Business Connections

It’s a unique experience growing up in a small town. You can’t melt into the background like in a large city, you can’t just pretend to be like everyone else at a college campus, and you certainly can’t run any errands in town without bumping into someone you know!

These folks have intersected my life from many angles—4-H, community theater productions, the arts council, Habitat for Humanity, the Humane Society, writer’s clubs, farmer’s markets, and families from the charter school. As I’ve been making the transition from student to entrepreneur, my new connections group is the local business community. About this time last year, Farmstead Creamery & Café joined the Hayward Are Chamber of Commerce, marking another milestone on the path from the public perception that we had “a little farmy thing” to being a recognized community enterprise.

One of the events privy to Chamber members is the monthly Business-After-Five gathering, hosted by one of the organizations to showcase their company, what’s new, and who’s who. In January, the Hayward Memorial Hospital was host of the BA5, showcasing their new and updated radiology department. It was exciting to attend and introduce our enterprise as the partner farm for the farmer’s market next door on first and third Thursdays. But I was also there because Farmstead was next in line for hosting and it was time to learn procedures and expectations.

As with any of our big festivities—like the Harvest Dinner and Concert nights—Farmstead Creamery was a buzz with preparations. It’s like having a flurry of guests over to your home, only this is our business home. There’s cleaning and waxing the floors, dusting the shelves, washing all the glass displays, making a fresh batch of gelato, preparing the door prizes, and decorating the table—let alone preparing and sending invitations and announcements.

We kept our Facebook page buzzing with “Countdown to BA5” announcements. Our date was the week after Birkie, so either folks were going to be exhausted from handling the crowds and just wanting to stay home or ready for a fun diversion. We were hoping for the latter! And who could turn away from a free gelato sampling?

There were several things we wanted to highlight as part of our gathering. Of course, we wanted to introduce everyone to our story, a brief history of the farm, and the current team players, but we also wanted to speak to the vision of this place and how Farmstead Creamery manifests that vision to “be the change you wish to see” in a local foods desert and how our goal is that “once you choose to come here, you can’t make a bad choice.”

How many of us agonize at the grocery store about whether a product is good for us, or is as safe as it claims, or isn’t hiding a nasty ingredient that will haunt our health in years to come? What if a place made it their mission to source local, natural, organic, whole foods and be that informed filter? No need to run here to one place for cheese to there for honey and to yet another place for produce. We’ve wrapped that all together as a local foods hub—coordinating with 20 other local, small-scale, and sustainably minded producers. And it’s right here in the Northwoods backyard!

The fact that this unique combination exists—local foods hub, farm-to-table café, pizza farm, micro-dairy plant, artist gallery, performance space, aquaponics, heritage livestock, CSA program, etc.—has been a draw nationally not only for interns from states as far flung as New Mexico and Vermont but also in media attention from Chicago, Florida, Boston, and Minnesota, as well as PBS, Mother Earth News, and Midwest Living Magazine. Now it was time to break down the walls of “I had no idea you were here” in the neighborhood.

And the variety of people that this enterprise touches was reflected in the 30 to 40 attendees of the BA5 as well. From restaurant owners to healthcare workers, educators to bankers, insurance agents to non-profit managers, food pantry coordinators to flight instructors, it was a diverse and excited crowd. Each was given a special “Insider’s Scoop Networking Kit,” which included upcoming event schedules, news, “save the date” notices, a poster from the farmer’s market, CSA signups, and info about aquaponics—party favors to help spread the word about their experience.

And part of that experience was in keeping with our “Year of the Sheep” theme—including lamb appetizers, sheep’s milk cheese, and sheep’s milk gelato. The door prizes were also sheep themed, from sheep fleece “micro wool dusters” to “lamb starter kits” with select cuts and a recipe booklet. There was something for everyone!

In all, it was a great chance to share our story, purpose, and vision with the business community—spreading the word about the value of local, sustainable agriculture in Sawyer County today. If you couldn’t make it to the BA5 but wanted to, we missed you, and we still hope to see you down on the farm sometime.