Family members Melissa Frost, Beverly Mundell, Chelsea Frost, and Noreen Health of Adams Farm. Photo credit: Edible Boston, Michael Piazza.

Each year, CISA presents three Local Hero Awards to farms, businesses, and/or individuals who exemplify our mission of strengthening the connection between farmers and the community. We applaud their hard work, social responsibility, and many contributions to sustaining local agriculture. Congratulations to our 2014 Local Hero Awardee, Adams Farm!

Adams Farm

A multi-generational farm business that has operated on family land in Athol since 1946, the Adams Farm Slaughterhouse works with local meat producers, providing a vital service to livestock farmers in Massachusetts and surrounding states.

Occupying six acres of the 128-acre Adams Farm, the slaughterhouse is the largest in New England. It processes cattle, lambs, goats, and pigs under the direct supervision of a USDA inspector, following strict Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) guidelines, and using a livestock tracking system that ensures farmers receive meat from the animal they delivered. Approximately 26,000 animals are processed each year, about a quarter of which come from individual farmers. The slaughterhouse is also Halal, Kosher, Organic, and Animal Welfare certified.

Beverly Adams joined the family business in 1955 when she married Lewis Adams, whose mother purchased the farm in 1919. Today Beverly runs the slaughterhouse with her daughter Noreen Heath and son Richard Adams. Ten of Beverly’s grandchildren are among Adams’ forty-two employees. At its retail store the Adams’ sell their own sausage, smoked products, and many cuts of different fresh meats as well as ground beef and other dairy, vegetables, spices, value-added sauces and prepared foods.

Adams Farm suffered a major setback in December 2006 when fire destroyed the meat processing plant built in 1972. Undaunted, the family drew up plans for a new state-of-the art facility that at 16,800 square feet is three times the size of the former buildings. They took advantage of this opportunity to incorporate animal holding pens and handling systems designed by Dr. Temple Grandin that ensure humane treatment of the livestock.

Obtaining the necessary financing for the new facility proved a challenge, however, because according to national viability studies Adams Farm doesn’t conform to the usual model of slaughterhouses that typically are either very small or very large. Ed Maltby joined the operation at this time and used his extensive agricultural management experience to overcome the financial hurdles.

Adams Farm rose from the ashes with vital support from extended family and the Athol community. The family has invested everything in the rebuilding effort because it is absolutely committed to serving livestock farmers. Since USDA-inspected processing is essential for commerce in local meat, Adams Farm’s services are a critical link in local meat production.

For tenacity in the face of challenges, providing an essential service in the local food infrastructure, and commitment to the humane treatment of livestock, CISA is proud to honor Adams Farm as a Local Hero.

Photo credit: Polly Wagner

Each year, CISA presents three Local Hero Awards to farms, businesses, and/or individuals who exemplify our mission of strengthening the connection between farmers and the community. We applaud their hard work, social responsibility, and many contributions to sustaining local agriculture. Congratulations to our 2014 Local Hero Awardee, Squash Inc.!

Check out the recent press on Squash Inc. here:

WRSI Local Hero Spotlight

Daily Hampshire Gazette Article

Squash, Inc.

Business partners Eric Stocker and Marge Levenson know that to compete in the food distribution business you have to stand out. Co-owners of Squash, Inc., Stocker and Levenson have built a flourishing local company that is integral to our local food system. In a business with small profit margins and giant competitors, Squash succeeds because dedication to both its suppliers and its customers is at the center of the company’s daily operations.

There’s no doubt that a Squash truck making a single delivery to its restaurant customers is much more efficient than a dozen farms delivering their own fresh produce to each business.

Squash, which has nine full-time employees and annual sales of about $3 million, operates four trucks that deliver daily to local restaurant, retail, and institutional customers throughout the Pioneer Valley. Three times a week Squash Inc.’s tractor trailer departs from its Belchertown loading dock full of Valley produce destined for the New England Produce Center in Boston. The truck returns carrying produce purchased in Boston to supplement what is available from local farms.

Whenever possible, Squash purchases locally, consistently buying from more than twenty Valley farms each year. Though the majority of its fruits and vegetables are grown conventionally, the company also offers organic produce. Most of the butter, eggs, cheese, tofu, and other soy products Squash carries are produced in Massachusetts or Vermont.

Widely respected in the Valley for its commitment to local agriculture and loyalty to local growers, Squash provides a dependable market and prompt payment to suppliers, and a reliable supply and prompt delivery to customers. Squash’s customers range from Cooper’s Corner to Trader Joe’s; the company also serves numerous restaurants and institutional accounts, including several public school systems and Amherst College.

Squash considers local growers to be essential partners. Stocker observes that his company has a lot in common with its suppliers: “We’re a small independent business; so are they.” The partnership is mutually beneficial. One farmer, Casey Steinberg of Old Friends Farm, speaks highly of the company’s reliability, integrity, and commitment to its suppliers, and praises the fact that it trusts the judgment of its growers about introducing new products.

The ability to offer high quality food, grown locally by Valley farmers, helps Squash stand out from competitors that measure their annual sales not in millions, but in tens of billions. Quality, customer service, loyalty, trust, and partnership: These are the values that drive Squash, Inc.

CISA is proud to honor Squash, Inc., as a Local Hero.

Leon Ripley with granddaughters Cate and Lilie Ripley. Photo credit: Paul Shoul.

Each year, CISA presents three Local Hero Awards to farms, businesses, and/or individuals who exemplify our mission of strengthening the connection between farmers and the community. We applaud their hard work, social responsibility, and many contributions to sustaining local agriculture. Congratulations to our 2014 Local Hero Awardee, Maple Corner Farm!

Maple Corner Farm

Located in Granville above Cobble Mountain Reservoir, Maple Corner Farm is a thriving farm that has been in the Ripley family for more than 200 years. Leon and Joyce Ripley attribute the farm’s success to the family’s willingness to change with the times.

A few generations ago, Leon’s grandfather and great-grandfather raised, bought, and sold cattle and oxen. When Leon’s parents ran the farm in the 1950s and 1960s, they milked 30 to 50 cows; after losing the dairy complex to a 1974 fire, Leon and Joyce raised dairy heifers and expanded hay production.

Today Maple Corner produces hay, blueberries, and maple syrup, and offers cross-country ski trails. The Ripley family has tapped sugar maple trees on their 600-acre property since 1835. Today the process is thoroughly modernized. Though syrup is still produced in the old sugar house, recently a reverse osmosis machine was installed that concentrates the sap by removing 75% of the water. The sap is then boiled in a new energy-efficient 3’ x 12’ evaporator that requires only a third of the 40 to 50 cords of wood that used to be needed each season to produce 1,200 to 1,400 gallons of syrup.

In summer, 10,000 to 12,000 bales of hay are sold from the field directly to customers, mostly to feed horses but also sheep, goats, alpacas, and llamas. The pick-your-own blueberry operation is located on a nearby parcel of three acres and consists of 600 cultivated high bush blueberry bushes. As on many family farms, several generations share the work. The Ripleys’ oldest son David and his wife Jess attend farmers’ markets in Otis and Springfield; David, Jon, and Matt maintain equipment and harvest the crops.

The farm opened to cross-country skiing in the 1980s. Positioned at the foot of the Berkshires at an elevation of 1,400 feet, the land is usually covered in snow from December through March. During winter, Maple Corner’s 20 kilometers of groomed trails attract 100 to 200 skiers daily, who eagerly purchase the farm’s maple products as well as homemade jams, jellies, and fruit butters.

Maple Corner’s full moon events are especially popular. When fresh powder and a clear sky combine on the night of a full moon, the cross country trails are lined with lighted luminaries. Visitors enjoy a magical moonlit ski through pastures and sugar bush, then return to the lodge to warm up with hot drinks.

A leader in the Hampden County Farm Bureau for 28 years, Leon notes that many successful small farms in Massachusetts have incorporated agricultural tourism into their operations, and that, increasingly, marketing directly to consumers is critical. Maple Corner Farm’s diversification has made it profitable and sustainable, and this thriving two-century-old farm serves as an inspiration to our region. CISA is proud to honor Maple Corner Farm as a Local Hero.