Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: Windwalker Farms

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Sue <swtgrssfrm AT nls.net>
  • To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Windwalker Farms
  • Date: Mon, 08 Jan 2001 17:40:12 -0500


Joan,
You made me hungry listening to you describe your salsa. Sounds like a
great idea.
I recently came across a farm with the same name as yours that raises
goats and
Tennesse Walkers. Could that be you?

Sue Steiner
Sweetgrass Farm
Wadsworth, Ohio


Joan Vibert wrote:

> The timing on this discussion is ideal. We just downloaded information
> from Kansas Dept. of Health & Environment regarding kitchen certification
> and are about to try this ourselves.
> I sell at an upscale organic farmer's market in south Kansas City and
> realized last year, my first, that value-added items were perfect for this
> market. I "borrowed" a local certified kitchen in our small town and made
> items such as scones, pies, pesto, chimichurri (cilantro pesto), spreads
> etc. Every week I sold out and could have taken more. But it is a real
> pain to drive everything into town and work in someone else's space with
> their equipment. Plus the fact that this "certified kitchen" was filthy! I
> couldn't believe it.
> So we are looking at a corner in our basement that can be fitted out and
> to begin with I intend to use an extra stove and fridge we have. We have a
> line on someone with a Hobart stand mixer, triple sinks and a twelve rack
> commercial oven that they used for cookies, all at bargain prices. Plus,
> from what I understand the used equipment is so easy to come by if you know
> where to look.
> I probably won't make mass amounts of any of these items, just have a
> nice assortment of each every week to start with, maybe a dozen each of
> several items. And I probably won't take many "canned" foods, more like
> fresh prepared items. Last year as I drove home with trays full of the
> extra tomatoes in August, I was struck by how easy it would be to turn it
> all into gazpacho and sell it to them in quart carry-out containers the next
> week. As it was I turned most of them into dried tomatoes and sold those
> back to them in one form or another.
> However, we are in Kansas and our market is in Missouri and I understand
> that the FDA steps in when you cross the line with all this prepared food.
> Does anyone have experience with this?
> I am the project manager for a local tomato grower's coop and we make
> salsa every summer at a certified kitchen utilizing as much of our locally
> grown produce as possible. And yes, we start with hand picked tomatoes,
> peppers, jalapenos, onions, garlic, so we get to peel, seed, etc. We hope
> to solve the tedious tomato peeling this year with a steam peeler and we use
> a large food processor for all of it but we have a very slow garlic peeling
> process. In a day we can require over 20 pounds of garlic, which is a lot
> of peeling. We use those rubber peelers but its slow! If anyone has any
> ideas to speed this up, I'd like to hear them. We've thought about using
> green garlic that would be pulled in May or so and held in a cooler or
> chopped and frozen until August.
> In regard to selling our product, we have had an uphill battle getting
> it into stores because it is higher priced than other "local" salsas that
> don't start with fresh produce. It sells well at market at $5.50 a jar but
> on a store shelf next to other salsas it appears high priced. We have
>
> printed up a shelf hanger that explains the product and a little of the
> project and hope that it helps. Has anyone solved this battle?
> Its so nice to have all this discussion going on right now while we are
> all dreaming about the new season. Its too bad we can't all spend a day
> together in a small room, think of what we might learn from each other!
> Thanks for all the good ideas and keep them flowing - by the way - please
> add your city and state to your signature. I keep forgetting where everyone
> is and its very helpful to know.
>
> Joan
> Windwalker Farm
> Ottawa, Kansas
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to market-farming as: swtgrssfrm AT nls.net
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> leave-market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
> Get the list FAQ at:
> http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech/documents/market-farming.faq





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page