If White House Fruit Farm loses its peach or apple crop to hail one year, it’s not devastating.
That’s because White House Fruit Farm in Canfield, Ohio includes a 10,000 square foot farm market retail center that has become a destination for visitors.
Ahead of the national curve toward retail marketing, the Hull family made the move from wholesale to retail in the 1970s.
“We are not so weather dependent anymore. If we lose our peach crop because of hail, we have a hedge. We have money coming in 12 months out of the year, and that’s a big thing,” Debbie Pifer, part owner of White House Fruit Farm, said.
Other family members active in the business include Pifer’s parents, David and Phyllis Hull; brother David Hull; sister and brother-in-law Wendy and Bob Lynn; and Pifer’s husband John. The operation was one of the stops on a recent media tour in Ohio designed to showcase agriculture in the state.
The family has worked hard to make White House Fruit Farm a destination. Their store is located in an 1881 barn that has been completely restored. Every year the White House Fruit Farm plays host to the Craft Show and Harvest Festival the third weekend in September with more than 50 local craft vendors.
“We’ve retailed forever and forever since the late 1920s,” said Pifer. As they began retailing what they grew, customers starting asking for different varieties such as McIntosh.
“Our emphasis is basically on our store,” Pifer said. “We’re still a farm market. A significant portion of sales come from crops that we grow. Fruits and vegetables is still where our emphasis is,” she said.
With 40 acres of vegetables and 50 acres of fruit, their crop mix includes strawberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, nectarines, sweet corn, peppers, tomatoes, cantaloupe, cucumbers, pickles, eggplant, squash, pumpkins and zucchini.
“Apples are still our biggest crop – our bread and butter crop,” Pifer said. “Apples are the workhorse of the farm, what pays the bills.
They grow 25 different apple varieties including most of the standards – Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Jonathon, Empire and Melrose. Pifer said they also grow the “newer, hotter varieties” including Honeycrisp, Gala, Fuji and Cameo. “Fuji is close to being number one. If we had enough Honeycrisp, that would rival right up to it (Fuji),” Pifer said. It will be a number of years before they get enough Honeycrisp trees planted to satisfy demand, Pifer said.
The large retail center could be described as a specialty grocery store with hundreds of items available to complement the produce grown at the farm. Their store product mix includes frozen fruits and vegetables, fresh apple cider, jams and jellies, apple butter, Ohio honey, local maple syrup, snack foods, candies, pastas, ice cream, bakery mixes, local popcorn and many other specialty foods.
Selecting products to complement their produce is “an art and a science,” Pifer said.
“As we get bigger and bigger it becomes a lot tougher to come up with new things because we carry so much,” Pifer said.
Regarding retail produce trends, Pifer said there is smaller and smaller packaging with many people buying six ears of sweet corn or less at a time.
“Deli items are the fastest growing part of our store. There’s just been an explosion in that,” Pifer said. White House Fruit Farms sells a lot of Ohio cheeses as well as turkey breasts and other general deli items.
“It’s (deli) been a significant part of our business now, as far as percentage increase,” she said. White House Fruit Farm has sold meats and cheeses for about 20 years.
Pifer’s parents buy all the outside produce by traveling to the Cleveland Terminal Market three times a week. With a background in retail and logistics, her brother-in-law, Bob, came on board a year ago to help with the rest of the buying for the store.
Pifer said they feel fortunate to be located on State Route 62, 20 miles south of Youngstown, Ohio because White House Fruit Farm attracts visitors from three counties.
Within two years, White House Fruit Farm will include an expansion of the produce side of the store.
Pifer advises growers looking into broadening their retail business to do research by visiting grocery stores and farm markets. “It’s a lot harder today than it was 20 years ago, because there are so many regulations and zoning issues,” Pifer said.
Pifer was recently elected to the North American Farmers’ Direct Marketing Association Board of Directors, an organization she has been involved with for more than five years.
The trend of marketers to go the entertainment route concerns Pifer, she said.
“We do certain amounts of it (ag entertainment) because we have to, but it’s certainly not our end all and be all. I’m very concerned this trend will take the farm marketing industry to once a year visits,” she said.
White House Fruit Farm was recognized by the Ohio Department of Agriculture, Ohio’s Country Journal and the Ohio Historical Society as one of Ohio’s Outstanding Century Farm Award winners. For more information visit www.whitehouse fruitfarm.com.
