Sarah Frey sees and appreciates the irony when she looks out at her once-small family farm that became a big player in the specialty crops industry.
“This place I’d spent my entire life trying to escape from, in 2020, it became my escape,” said Frey, the founder of Frey Farms in southern Illinois and “Pumpkin Queen of America” in the words of the New York Times.
Frey was the keynote speaker Thursday at the annual Illinois Specialty Crop Conference, put on virtually by the Illinois Specialty Growers Association. She described to the audience how long before the COVID-19 pandemic saw people fleeing the congestion of cities, as a teenager she dreamt of stepping into a high-rise and ascending the elevator to her office.
But before her long-planned exodus, she reflected on years of working the earth with her parents and her four older brothers.
All of 19 years old, she decided to change course and buy the family farm.
“My inspiration to go into business wasn’t the business side of things,” she said. “It was about having a place in the world to build a strong foundation. The sun was setting, and I stood on the ground where I’m talking to all of you today, and I made the decision I would stay and create a life here.”
And what a life it is.
Frey Farms, headquartered in Keenes, has facilities in eight states. Fruits and vegetables grown on its 12,000-plus acres are distributed throughout the country through Frey’s Homegrown label. It employs more than 500 seasonal workers - in addition to her brothers,
“They invested a lot of time into my personal development as a child – challenging me to do things I might not have done,” Frey said.
You know, like write a book about her journey. “The Growing Season: How I Built a New Life – and Saved an American Farm,” has been optioned for a series on ABC.
“So when we will be able to see your story on TV?” Reghalo Scavuzzo, the Executive Director of Illinois Specialty Growers Association, asked during the session.
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Frey said, laughing before saying more details will be coming soon.
Frey said she got her nickname from the Times because she started out predominantly growing pumpkins – according to her bio, Frey Farms still sells more pumpkins than any other American producer – but that in addition to growing cantaloupe, sweet corn and squash, the company’s biggest crop is watermelon. The team “follows the sun,” she said, every year starting in Florida and making its way to the Midwest.
In 2014, she launched a line of juices through Sarah’s Homegrown Tsamma Watermelon Juice, which now distributes to more than 2,000 retail locations.
A core mission of Frey Farms is to end food waste in the fresh produce industry.
“So when you look at a piece of ugly fruit, what do you do with it?” she said. “You make juice. To me, life is no different. Optimism is the secret to everything, waking up every day and looking for the good.”
The market is ripe for more speciality crop sales, she said.
“No one really thinks about the Midwest as a fruit-and-vegetable-producing region,” she said. “But consumers are hungry for and demanding fresh produce in season. They’re the ones that make the voting decisions. They vote with their dollars, in what they’re going to buy.”
Frey said to keep talent in the specialty produce industry, you have to hook kids when they’re young – so they don’t, say, flee for the big city and never return to the family business.
“Exposure is very important to young people,” she said. “So much of it starts with education and programs to get kids involved with.”
Frey commends her local school district building a greenhouse, providing a path for not just children growing up on a farm but also students who simply live in rural America.
“I remember visiting the greenhouse for the first time, and it was amazing to see the joy and the pride students were taking in growing plants for their plant sale,” she said.
She said a key to success in the industry is starting early, and that learning finances is just as important as learning how to work the land.
“We want to go out, work with our hands, to build, grow and create,” she said. “We don’t want to be bogged down by spreadsheets and financial statements. But it’s important to understand the business side of things. It doesn’t matter whether you’re living on 40 acres or 40,000 acres.”
The three-day Specialty Crop Conference concludes Friday.
