Below is a discussion I had with Ron and Christina Binaghi of Stokes Farm about a side of their business an average consumer doesn’t see and might not even consider:  restaurant sourcing.

Q:  Do you have all of the restaurants you source to listed on your website?  Can you tell me about your relationships with these restaurants?

Christina: Probably about 75%.  Sometimes restaurants buy from us and we don’t even know.  They don’t ask for wholesale prices; they just go to the market and buy stuff.  We don’t even realize they’re buying from us until we go to the restaurant and see Stokes Farm on their menu. 

We have our regular restaurants that have been customers of ours for years and years.  It helps them and it helps us.  When their menu says Stokes Farm, people want to know more about us. 

[Customers] are always asking us, ‘oh do you know any good restaurants in the city that have fresh, local produce?’

One of our projects that we’re working on is that we’re trying to get more restaurants in New Jersey to buy from us.  We have a list of 7 different restaurants; we’re going to go in with a basket with a sampling of all our stuff, with a brochure and a wholesale price list.

Q:  Why are these relationships with your local restaurants only beginning to develop?

Christina:  In the city, I feel like [customers] embrace [cooking] more; they’re food savvy.  They want to learn how to do it themselves.

Ron:  Restaurants around here, or restaurants in general, they want THAT tomato, every single week.  They want it to be the same price and the same size, every week, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.  That’s what they want; they say ‘that’s what I’m getting from my purveyor; they’re delivering it to my door and I know how much, what size, and what it’s going to taste like.’  Where with us, it’s like one week we might have it, one week there’s no more: maybe next week!

Q: When you’re thinking about restaurant versus farm stand versus markets, how do you divide up the product?

Ron: Right now, since we’re so engulfed in the markets, markets come first.  We do three markets on Saturday.  If we have ten flats of cherry tomatoes, Union Square gets five because they’re the biggest; Lincoln Center will get three; Tribeca will get two.  If anyone calls and orders any, we don’t have any, because our ten flats will sell out.  That’s where we have to balance things out.  For the most part, that doesn’t really happen because we have so much, an abundance, that it’s easy to fill.  Union Square is still the biggest.

For a fairly complete list of which restaurants carry Stokes Farm products, click HERE.

At a time when farmers’ markets were unheard of and the Union Square area was a nest of drug activity, Ron Binaghi and Ron Binaghi, Jr. loaded up their truck, parked it in Union Square, and sold out of their produce within hours. Stokes Farm had joined together with 11 other farms to become the founding farmers at the first Union Square Greenmarket in 1976.

Ron Binaghi, Jr. was 16 in 1976.  Today, 34 years later, Stokes Farm remains a family operation.  Ron Jr. and his son, Ron III, co-own Stokes Farm, and other family members are in charge of retail sales, web design, marketing, and the greenhouse.

Isaiah Stokes, Ron Jr.’s, great-great-grandfather, founded Stokes Farm in 1873.    According to Ron Jr., the farm originally grew five acres of five things:  tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, strawberries, and plum tomatoes.  In the 1950s, Ron Jr.’s father, Ron, took over the farm and he and his wife fostered a successful farm stand.  As the decades rolled on and one-stop grocery stores became the norm, farmers’ markets ceased to exist.

In the 1970s, two New Yorkers decided that this needed to change.  Ron Jr., recounts his father being approached by Bob Lewis and Barry Benepe, founders of the NYC Greenmarket system.

“Bob Lewis got a map and went out and tried to find farms.  He [then] came here and asked my father.  It was the early 70s, when we had an oil shortage.  OPEC was having an embargo and oil prices were really high.  Sales were down; the economy was slow.  My father said ‘alright’.  It was a fortunate day—a very busy day—we came home with nothing.”

The Binaghi family is six generations deep into farming and their spirit and enthusiasm appears undampened.  Each of my summer visits for different farm profiles have rejuvenated and inspired me, but none have left me feeling as positive and refreshed as my visit with Ron Jr., Ron III, and Ron III’s wife, Christina.  At Stokes Farm, the beauty of the food and land is directly related to the care and energy put in by the Binaghis:  what you see is what you get.  And what I saw was 17 acres of zinnias, basil, peppers, tomatoes, herbs, squash, eggplant growing on rolling hills, surrounded by a boundary of trees.  What I got was a warm welcome, an enthusiastic tour on the back of a tractor, and frank conversations about what it takes to be an effective, successful, productive farm in 2010.

Since 1976, Stokes Farm has become a significant fixture in New Yorkers’ personal and restaurant kitchens.  Customers rely on Stokes Farm’s presence at the market.  I have no doubt that a quick conversation with one of the Binaghis could brighten up even the worst day.  According to Ron Jr., customers have a genuine, comfortable repartee with him and his family, whether it’s a regular customer who gets free tomatoes if Ron Jr. laughs at his joke or it’s a customer who calls to check on Christina when she doesn’t come to the market.

The reliance is mutual.  Ron Jr. is quick to point out that “we really depend on [our customers]; I don’t know if they realize how much we depend on them.” 

On the day I visited Stokes Farm, the heat that’s been plaguing the New York area this summer had abated.  After being amiably greeted by Ron III, he and his wife, Christina, took me on a tour of the property.  Throughout my tour, Christina and Ron happily played off of each other’s quips:

Christina:  You have people you only see during heirloom tomato season.  I don’t know what they eat the rest of the year!
Ron:  They buy like a box a week.  It’s like their hedge fund.

When I visited the farm, Christina was 28 weeks pregnant with Stokes Farm’s 7th generation farmer.  Christina laughingly explained that she and Ron had met through their mothers and that she “never imagined marrying a farmer and doing this kind of stuff, but I love it so much.”

Christina may have grown up in an urban area but she was just as knowledgeable about the farm as anyone I talked to.  Since marrying Ron, Christina has streamlined Stokes Farm’s branding and internet presence, handling the majority of the farm’s marketing.  In addition to designing their cute tomato logo, she also created and continues to update the farm’s website and Twitter account. 

At 27, Ron co-owns Stokes Farm with his father.  His enthusiasm for food and farming is infectious—I’d hazard to say that if you spent a full day with him, you might be inclined to leave your job and start farming.  Often when he stopped the tractor to talk about an aspect of the farm, he’d leap from his seat and bring back something for me to smell.  Later that night when I emptied out my camera bag, I found 5 herb sprigs at the bottom, along with a pepper.

If you eat their products, you’ll quickly understand what makes the Binaghis so enthusiastic.  Their delight in their food is justified.  I came home with a bag full of eggplants, heirloom tomatoes, and husk tomatoes, each ripe with flavor.  I was half-tempted to stay up all night to find worthy recipes for each product.  The quality of Stokes products—70 in all—is so high that all of their restaurant deals have come unsolicited.  Today, they source to the likes of Gramercy Tavern, Mercer Kitchen, and Telepan. (See a full list on their website.)  Both father and son shared that they were most proud of their tomatoes and herbs, especially rosemary: “they’re our thing”. 

Because I visited at the end of July, the 16 greenhouses were mostly empty, but nearly everything else was in full swing.  I saw eggplant, squash, 1,000 rosemary plants, rows of basil, acres of tomatoes and peppers, and more herbs than I could name.  Certain plants, like lavender, mint, chives, and asparagus, come back each year, while others, like tomatoes, eggplant, squash, and basil, have to be planted at the start of each season.

The Binaghis are savvy about balancing what they plant with consumer demand.  They cited examples of products that they assumed would sell that didn’t.  Ron III notes:

“We found that people aren’t big on eggplant.  People don’t want that big large black one; they want that one Japanese eggplant to dice up and put in their stir fry. People don’t know what to do with them. When you say anything about baking or cooking, like what about eggplant parmesan?, they go ‘oh no, I don’t want to cook!’.  People like tomatoes, you can eat them right away.”

Stokes take customer requests and needs seriously, all the while accurately tracking what sells and what doesn’t.  And they try to make their products appeal to everyone, so even though they now know that there’s a demand for smaller eggplant, they still grow a few plants of the larger eggplant, knowing that there are still customers who want to cook with them.

Stokes Farm recognizes its unique position:  they are a small farm located in an extremely affluent county, 50 miles outside of Manhattan.

Ron Jr. observes:

“We’re so close to the city; I think we have our finger on it more than maybe the average farmer.  [We know] more of what’s going on in the food world and in technology world, because we’re so close, we have to be.  It’s like thrown on us.  We’re under the microscope because it’s an oddity to be a farm this close to the city. Some people think we’re stupid because we haven’t sold and retired…We just like what we do.”

Stokes Farm clearly has ‘their finger’ on the needs of the consumer.  If they debut a new or unusual product, Christina creates and prints recipes for it.  They offer Stokes Farm re-usable bags to their customers.  They sell cut flowers along with their plethora of vegetables.  “People like cut flowers.  It’s a simple thing,” Ron III says.  “It brightens up our stand and it brightens up their place.”  The farm recognizes that while growing heirloom tomatoes is more labor intensive and less productive (they can only sell about 50% of what they grow), the demand for the tomatoes is high.  “People start asking us in May for heirlooms!,” Christina told me.

While Stokes Farm is very open about their dependence on, and fondness for, their regular customers, they also pointed out how frustrating customer ignorance can sometimes be.  You won’t meet friendlier people than the Binaghis.  Coupled with that friendliness is a fierce pride in their products and growing methods.  Yet it’s fairly common for them to have customers come up to their stands and squeeze their products  (especially tomatoes), sniff their products, haggle with them over pricing, and then leave without buying anything!  The Binaghis were quick to point out that the majority of their customers are respectful and loyal, but it’s a slow re-education process for others.

Here are a few common myths and comments that Stokes hoped they could clarify — feel free to share these with others!

—They do not go to Florida for the Winter months.  In January they go to trade shows; in February they’re already planting their annuals; in March they are gearing up for another market season.

—Contrary to what some farmers’ market lists tell you, there is not a discount at the end of the day.  As Ron said, if customers think that every day at 4 pm, everything becomes half price, the customers aren’t going to show up until 4 pm!  Stokes wants their customers to see how good their produce looks every day.  They may be under a tent, sometimes next to an artisan market, but they are not a flea market.   Please do not try to negotiate down the price of an item.

—They do not grow, nor sell, bananas, avocados, or pineapples.   Unless global warming “really kicks in”, as Ron III joked, they will never grow or sell these products.  (If you want REALLY local avocados, pick up the Frankies Spuntino cookbook, where they discuss growing avocados in your apartment!)

—You can’t tell the ripeness or smell of a tomato by squeezing it or smelling it. If a tomato is soft, it’s because the 10 people before you have squeezed it.  You can tell the ripest of a tomato simply from the color (or just trust in the fact that Stokes will be selling ripe tomatoes).  The fruit of a tomato carries no smell.  What you might smell is the stem, not the actual tomato.

To help dispel some of these myths and actions, Stokes created helpful signs such as “This is how you choose” and “Please do not squeeze or husk, etc” for their farm stand and farmers markets. 

As Stokes looks towards the future, the farm remains firmly grounded in the present.  At the time of my visit, they were in week 19 of their 40 week market season.  Ron Jr. shared that they’re holding their own.

“We’re a recession proof business.  People need food.  People are starting to understand the connection between the land here and the city.  If you don’t shop at our stand, how many farms will be sold?  If you do support all those growers, you’re [helping to] keep this land.  The upstate land is the city’s watershed.”

Stokes Farm continues to pursue new opportunities.  They’re hoping to sell to more neighboring New Jersey restaurants and recently supplied Danny Meyer’s latest restaurant, Maialino, with 800 pounds of soil for its rooftop garden.  They remain grateful to their customers, dedicated to the quality of the food they’re growing, and grounded in reality. 

“It’s like a big stage and we’re all part of the cast.  The customers are the audience.  They come.  We all have our food.  At 7:15, the curtain opens, you have to be on with a game face until 6 pm.”

Find Stokes at these Farmers Markets
Check out their website for even more information!

Happy Marketing!

-Meaghin

If you take the Amtrak two hours north, you will arrive at the picturesque Hudson train station, the oldest continually operating train station in the state of New York (to see just how picturesque, click here).  Hudson’s downtown varies between stately renovated homes and rows and rows of low-income housing.  Mixed among the cute coffee shops, restaurants and refurbished homes are enormous swaths of poverty. 

I traveled to the Hudson stop because that was the closest stop to Harlemville, home of Hawthorne Valley Farm.  On our drive from the station to the farm, Margo, the employee who graciously picked me up, asked me what I knew about the farm.   I answered with something along the lines of, “Well, I know Hawthorne Valley is a 400 acre biodynamic farm and bakery.   I know it has its own farm store where it sells raw milk.  And I know it sells at several New York City greenmarkets!”

Margo seemed genuinely impressed with how much I knew, but there’s a difference between knowing a few facts and spending an afternoon on a farm, learning about its animals, plants, and history. I was excited to supplement my factual knowledge with smells, sights, and conversation.

My visit to Hawthorne Valley differed from all of my other farm visits. Instead of talking to and interviewing the farmer, I went on a tour of the property led by Margo and accompanied by a young family who were also visiting. The actual farmers were gone for the day and the farm felt relaxed, quiet, and peaceful.  Before the official tour started, I wandered around the farm store and front of the property.

Education

Hawthorne Valley Farm was founded in direct relation with the Manhattan based Rudolf Steiner School, the first Waldorf School in North America.  Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner founded the spiritual philosophy known as anthroposophy, which focuses on cultivating inner development.  Steiner believed that the human being was a body, soul, and spirit.  The first Waldorf School was founded in 1919; today there are nearly 1,000.  (Sources: Wikipedia/Why Waldorf Works.org)

The Waldorf curriculum is modeled on Steiner’s theory of human development.  Methods used in Waldorf schools stem from the view that children progress through stages. Thus, at the schools, early childhood learning is experiential and sensory based; elementary learning is artistic and imaginative; adolescence learning focuses on developing abstract thought and social responsibility.

As stated on the homepage of Manhattan’s Waldorf School:  “The aim of the education is to inspire in each student a lifelong love of learning, and to enable them to fully develop their unique capacities.”

Margo, both my chauffeur and tour guide, explained that when a child turns 9, Steiner felt that a child was ready to step away from the family unit and starts to recognize that he is different from his family.  The Waldorf philosophy espouses physical activity as the best way for a child to understand that will force.  And the most fulfilling kind of physical activity?  A farm experience.  So, the Waldorf 3rd grade curriculum was built around physical activity and in1972, a group of educators, farmers, and artisans purchased the Curtis Vincent Farm in Harlemville, New York, now known as Hawthorne Valley Farm.

In the 35 years since, Hawthorne Valley has developed into an important partner and community member not only with Manhattan’s Waldorf school, but also with residents and schools in Harlemville, Hudson, and seemingly, the entire Eastern seaboard.  Throughout the year, Hawthorne Valley Farm houses students from as far south as Virginia and as far north as Maine.  These 20-25 students bunk up in the Main House and fully participate in the farm’s activities—mucking, baking, weeding.  Older students, including those from Manhattan’s Waldorf School, have more specialized visits to really hone in on one particular aspect of the farm, “tuning into the rhythm of the farm”.

Hawthorne Valley takes seriously its role in educating children and young adults.  Each year, through a selective process, the farm brings on 5 farm apprentices.  According to Margo, many of these apprentices go on to pursue careers in agriculture.

A newer relationship has found Hawthorne Valley working with students from Brooklyn Automotive, a high school in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  Three years ago, Jenny Kessler, an English teacher at the school, created an elective class entitled “Food, Land, and You”.  This class’ curriculum delves into food justice and food access issues and partners with HVF for twice annual visits.  This summer, HVF is running a camp called ‘Kids Can Cook!’. The camp’s population comes from a city-run camp in Hudson.  Rachel Schneider diligently works with the Hudson summer camp to bring campers to HVF’s property, integrating cooking into the city camp’s curriculum.  Currently, three of the camp counselors are from Brooklyn Automotive.

Biodynamic Farming

If education is Hawthorne Valley’s overarching mission and purpose, food and farming is what ties all of these diverse communities together.  Hawthorne Valley is a 400 acre biodynamic farm.  The cows, pigs, chickens and vegetables are raised and grown in direct harmony with the land.   Biodynamic farming, a theory developed by Rudolf Steiner, treats the soil and land as a living organism. Maintenance of soil is vital for a farm to remain self-contained and long lasting.   Hawthorne Valley (and other biodynamic farms, including Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm) emphasizes the use of farm-made manures and compost and work within the rhythms of nature.  Biodynamic farmers believe that a healthy farm is comprised of three things that must be balanced at all times:  man, land, and animal.

Cows play a very specific role in this balance, as they provide milk, meat, much of the manure, and aerate the fields.  Margo explained:

“We have 150 acres for them to graze on—12 steers, a bull, about 60 cows—and calves that are born.  That herd adequately produces enough manure to be fed back to the land to support 11 ½ acres of vegetables that we grow.  If we wanted to grow more vegetables, we’d have to get more cows and would therefore need more land.  So now we’re pretty well matched as far as what we can produce on the farm.”

Biodynamic farming also means a focus on animal welfare and natural way of life.  Except in bad weather, the pigs stay outside, blending into the mud.  The chickens are free-range.  The Brown Swiss cows, chosen for their fat content, strong legs, and sweet demeanor, move from field to field, wherever the plants are growing best.  All of the cows keep their horns and live outside 24 hours a day, except for their twice a day milking. Hawthorne Valley allows the calf to stay with the mom, nursing, through the first 3 months of life.  Margo shared that there have been studies that say a mother cow will pass on important information about grazing.  After 3 months, instead of taking the calf away, the farmers put a plastic ring on each calf’s nose, which stops them from being able to nurse.

The biodynamic model comes to a screeching halt when it’s time for the cows and pigs to be slaughtered.  Whereas poultry can be slaughtered on premises, cows and pigs must be sent to a processing facility.  Though Margo reassured me that they use a facility that respects the animals and slaughters “by an intuitive process”, the meat is no longer biodynamic meat because it has left the farm to be processed.

Though Hawthorne Valley is not able to personally slaughter their animals, they receive the entire animal back after it’s been killed and use or sell the whole animal:  the pig lard is used for salve on cows’ udders, pig’s feet are sold at the market, etc.  There is absolutely no waste.

Where and How to Buy

Hawthorne Valley’s store stands apart from other farm stores I’ve visited. When I first walked inside, I was shocked at how large and all-encompassing the store was.  Though it sells its own products (raw and pasteurized milk, farm-made yogurt and cheese, meat, vegetables), it felt like a smaller Whole Foods, its aisles lined with familiar canned and boxed food as well as local and imported produce and dairy. Each product is labeled with a helpful color system to alert a shopper about its origin and growing methods.  

The farm’s biodynamic bakery is housed in the same building as the store and uses the farm’s own milk and grain in their products.  Margo stated that they can bake 168 hand-formed loaves at once.  The bakery’s 75 item repertoire ranges from crackers to scones to granola.

The store is actually the final location at which Hawthorne Valley products end up (except for the raw milk, which can only be sold at the store). The products are first sorted for the NYC greenmarkets and their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares.   Hawthorne Valley sells at the Inwood and Union Square Greenmarkets. For a full list of products, visit here and here.  Greenmarket updates are shared weekly on their blog.

For 22 weeks between June and November, much of the crop goes are to Hawthorne Valley’s 280 CSA members, located at four distribution sites (on the farm, Garden City, Riverdale, and Inwood Market). 

My tour of the farm ended with a clear demonstration that nature often knows best.  I had to leave the farm by 3 pm to catch my train back to the city.  I didn’t have a watch, but Margo told me not to worry because the cows would let me know what time it was. The cows instinctively know when to walk to the milking barns for their twice-a-day milking: they always come in at 3 pm for their afternoon milking.  I was doubtful, but without a watch, I had no choice but to trust in this daily rhythm. 

A little bit after 3 pm, the “cow parade” walked in, single file and with visibly full udders.   They paused and looked at us before continuing into the barn.  All was in harmony on the farm and I had my signal to head back into Manhattan, take some of the peace I felt on the farm with me.

Happy Marketing!

-Meaghin

“This is what’s left of an operation that used to grow close to 100,000 turkeys”, Art DiPaola shared as I began my tour of his turkey farm, located in Hamilton Township, NJ.

DiPaola Turkey Farm was started by Art’s father 60 years ago.  What I saw on my visit is a business that has refined itself over the years:  they now raise fewer birds but sell at more farmers’ markets.. At the height of production, DiPaola Turkeys was raising their birds on different farms throughout New Jersey and then selling the turkeys up and down the Northeast coast, including a deal with the United States Postal Service in which every USPS employee got a DiPaola turkey (that translated to 22,000 turkeys).  In addition, DiPaola used to breed their own turkeys on site.  Art was palpably relieved to done with that side of turkey farming:

“I wouldn’t be in this business if we were still doing that.  Seven days a week; 24 hours a day; [it’s] not cost effective.”

My visit to DiPaola was months in the making.  Back on a bitter January day, I had engaged in a lively interview with Dan Deleo, one of Art’s main workers (and husband to one of the DiPaola cousins).  At the time of the interview, Dan had suggested that I call Art to arrange a time to visit.  Unbeknownst to me, calling in January meant that there wouldn’t be much for me to see; at DiPaola, turkey husbandry and slaughtering takes place from July to January.  The mid winter months are used for getting the farm back into shape and recovering. 

The months between January and July found me playing phone tag with Art DiPaola, as Art attempted to predict the best time for me to visit.  The final kink in planning my visit happened after we had already set a date.  Art thought my visit should coincide with the arrival of the newborn poults (baby turkeys).  Unfortunately, the poult drop-off date wasn’t definitive and ended up being delayed.  This situation did give me a small glimpse into the unexpected daily life of farmers.   Ultimately, I didn’t know I was heading over to DiPaola Turkey Farm until the day before my visit.

When I arrived last Tuesday morning, the operation seemed quiet.  There were two workers slowly strolling down the driveway and one worker—Dana—in the front office. At 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, I was only a few hours into my working day.  In contrast, the DiPaola workers had been up since 2 in the morning, preparing for the arrival of the poults.  A few of the workers had gone home or were about to, but Art and his ‘right hand man’, also named Dan (there are four workers named Dan at the farm!), were gearing up for one of their longest days of the year.  They didn’t expect to stop working until close to midnight. 

After hanging around the office for a bit, Art arrived, with a booming voice and firm handshake.  I slid some plastic boots on over my shoes and we walked to the first barn. The barn’s insulation raised the temperature on the already hot day to a stifling level.  I hadn’t known what poults looked, sounded, or acted like, and when I entered the barn, I was inundated by steady chirping. Instead of being grating the chirping was quite soothing.  Art agreed, commenting, “I love this; I love what I do”.

The two barns house about 15,000 of these chirping, eager, tired poults.  The birds had just arrived from Canada and Ohio.  Because I was there on arrival day, I witnessed the birds at their most confused and fragile, as they adjust to their surroundings and learned how to feed.

Art shared that the poults were 36 hours old and that he was pleased to see how lively they were.  For the first week, the poults are divided up by cardboard, each little unit equipped with a heating lamp, feeding troughs, and water.  The food (75% protein) and water is placed in the troughs manually because the birds are too small to reach the automatic machines.  After about a week, the cardboard dividers are removed and the poults “have the run of the barn”, before they’re moved into other barns.

Over the next four months, these little chirping birds will become the plump turkeys DiPaola sells at the markets and on-site for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Art is an inspired businessman with extremely high standards. His love for the birds and the operation was quickly apparent to me. Did growing up on a turkey farm easily translate into Art joining the family business?

“No, NO!”, Art laughed, drawing out the word ‘no’, in response to my question.  “In fact, I hated it, when my father started. My father always told me when I graduated high school, I better have one of two things in place:  enrollment in a college or a full time job.  I didn’t have either.… When I graduated high school, I said ‘please give me the summer off and then I want to work at the farm in September.’  It wasn’t until probably 5 years later that I realized I was watching his business grow…. I started looking at this stuff and said, it’s gotta pay off, if I stick with it.”

I visited a smooth running, confident operation.  Art only hires trustworthy people and has been known to terminate an employee 2 hours into his first shift.  Workers who succeed under his high standards are treated with care and respect.  The success of the business is due to years of hard work by Art and his brother (who got out of the business about 10 years ago).  Art’s role at DiPaola Turkeys has shifted from hands-on to “supreme allied commander”, as he described it.

Admittedly, Art misses working with hands and getting dirty.

“The fact of the matter is, I won’t get dirty today or tomorrow,” he says. “Everything I say to these guys [his workers] I’ve been there; I’ve done it all.  I have a nice little office, but I miss cutting wood, hammering nails.  I miss it.  We built all this I know how to build; how to put cinderblock together; I can shingle a roof.”

Over the years, the turkey farm has slowly become surrounded by housing developments.  Shockingly, many of the houses seem to be practically on top of the turkey farm’s property, the homes’ decks facing directly onto the farm.  Every home’s deed has a turkey farm clause (in case the homeowner was ignorant of the turkey farm across from them), yet the fact remains: sitting on one’s deck means that being directly downwind from a turkey farm.

DiPaola turkeys are a hybrid breed.  When the poults weigh 10-11 pounds they look like basketballs.  “People want to see plumpness”, DiPaola says.  These birds are cost effective in terms of feed conversion and are majority female (males are simply too expensive to produce as many need to be cut down for downgrades due to tough skin).  As the birds mature they have the option to remain inside or go outside, as they choose.  And on hot or rainy days, they frequently choose to stay inside!

Giving the birds outdoor space is not only about allowing the birds to have the best life possible.  Ultimately, DiPaola Turkey Farm is in the business of slaughtering turkeys and selling the best meat possible.  Offering the turkeys outdoor space translates to a better product.  Art shared that ventilation is the most important thing for a turkey’s helath and while he feels that grass in their diet is less important, he recognizes that people want to support a humane operation such as his.   He was quick to point out that, “No matter how humane you try to be, the fact of the matter is you have to cut the throat of that animal.  Or you just don’t eat meat.  I choose to eat meat.”

As expected, Thanksgiving is the farm’s most hectic, profitable day and is also the only time where the farm store does more business than the Greenmarkets.  Art described the chaos:

“I have a cop that I put out front, just as a courtesy to get people in and out of here safely.  When this business was built, Edinburgh Rd was a two-lane highway and my father might have sold 200 turkeys out of here.  Now, we’re up at 5,000 turkeys and cars are coming in and out of this little driveway.  To have people come in year after year, it’s a beautiful thing.  I’m actually getting grandkids! What else is there?! I answer my phone all through Thanksgiving Day.  The most humorous are the new brides, [calling] in a panic. I enjoy that experience [and tell them], relax, I’ll guide you through step by step.”

All of DiPaola’s birds are slaughtered onsite, in the processing facility behind the farm store.  They can put out 2,000 turkeys in 8 hours, though back when Art’s father was alive, they used to process 366 turkeys an hour (almost 50% more back then!).  The processing equipment was well taken care of and much older than I expected:  the line was 60-70 years old.  Art said that he could still buy replacement wheels and brackets for it, if necessary.

Art, who shared that he can multitask 15-20 duties at once, recognizes that he has high standards.  It’s his operation and it’s his name on the product.   My visit fell at the cusp of the busy season.  Throughout these next four months, Art knows that he will see an increase in business (currently, some market business is off as much as 35% due to the heat), culminating in Thanksgiving and Christmas.

After having spent a few hours observing the poults and chatting with Art, I had to return to the city and Art had to get back to work. But before I left, I made sure to ask Art for his favorite product. “The hot sausage—no question about it.”

You can find DiPaola hot turkey sausages and other products at numerous markets around the city.   Click HERE for a complete list.

Despite the heat, they’re still selling numerous products, prefect for barbequing and grilling.  The guys at the stand are cheerful and quick to provide you with tips and recipe recommendations.

See more pictures from my visit to DiPaola Farm HERE.

Happy Marketing!

-Meaghin