits and Flowers, has been selling products at the St. Norbert summer market since it started in 1988 with only eight vendors. She now focuses on flowers and flower/herb arrangements. One trend she sees is grandparents bringing their families to the market. “They are often gardeners themselves and know how good the market is, so they are teaching their children and grandchildren. I have customers now who are the grandchildren of my early customers.

“The trend I really see now is buying fresh and local,” Eidse says. “People are aware of the carbon footprint, especially young people. They care about the environment, the cost of fuel to ship products, chemicals being used, and things like child labour. If you come to a farmers market you can talk directly to the grower and ask questions.”

Rural and urban

Phil Veldhuis, a long-time honey vendor at St. Norbert and chair of Direct Farm Manitoba, with a membership of about 50 farmers markets and 100 farms, says most growth in farmers markets has been in urban centres, while rural areas have the challenge of a more fixed customer base.

“There are small towns where they have a market, and down the highway there’s also one,” Veldhuis says. “So the number of people that are generally going to come to your market is your local population.”

Veldhuis says there has also been a gradual increase in ethnic diversity and ethnic foods in a market like St. Norbert, but it still has a ways to go to reflect the area demographic.

A study of Ontario’s Greenbelt surrounding Toronto shows that Canadian agriculture, dominated by generations of European-based farmers who have traditionally passed on their farms to family members, has been changing and opening up new opportunities for others. Canada’s shifting ethnic profile has been influencing new ways of food production and markets that offer a wider range of foods.

Iain Brynjolson has been selling at St. Norbert since 2015 as proprietor of Food for Folks. After working for more than a decade in produce, he decided a few years ago to try his hand at dehydrated foods, including products such as fruit jerky.

“There are still a lot of traditional farmers selling at the market but there are also people who are innovating, coming up with unique stuff,” Brynjolson says, adding that often, they hadn’t really planned on becoming vendors. “For me personally, I’m not following anyone else’s lead. I have been relying on my past experience.”

Brynjolson’s business has been doing well, but as a one-man operation he says he carefully balances his time between production and sales. He is opening up a small retail operation but enjoys selling at farmers markets and intends to continue on his own in winter at St. Norbert as well as at two other smaller indoor markets in Winnipeg. During the summer he says he sells his product at a couple of music festivals but doesn’t produce enough to sell all season.

Veldhuis agrees that with production requirements, vendors can spend only so much time on market sales. “There’s lots of vendors here who participate in three or four markets a week… it becomes a full-time job.”

Veldhuis points out that there has been “tremendous growth” in local markets with about 20 now in Winnipeg and about two or three new ones each year. Growth in local business associations and initiatives involving street level activity has supported an increase in farmers markets. “Sometimes it might be a couple of times a year, or a short seasonal market. Then some of them might find a niche and become self-sustaining.”

An economic impact study of Manitoba farmers markets was last conducted 10 years ago, Veldhuis says. “We haven’t looked at it significantly since that study was done. There certainly has been growth in revenue of the markets. I would think, for individual vendors, revenue is up 30 to 35 per cent.”

More, more, more

Farmers markets boost demand for local while contributing to the ag economy

The increasing popularity of farmers markets is borne out in a number of studies conducted by provincial or local organizations in Canada, although most of the information is older than a few years and there are regional variations. (The now-defunct Farmers Markets Canada conducted a national study nearly 10 years ago.)

A relatively recent study, released in 2016 by the Greenbelt Farmers’ Market Network in the Toronto and Niagara region, contains a number of conclusions including:

• Markets are growing as a trusted source for fresh local food.
• Farmers are deriving more of their business income from markets as secure and predictable sales channels.
• Sales are prompting farmers to grow new varieties and increase acreage for market production.

The study also shows that most farmers who participate in farmers markets believe demand for local food is on the rise, and some are expanding sales channels to include farmgate/farm stands and CSA sales/distribution.

As well, the study states that farmers markets help strengthen the local food economy, given their role in bringing together farmers with buyers including chefs, food service, caterers, local retailers, and small-scale processors.

Catherine Clark, executive director of Farmers’ Markets Ontario, which has 180 farmers market members, says the group last conducted a study in 2009. Sales in Ontario are estimated to have increased annually about 10 to 12 per cent to about $800 million with an economic impact of over $2.5 billion.

“Consumers want to buy from the farmer, not re-sellers,” Clark says of the Ontario market. “They want to know where their food comes from. That’s the new trend.”

According to the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets, that province has a high rate of direct marketing due to the prevalence of small farms. Georgia Stanley, membership and communications manager, says support for farmers markets is strong as customers have a desire for different types of shopping experiences that align with their values, and they want to build direct relationships with the farmers.

“There is a continued interest in accessing fresh, healthy, in-season and local food, and farmers markets are an excellent place for that,” Stanley says.

In addition to the benefits, growth in the number of markets has also brought some challenges in that B.C. farmers and other vendors may have to travel more to smaller farmers markets, she says. “Overall, they may get the same sales, but they’ve had to travel further and put in more time. Another challenge, which is often discussed across Canada, is the declining and aging population of farmers. Yet, despite the challenges, we know that farmers markets play a very significant role in marketing and sales for small farmers in B.C.”

The post Growth markets appeared first on Country Guide.

Theirs is a story about embracing change, and about how, in the midst of all that change, to tackle the sometimes difficult challenges of succession planning.

That in turn means theirs is also a story of a deep commitment to family communication, and a story of tying it all together with business agreements.

“We are always looking at opportunities,” says Jim McGregor of Braeside, Ont., an hour up the valley from the nation’s capital. “We are ideas people.”

It’s that attitude that spurred his own succession back in 1977, when he and his wife Ann moved back to be near his parents’ 100-cow beef farm. That year their first child was born and the young family grew three acres of sweet corn.

By the 1980s, they were also growing strawberries and beans, selling wholesale and going to one farmers’ market.

Jim and Ann both worked off as well as on the farm, and they had their parents’ support, including from Jim’s mother, who worked in a legal office and always believed farming should be a business-like profession. So as early as 1979, they wrote formal work agreements, even when hiring other family members.

It soon became a way of doing things that would carry them through the next generational turnover relatively unscathed.

Currently, Jim and his sons Ian and Cameron have a three-way joint venture agreement, with each owning separate assets. A joint venture is an undertaking between parties to pool resources and share in profits, so that with a clear agreement like the McGregors’, the individuals own the assets and share the revenues that are left over after expenses.

A joint venture doesn’t require a separate business number, however. Nor does it own anything, or require the parties to file income tax together. And unlike in a legal partnership, the parties can’t act on behalf of each other.

The joint venture agreement is simply the guideline for the parties to work together over a specific time, usually with shorter renewable terms that you might see in other agreements.

Increasingly, joint ventures are also being seen as a great way to bring in the younger generation without creating legal problems if it doesn’t work out.

The other core belief that has continued guiding the McGregors through this generation is that it is important for the next generation to get an education and work away from home for a while before coming back to the farm.

Ian and his wife Deb both have agricultural degrees from Guelph, Cameron has a degree in criminology and his wife Mandy is a nurse working off the farm at Hospice Renfrew, and the McGregors’ daughter Sarah and her husband Randy Briscoe own and operate a dairy farm nearby.

Succession: Phase 1

Both Ian and Cameron worked off the farm for a year or two, with Ian coming home to farm in 2001, bringing with him a passion for production. After a few years of working on salary for the farm, Jim and Ian created a joint venture agreement so that each of them received half of the profits on the produce.

Also, Ian and Deb along with Jim and Ann bought Jim’s parents’ place, the home farm.

While making this transition, the three generations identified three objectives. First, the grandparents needed to be paid quickly. Second, they all wanted to minimize how much Ian and Deb needed to pay for the land because, like most beginning farmers, they were short on that kind of cash. Third, Jim and Ann wanted to retain some ownership.

Their solution was for Jim and Ian to split the purchase 50:50. Jim and Ann paid his parents for half while Ian and Deb paid for the other half slowly over a set term with no interest.

Again, although they hashed out the ideas, they had a lawyer write up a formal agreement, which included a provision giving Jim and Ian first right of refusal if the other one decided to or was forced to sell. For the farm to be able to afford to support two families, the McGregors knew they had to expand. “You can’t take two salaries out of a business that grosses only $100,000 a year,” says Jim. “Our major objective then was to increase gross sales.”

So they started going to more farmers’ markets, they expanded the pick-your-own strawberry business and added raspberries and asparagus. They also expanded their rental acres, and Ian led the way into grains and oilseeds, which proved useful rotation partners.

As long ago as the 1990s, British researcher Matt Lobley looked at surveys from around the world and consistently found a phenomenon he named “The Successor Effect.” Having a successor provides incentive for expansion and forward planning, he discovered, and these changes are often driven by the new ideas and vision that the younger generation brings back to the business.

At the McGregors’ farm, Ian and Cameron brought home the idea of “plasticulture,” using plastic to extend the growing season and keep the weed population in check. Today they use black plastic to cover rows of strawberries and tomatoes and have adopted drip tape irrigation. They plant beans and corn through clear plastic, and use row covers to protect early crops.

The boys also encouraged Jim to invest in agronomic advice. At first he was reluctant to go for the additional expense, but he became fully committed when he saw the benefits.

Ian and Cameron also brought home the business-altering idea of hiring offshore labour. It was a difficult decision at the time, says Jim, but a necessary one. Eight years ago they were depending solely on local help when in the middle of the season, one key employee family suddenly did not show up.

“We nearly killed ourselves working that summer… and we didn’t get all the work done,” says Jim.

Today, they hire 20 Jamaicans and 30 local students. Ian’s wife, Deb, schedules this labour force and does the farm’s marketing.

And Cameron makes three

In 2006 Cameron returned home to work with the business. McGregor’s Produce had grown and was selling at six farmers’ markets in addition to their successful stand at home. Once again, however, they knew they would have to expand to accommodate another family.

The next year, the McGregors started adding satellite stands in nearby towns, and today from mid-June to Labour Day, their crew of hired students drives their freshly picked produce to 15 locations throughout the Upper Ottawa Valley that sell directly to the consumer.

Cameron and Mandy bought the farmland surrounding Jim and Ann’s severed house. Again, Jim and Ann offered a break in the price and they hold the mortgage. Then last year, Cam and Mandy bought another farm where they live. It is being tile drained and they are planning to grow crops that will complement the current business.

Currently, McGregor’s Produce grows produce and crops on the two-thirds of their 1,000 owned and rented acres that are tillable.

In 2008, Cameron became an owner in McGregor’s Produce with the help of a new joint venture agreement, this time with 40 per cent of profits going to Ian, 20 per cent to Cameron and 40 per cent to Jim. In subsequent years, Cameron’s portion increased five per cent and Jim’s decreased five per cent until Jim reached 20 per cent.

Now, the written agreement will stay for the foreseeable future or until things change again.

As the next generation moved into ownership roles, sales increased dramatically, says Jim, who now is retired from the school system and spends a couple of months each winter in Florida.

Indeed, Jim now sees the arrangement as almost a magnet for opportunities, especially in the context of trusted, long-standing relationships in the community.

“The enthusiasm and energy of the younger generation combined with the experience, financial stability and confidence of the older generation have allowed us to do so well,” says Jim.

Open communication

The transfer of management within the McGregor clan has been fluid and ongoing. “The three of us can do more by working together than if we each worked alone,” says Jim. “I can’t explain it, but there’s a synergy.”

Ian is the keen agrologist of the family while Cameron is a real people person who enjoys working with the staff, yet all three owners can do everything on the farm so they cover for each other.

The emphasis, though, is on mutual respect. “The boys are quite capable of making decisions,” says Jim. “They have more knowledge about farming than I do.”

That also means meetings. The McGregors have formal family business meetings including spouses, plus formal farm council meetings with all family members including Sarah and Randy, as well as less-formal farm management meetings where the day-to-day decisions are made by Ian, Cameron and Jim.

The management team also has periodic formal meetings where they review financial statements, dig into strategies, and look at ratios, cash flows and key costs in their operations.

Although they don’t always have the same ideas, they always are able to openly discuss each idea and agree on a decision in the end.

At least annually, the McGregors have a farm council meeting where they discuss bigger-picture decisions for the farm and family, such as risk management, wills, and medical coverage, and where they also celebrate achievements.

Len Davies, the farm financial adviser they hired three years ago to help them through the succession process, had the whole family take personality tests. This awareness has helped them communicate better. “The three of us are a lot alike but different,” says Jim. “Knowing our strengths and personality weaknesses can help the business and help each other by building on each others’ strengths.”

For the McGregors, having Davies at their formal meetings isn’t about keeping the peace, it’s about sourcing new ideas and tapping into his resources. “We discuss things thoroughly all right, but there’s never any shouting. That’s just not the way we operate,” says Jim.

In that spirit, the McGregors also have family business meetings several times a year which include the spouses. These meetings are for making more strategic decisions, such as creating a mission statement, deciding whether to go to a farmers’ market on Sunday or even whether to have the farm operating on Sundays, all to help maintain some family time.

Such discussions have shown Jim and Ann how committed their children are to family values, something they respect greatly. The younger generation wants to book time off to be with their family, whereas Jim says his generation thought they needed to stick close to home so they could be working all the time.

These meetings follow strict guidelines regarding frequency of meetings and who attends, and the family sets an agenda ahead of time and keeps minutes. For such meetings, the McGregors have a “no-children” allowed rule to ensure 100 per cent engagement from everyone.

Although sometimes it’s difficult to schedule these family business meetings because each family is so busy with three children, everyone knows how important it is to the business. “Talk face to face with all the players,” says Jim. “Spouses need to be a part of the business team, especially on the philosophical decisions.”

There WILL be disagreements

The reality is that you’re not going to agree all the time. In fact, says farm family communication adviser Richard Cressman, it’s actually important that you don’t all think alike.

Yet it’s essential that you learn to fight fair, says Cressman, based in New Hamburg, Ont. All discussions need to be transparent, respectful and confidential, and everyone needs to recognize, for instance, that nothing destroys trust like hearing from a neighbour what was talked about at a family meeting.

Cressman says adherence to the following principle may be the most important attribute of successful families: “Disagreements will happen. Someone may leave a meeting in a huff. That will happen from time to time. However, they’re all expected to come back to the next meeting willing to participate.”

There should be a clear distinction as to who has input into what discussions and decisions, yet everyone’s voice is important. “Cultivate an attitude that your meetings are an integral part of the future success of the business,” says Cressman.

And remember, if there’s stress and conflict in your family, Cressman says, it will almost inevitably have originated in a lack of effective communication at some point in the family system.

Communication, he says, is exactly that high value.

The post One Ontario family’s joint path to farm succession appeared first on Country Guide.

It sounds a lot different too, which is just what they wanted.

Thanks to Philippe and Stephanie Quinn, the farm’s second generation, the enterprise has been transformed from a “something for everyone” fruit and vegetable farm into a family-focused, farm-experience destination.

If that sounds like a mouthful, it’s actually even more than that, as you’ll read below.

But the crucial thing to know up front, says Stephanie, is that the Quinns are also very good at how they portray themselves to outsiders, which she says is critical for any business that depends so much on direct sales to customers.

“Take our farm for example,” Stephanie says. “We all wear bright red shirts that say Quinn Farm in really bold letters, and although our tractor drivers will sometimes wear cowboy hats or coveralls, generally we try to look professional, we try to be modern.”

The Quinns have also invested in iPad-controlled cash registers, and in high-tech sound systems normally sold only to amusement parks.

In a Canada where consumers cling to a more nostalgic picture of agriculture, the marketing text books in any MBA course would likely tell you the Quinns have gone seriously, maybe even disastrously, off message.

But then you visit their farm, and you notice their clientele.

When your target market is children under the age of eight, Stephanie says, high-energy colours, oversized lettering, and loud noises are what you need, not plaid shirts and bib overalls.

Nor can you stop halfway, Stephanie says. “Everything we do in terms of our branding, marketing, advertising and functioning on the farm is all related to that decision.”

Narrowing their focus to such a defined audience ought to have been risky, especially when it meant turning longtime loyal customers away. But the way Stephanie talks about the decision actually sounds a lot more like a risk management plan.

“Places like Walmart will never have high satisfaction levels because you can’t please everybody, but you’re trying to, and that was what we were doing,” Stephanie says. “Now the people coming here are all here for the same reason, looking for the same experience, and that makes it easy to give them that because we’re focused on a single experience.”

Of course, while it all sounds great in theory, that doesn’t mean it was an easy process to adopt, or an easy to process to watch, especially for the senior Quinn generation.

The farm was generating great feedback from their target audience, Stephanie says. They’d hear their visitors saying, “wow this is so amazing, there is so much for young children to do” or “your bathrooms are so kid friendly.”

But it did take time. “Now we see this year, year number five, the number of families that are taking season’s passes has just skyrocketed, which to us is a huge indicator that they’re seeing there’s lots to do to come back repeatedly with a family,” Stephanie says. “We’re finally really seeing that it’s worth it.”

Not only has the farm been able to charge families $5 admission per person to access wagon rides, a play yard, and a petting zoo, but demand for season passes is up significantly.

Meanwhile, they also found a way to reach out to the older customers who were turned off by the new youth focus.

The Quinns’ produce remains available at two local farm markets for customers who don’t want the added agri-tainment experience of the farm. But even those stands conform to the farm’s brand image, thanks to Hugh Maynard of Qu’anglo Communications and Consulting, who also happens to be Stephanie’s dad.

Hugh says by going with a red awning and red table cloths, and by outfitting staff with La Ferme Quinn red shirts in a sea of white kiosks, they stand out. But more importantly, he says, the customer experience remains consistent.

“The main thing with image is to be consistent,” Hugh says, “so that when people show up, they know what to expect, both in what they buy and who they are dealing with.”

Hugh says most of the work his company does is general communications work, but Quinn Farm contracts him and his staff to do all their off-farm marketing, and to operate their farmer’s market stands all summer. “They’re so busy running the farm, they don’t have time to get out there and do that,” he says.

Even if it’s not serving their primary target audience, Stephanie says attending the markets allows them to talk to their customers about their food, which is one of the reasons why she and her husband decided to get into farming in the first place.

“Farmer’s markets are one of those few opportunities where you can reach out, because these people are engaged in their food system and have very complex questions about their food,” Stephanie explains. “Even with all my dad’s experience with agriculture, every week he comes back with questions he couldn’t answer that we have to then provide the answers for.”

Meanwhile, Hugh says the intense marketing strategy that La Ferme Quinn has implemented is rare. Nor would it be a good choice for many farms, particularly those that don’t sell directly to the consumer.

But that doesn’t mean a farm has to be shipping livestock around the world to justify investing in a little image development either.

Just consider if there was ever an accident or spill in a community. Image won’t absolve a farming operation from negligence, Hugh says, but it will play a part because people are quick to come to conclusions about how much blame should go in which directions.

Building a relationship of trust and understanding helps make sure that those first crucial judgments are sympathetic, or at least not hostile.

“It’s assurance, not insurance,” Hugh says.

On La Ferme Quinn, Stephanie even runs to putting higher-priced help in the parking lot to be the first point of contact for new arrivals, because managing the image is just that important.

The basics

It starts with actually thinking about the image you want to portray, and with having a purpose. “If you don’t really have a purpose, why bother?” says Hugh. “But even if it’s as simple as saying we want to have a good public image with the neighbours and nothing else, then you have something to follow through on.”

Quinn Farm used to spend $15,000 a year advertising in local newspapers, with no idea of the impact, how many people saw the ads, or how many of those who did were actually motivated to show up at the farm because of it. So now, the Quinns have gone 100 per cent to Google ads, which means they can tell exactly how much it’s costing them per customer to get that message out.

They also know pretty much within a couple dozen of people, that if 500 people view their ad on Friday, 400 will show up on Saturday.

That, as they say, is the power of modern technology.

While it’s a critical part of maintaining a positive image for her farm, Stephanie believes it’s becoming even more important for agriculture in general.

As the only farmer some people ever meet, Stephanie says she ends up taking questions about all aspects of modern farming. Most of the questions, she laments, are inspired by misleading blockbuster films and YouTube videos. The challenge for her, as a visibly modern farmer, is to show customers she cares as much about the environment and animal welfare as the “traditional” farmer would.

“We’re not doing a very good job as farmers of giving them those positive messages,” Stephanie says. “They’re hearing all of those really horrible, awful stories about animals being abused and they’re not hearing the story about how much farmers are investing into these cow mats for cow comfort; they don’t know how many farmers are really concerned about making sure they’re comfortable for longevity. Luckily, I come from a farming area and have friends that are in dairy so I can answer those questions — even though we don’t do dairy — because we’re the only farmers they know.”

“What we’re finding now is, 20 years ago, a lot of people in the city had grandparents who farmed, or if they were recent immigrants, in a lot of those countries there are still a lot of farmers, so they were closer to the land. They’re not anymore, to the point that we could write a book about people showing up in February to pick apples or they come to pick strawberries and can’t understand why 10 things aren’t ready to pick in strawberry season. They really have no comprehension of when things are ready or how we grow them.”

“We need to create the emotional connection with a modern farmer that people have with that image of the traditional farmer who has some chickens and some pigs and some cows and wears overalls,” Stephanie says.

“So that’s what’s hard in our farming industry,” Stephanie says. “It’s trying to change the image so the expectation is that a modern farmer has technology and business skills. That’s a really big challenge. We see it here. It’s a huge image to manage.”

“We make unfair judgments.” — Hugh Maynard, Qu’Anglo Communications

Farmers make snap judgments too, says Hugh Maynard, president of Qu’anglo Communications and Consulting at Ormstown, Que., near the Ontario border southwest of Montreal.

When it’s consumers who make those snap judgments, however, and when the judgments they make are wrong and they come at the expense of agriculture, it can create a pattern of thinking that is a bad omen for the future.

Not every farm needs as complex a communications and branding strategy as Farm Quinn, Maynard says. But every farm should spend at least a little time thinking about how their actions make the bigger debate either easier or harder to win.

“We make unfair judgments as to who somebody is, and as to what their capabilities are,” Maynard says. “Most of the time it’s very casual and doesn’t matter, but we do it.”

Every farm has some level of public image, even if you don’t sell directly to the public, Maynard says. As a farmer, when you drive down the road, you probably make different snap judgments about the farms that you pass based on whether they seem ramshackle and disorganized, or whether they look well managed.

The same goes for the public, Maynard says, so managing your image isn’t only about finding a customer, it’s all about influencing what people will feel they can expect from you, and what they think you can be trusted with.

The solutions can be a nice sign for the farm, a clean pickup when you go to town, how you dress when you go to the bank, or how you answer the telephone.

“You want to be the one who creates that image,” Maynard says. “You don’t want to let other people do it for you.”

“It’s not rocket science,” Maynard adds. “Think out the image you want, and have a purpose.”

Increasingly, your image management may have a social media context too.

“You don’t need to go overboard,” Maynard says. “And you don’t need to be loud about it, but if you learn how to use it and use it effectively, then it can be a very simple and cheap tool. But it takes a little openness and understanding about how the technologies work and what you can do with them.”

“You are what you wear.” — Deb Brewin, Face 2 Face Image Consulting

Deciding how to dress is always more important for women, but when you work in agriculture, the job is even tougher.

The stakes are greater, because it’s your job and your business that’s in the balance. Plus, the rules are less clear. When did you ever see a photo shoot on how to dress as a farm woman?

“It’s a lasting impression that you have to think about,” says Deb Brewin, certified international image consultant at Face 2 Face Image Consulting in Calgary. “You want to send a message of credibility and look approachable. You want to transmit an overall professional image.”

“First impressions are crucial. It only takes three to five seconds to make a first impression and most of that is based on what you are wearing… 93 per cent of that is based on your outer appearance.”

For Brewin, the first rule is to always be prepared to present a good image of yourself.

“You never know who you’re going to run into,” Brewin says. “Someone you’re chatting with could become someone you want to network with down the road.”

“Even myself, if I’m going for groceries or running up town, I still look presentable,” Brewin says.

(Brewin does admit to bending the “always be presentable” rule. That’s because, if she is meeting other women, and especially if she is doing business with other women, she makes extra sure to think about her appearance, dressing up a little more.)

Being well dressed doesn’t have to mean a closet full of expensive clothes, Brewin adds. “I talk about a capsule wardrobe,” she says, explaining that nine pieces can make 30 outfits without breaking the bank. That includes a jacket, white blouse, coloured blouse, a dressier top for evenings, black skirt, black pants, printed skirt, sweater, “and for ag women, I would include jeans in that.”

“I think if you wear jeans, they should be a dark jean or black jean with a nice top and jacket. It all depends. If you’re going out into the field, you still have to look approachable. For a business meeting, if you’re selling anything, yes, you should probably wear dress pants and a jacket but you can look too stuffy in a suit.”

But also keep in mind what you’re doing, and where you’ll be. “Women feel good and often feel more confident when they’re dressed up,” Brewin says. “However, you have to dress for what you’re doing for the day. If you have to go out in the field, if you have to be out checking crops, no one’s going to take you seriously if you go out in dress pants and heels.

“There’s nothing wrong with wearing workboots or cowboy boots, as long as they’re clean and look presentable. That, to me, still shows professionalism.”

That said, Brewin adds, “It’s always wise to carry a dressier shirt or a jacket with you just in case something comes up.”

Also remember that there’s more to image than your wardrobe. Cleanliness is crucial. And, she adds, “If you’re smiling, and you look good, and you feel good, you are exuding confidence and happiness. And people are attracted to that!”

“The first thing you should put on in the morning is a smile, because positive attracts positive.”

Not surprisingly, there are expert tricks too. “If you wake up in the morning down and out, blue is very therapeutic and helps to lighten your spirits. It’s a great colour for everybody,” Brewin says.

“Colours around the face can send a message. Red is powerful, outgoing, and happy and navy, instead of black, is a more approachable colour.”

Black means security, peace or chic. Green is wisdom. Purple is thoughtfulness. Grey is more conservative and another great colour for a suit.

“We’re all human and will look at a person and make a judgement call. They could be wonderful workers but I would rather work with somebody who takes care of themself and is a confident person and carries themselves well.”

“Looking presentable shows you pay attention to detail.”

The post Farmers finding the right image appeared first on Country Guide.

“I grew up my whole life canning and preserving alongside my mother and both my grandmothers,” says Wasiuta (23), who was born and raised in Springfield, Man. “I really took an interest in it when I was 16 and began making all my family’s preserves myself… with a little help from my mom now and then.”

Wasiuta would always have ample preserves to share with friends and family, many of whom urged her to “sell them to the public.”

It’s the sort of thing that often gets said. So, what made the difference this time? Why did the dream become reality?

After all, at the time, Wasiuta had her hands more than full showing horses. But then came 2012, when Wasiuta retired two of her performance horses, freeing up some time to consider going to farmers markets in the summer with her homemade jams, and moving into production on a larger scale.

• From the Manitoba Co-operator: Farmers’ market customers willing to pay for value

Wasiuta’s business partner and friend, Porter (25), grew up in Winnipeg before moving to Portage la Prairie two years ago to bake at a bakery while working with Wasiuta on their new business venture.

At the age of 10, Porter began taking riding lessons and fell in love with everything about it. Living in the city at the time, she spent her summers and weekends at Miracle Ranch, just south of Birds Hill Park. Later, once she bought her first horse and began showing, horses became a bigger part of her life.

After having met at horse shows about five years ago, Porter and Wasiuta soon discovered they shared many interests and quickly bonded. Since then, the duo combined forces to start up Forever Prairie.

“Being an entrepreneur is what I’ve always known I should do,” says Porter. “After trying some of Kylie’s jams and getting hooked on them myself, I knew this was it. We could go public and once people try them, they’ll be hooked on them too!”

“People want to know what’s in the food… and what’s not,” Porter says. “We knew going in that we could offer that, a healthy alternative to the sickeningly sweet stuff you find in stores.”

For Wasiuta and Porter, business start-up costs weren’t an issue, as they started small and manageable and worked hard to create a product people loved.  From there, their business just naturally grew.

It all started back in April of 2012, as the duo sat down and began planning. “In one evening we’d chosen our name and slogan, had planned which weekends we’d be at the farmers markets, what we wanted to sell product-wise, and what our goals were for the season,” says Porter.

“It was very exciting to see our dream becoming an entrepreneurial reality.”

They started as vendors at the Pineridge Hollow farmers market in Birds Hill Park for the summer, and continued into the fall/winter season doing local Christmas craft sales as well as some in Winnipeg, plus Brandon’s “Big One” Arts and Crafts sale in October.

After meeting a lot of people in 2012, Wasiuta and Porter were excited to enter the year 2013, expanding their marketing at craft sales and farmers markets while also increasing their product line.

Within two short years, the business received a lot of recognition and publicity has taken off.

The duo hopes to expand into more stores in 2014 in and around Manitoba so their brand will become more widely known. They are ready to take it to the next level.

Brand recognition

As Wasiuta and Porter work to get their Forever Prairie brand more recognition, their customers are taking in their slogan, “Prairie hearts and country souls, bringing the taste of the prairies to your home.”

“Going to different markets and trade shows, especially in the city, gets people talking about us, as does getting the products into more stores,” says Porter.  “Social media has also been a huge advertising tool for us… and it’s free.

“I’d love to get to the point where we’re on shelves all over Manitoba, maybe even across Canada, and we can do this full-time,” Porter says. “I really believe in us and our product, and will continue doing it as long as I can.”

Dividing the work

Wasiuta and Porter aim to split everything evenly, with Porter doing more of the financial and accounting work and Wasiuta doing more of the packaging and labelling.

When it comes to creating recipes, they bounce ideas off of one another.

The duo share the work of making the products equally, carving out specific days, which they refer to as “jam days.” These days are typically long, starting around 9 a.m. and finishing at about 8 p.m. On any given jam day, they make about 22 different flavours or products that are packed in approximately 132 jars.

“Making sure we were following all regulations took some research and asking the right questions, but we managed to figure it all out,” says Porter. “As part of the business expansion, as of 2014, we’ll be moving into a commercial kitchen. Until then, we’ve been making most of our products at home.”

Adds Wasiuta, “Making sure we complied with all the farmers market and health code regulations was our first step. Updating our labels so we could sell in public businesses was another.

“Moving into a commercial kitchen will help expand our product even further, as we’d like to start offering salsas that we’ll make from our own organically home-grown tomatoes and peppers.”

Expand the lineup

When Wasiuta and Porter launched Forever Prairie, they thought it would be only on a small scale for fun. Viability wasn’t on the table. They knew they had found good business partners in one another and they began to share mutual goals for the business. 

“We learned that if you have the passion and are willing to work for it, you can make it happen,” says Wasiuta.

By the time the business took off and they realized they were really onto something good, they knew that turning back wasn’t an option. “We love what we do and that we can share our homegrown goodness with people,” says Porter.

Family support

“If not for my mom, I would have never grown up doing this or having this know-ledge, so I owe a lot to her,” says Wasiuta. “My earliest memory of making jam is going strawberry picking with my mom and making jam as soon as we got home.”

Porter agrees, “We’ve gotten a lot of advice from Kylie’s mom and grandma,” she says. “But, as far as the recipes go, we’re pretty creative and create most of them ourselves. My mom is a great resource from the business end, as she has an accounting background and is always there to help find us a deal on supplies. Both our families are very supportive.”

Wasiuta grew up picking wild chokecherries, saskatoons, cranberries and blueberries with her grandparents. She learned a lot about these wild berries from them as well as how to make large batches of jam (before her grandmother’s passing). It is Wasiuta’s grandmother’s chokecherry and wild cranberry jam recipes Porter and Wasiuta use today.

Horses first

While they will never leave their first love — horses — Wasiuta and Porter’s second love, Forever Prairie, continues to pull on their heart strings, as they grow tomatoes, peppers, carrots, tomatillos, cucumbers, strawberries, raspberries, grapes and more. “We grow as much of it as we can ourselves,” says Wasiuta. “When we can’t, we support local Manitoba U-picks and farmers.”

Forever Prairie chokecherries are picked wild right off their farm, as are crab apples, wild plums, blueberries, cranberries, pin cherries and raspberries. 

Wasiuta and Porter also formed a working relationship with a family that owns several of the B.C. fruit trucks so often seen along the highway in the summer. The deal gives them access to a steady supply of local, Canadian-grown fruit on a larger scale.

“The most rewarding part is knowing, start-to-finish, we have handcrafted that jar of preserves,” says Wasiuta. “A lot of work went into growing, selecting and picking the fruit — creating each batch and developing new recipes so when people read the label, they can’t believe it’s a jam. It’s so encouraging to hear people ask if it’s us young girls who do this and ask what inspired us. Many ask if we have a team of grandmas making our jams for us and it makes us proud to say that this is 100 per cent us.”

Says Porter, “The only part we aren’t crazy about is the accounting side of things.”

That’s where their passion comes in, however, making the hours on the books a fair trade for the chance to excel at the areas they enjoy more. “We both really enjoy making the products and talking to new people at sales,” says Porter. “To hear people’s praise for our product makes us smile.”

Wasiuta and Porter swear by maintaining a positive outlook and feel that just knowing they are capable of doing this is what lifts their business to the next level, giving them the energy and drive to grow their sales.

For more information on Porter and Wasiuta and Forever Prairie, follow them on Facebook as they post which craft sales and farmer’s markets they will be at and when. Readers can also find their products at Wild West Farm and Garden Ltd. (at 539 Main St., Oakbank, Man.), and soon, in many more stores in Winnipeg and beyond.

The post A jam of a business appeared first on Country Guide.