Tag: Agriculture

An Egg Story: Before Corona – Part 1

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When Five Acre Farms first started selling eggs, barely anyone bought them. We couldn’t even give them away. Orders were so small we could pick them up in a Toyota Tercel! One day that all changed.

The buyer for a local diner called up one of our milk distributors in a panic. She thought the diner had been serving local eggs but now had no idea if that was true. The company they used advertised as such. The diner was one location of a well-known Greater NY metro area chain with a handful of locations. They took pride in quality ingredients. One day, a customer asked a manager where their eggs were from. The manager ran back into the kitchen and looked at the box and saw a Pennsylvania address, then went back out and told the customer. This story reached the CEO and buyer and out of curiosity, they organized a farm visit to see their source.

They drove out to the “farm” and couldn’t find it. Round and round they drove but kept coming back to a warehouse. The problem was there was no farm.  Instead, there was an egg sorting and grading facility that received eggs from all over the country. Where were their eggs from? How fresh were they? Could they even be sure they were “cage free?” The answer was they had no idea. That had to change.

The odd thing about the egg business is that the labels on egg cartons are like the Wild West. Anything goes…cage free, free range, vegetarian, omega this, omega that – it’s all just unregulated marketing with no meaning. Let me repeat: the terminology is unregulated, interpreted with wide variety, and therefore without meaning. The box in the refrigerator may list many possible sources from many states. The few companies that actually tell the real story of what’s inside the carton are few and far between.

I first met Jeff McMurray in 2013. Jeff started Sunset Farm with his wife and son in 2006. They leased land at first but in 2011, he bought 80 Acres in Argyle, NY.  They started out raising “broilers,” that is, chickens you eat, as well as turkeys and goats. But by the end of 2012, Jeff felt he had to make a change. He was good at raising and working with chickens but he wasn’t able to get a price he needed to survive. He decided to switch his farm to “layers,” chickens that lay eggs. Layers and broilers are different chicken breeds, as layers don’t make good eating, so he needed a new flock.

Jeff had heard correctly that Five Acre Farms (FAF) paid farmers a higher price than the “market,” and that we draw attention to local farmers in our marketing. Jeff and FAF started working together as Jeff redirected his new business, which also included selling his eggs at farmers’ markets and to supermarkets directly. Both FAF and Jeff agreed that diversification of revenue stream is essential for farmers.

Six years later, Jeff and FAF continue to bring Sunset Farms eggs to market. Being Positively Local is more than just proximity. It means transparency in sourcing, fairness in pricing, and keeping farmers farming. But the local story doesn’t end there. Next up – Getting the Sunset eggs to market – The Logistics of Local Food.

MAKING AN AWARD WINNER: Kefir, Yogurt & Buttermilk with SUNRISE FAMILY FARMS NORWICH, NEW YORK

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Charlie Reinshagen at Sunrise Family Farms

SUNRISE FAMILY FARMS makes FIVE ACRE FARMS Local Yogurt, Kefir and Buttermilk starting with the best local whole milk.

Dave Evans and his partners Charlie Reinshagen and Sandy Grant each represent a different generation of a farming family. Dave (3rd), Charlie (2nd) and Sandy (5th) bring a farmer’s viewpoint and values to the creamery.

They have built a successful partnership on what the three of them have in common—family farming traditions and their love of change and new challenges as their company grows.

  • Sunrise Family Farms is a boon to the region’s economy. Dave, Charlie and Sandy source their milk from 20 local dairy farms within a 30-mile radius and employ 50 people full time.
  • Dave, whose family has been dairy farming for three generations, founded the creamery in his back yard in 1999.
  • Sandy, head recipe developer, knows the secret to making the best dairy products—using pure ingredients and keeping it simple.
  • Boxes are prepped in advance, helping the team stay ahead of the day’s busy production schedule.
  • Containers, waiting to be filled with our Local Honey Kefir, are placed on the line.
  • Containers of our Local Greek Maple Yogurt coming off the filling machine.
  • Making buttermilk, kefir and Yogurt
  • Equipment is cleaned and inspected before the processing of each product begins.

Ag IN YOUR BAG: LOCAL LOVES THE RESILIENT HONEYBEE

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Ag IN YOUR BAG

LOCAL LOVES THE RESILIENT HONEYBEE

Honeybee pollenating flower
Honeybees are heroes. They’re the only insects that produce food for humans. Honeybees—distinct from bees native to the U.S.—came from Europe in the early 1600s. Prized initially for their sweet honey, in time, they became known for pollinating crops. With their social structure, honeybees are easy for farmers to manage, moving colonies around from field to field to support their agricultural needs.

Many Central California farmers rely heavily on honeybees to pollinate crops because there are few remaining habitats for native bees. In the Northeast, however, fields and orchards are often surrounded by plants, so native bees have plenty to eat and pollinate crops as they buzz from hedgerow to hedgerow. In a 2009 study of 11 apple farms in New York State, researchers counted 81 species of native bees.

Still, many larger farms rely on honeybees. So it was alarming when, about a decade ago, beekeepers began reporting disappearing honeybee hives. Previous plagues had left dead bees, but this time the worker bees abandoned the queen and her brood. Even when a colony is left with reserves of honey, it quickly dies off without worker bees. This phenomenon became known as colony collapse disorder or CCD.

In 2008, two years after CCD was discovered, the number of honeybee colonies hit its lowest point at 2.4 million. Happily, a queen bee lays 1500 to 2000 eggs a day, making honeybees one of the most resilient species on earth. With about 2.7 million colonies in the U.S. today, honey bees are making a slow comeback, though the causes of CCD remain unclear. Scientists continue to study a variety of factors including the interplay of pesticides, mites, and other pests.

So exactly how much effort goes into making honey? Worker bees must fly 55,000 miles and visit 2 million flowers to make one pound of honey, and the average colony makes 60 to 100 pounds a year. No wonder they’re called worker bees.

This small but mighty creature plays such a crucial role in our food system…and in making our Local Honey Yogurt and Local Honey Kefir so delicious.

INSIDE THE DAIRY CASE: Butterfat & Whole Milk

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Five Acre Farms

Inside the Dairy Case

Butterfat Content & Whole Milk

Five Acre Farms Milk on the shelf
Is your whole milk really whole milk?
Milk composition, including fat, varies by breed
Butterfat greatly impacts how dairy tastes

Are you ever confused by all of the different types of milk in the dairy case? Whole, 2%, 1%, 0%, reduced, skim, fat free. What does it all mean?

Milk is one of our most nutrient-dense foods—with calcium, protein, vitamins A & D, to name a few of its superpowers. The amount of butterfat (cream) in cow’s milk varies by breed. The iconic black and white Holstein produces milk with up to 4% fat while Jerseys—the ones with brown coats—produce richer-tasting milk with about 5% fat. Brown Swiss and Guernsey cows make milk that’s somewhere in between.

But here’s the big milk curveball: Federal guidelines dictate the percentage of butterfat for each milk category. Since butterfat is very valuable, large milk processors want the federal “whole” percentage to be as low as possible. What you need to know, as a shopper, is that milk can still be labeled as “whole” even if some of the fat has been removed. That doesn’t sound like “whole” milk to us.

At FIVE ACRE FARMS, we look for cows whose milk is naturally high in butterfat. We don’t adjust the fat content in our whole milk (a process called “standardization”), and we think that’s something you can taste. No wonder our whole milk—simply what comes out of the cow—is so popular. Taste the difference it makes in our yogurt, kefir and buttermilk—all made using our whole milk.

Drop us a line and tell us your favorite variety and where you buy our milk, and we’ll send you FIVE ACRE FARMS swag to show our thanks.

Ag IN YOUR BAG: WHAT’S IN YOUR LOCAL CIDER (and not…) THIS SEASON

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Five Acre Farms

Ag IN YOUR BAG

agriculture noun: the science, art, or occupation concerned with cultivating land, raising crops, and breeding, and raising livestock; farming.

WHAT’S IN YOUR LOCAL CIDER (and not…) THIS SEASON:

Learn what distinguishes this year’s early apples
Warm weather results in lighter color apples
Sparse rainfall makes for more sweetness

The next time you reach for a jug of FIVE ACRE FARMS apple cider, look for signs of variations in the apple harvest that naturally occur from year to year.

What’s distinctive about the early fall local apple harvest in the Northeast this year? Due to the unusually dry, warm weather of late summer and early fall, many apples in our region ripened before developing the deep red skin color we’re used to seeing. The lack of water also concentrates the fruit’s natural sugars, making this year’s cider apples especially sweet. The lighter complexion can be seen in many varieties with Macintosh being the best example. Macs, the traditional New England base for cider, are green apples that rely on crisp, cool nights and adequate moisture to develop their red color just before ripening. (To make our cider, we blend a base of Macs with up to 20 other varieties.) Happily, these climate-related fluctuations don’t change the great taste of our local apples, producing a sweet, crisp cider that’s as delicious as ever. And whether they’re deep red or a subtle pastel, local apples are the only ingredients in FIVE ACRE FARMS cider, with absolutely nothing added.