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New York Farm Viability Institute

A Strong Future for New York Agriculture

Project Profiles

Resources Add to Value-Filled On-Farm Retirement

Pat LaPoint retired from Cornell Cooperative Extension in the Fall of 2005 with plans to start a value-added business. Her resume includes a lifetime of farm living and family cooking, and sales experience with her unofficially organic u-pick fruit and vegetable operation, CSA, and roadside stand at Hill’n Hollow Farm in Pavilion, NY, 35 miles southwest of Rochester.

“I know how to grow and cook good food, but I had no idea about commercial-scale food processing. Grant funding from the New York Farm Viability Institute provided access to the New York State Food Venture Center of Cornell University. The Center’ s food safety and processing specialists came to my rescue,” LaPoint says. “Using their expertise, I do not make as many mistakes as I would trying this alone.”

Since 2004, the non-profit New York Farm Viability Institute has provided more than $500,000 to the Food Venture Center to assist growers in developing value-added processed foods (maple cream, pickles, tomato sauce, onion jelly, etc.). The Institute encourages producers to develop business plans before making farm changes. LaPoint had completed the “Tilling the Soil” business planning course offered by the NYS Food Venture Center.

“I needed the Center specialists’ skill with vinegar’ s pH levels and shelf life. Without the Food Venture Center, I would not have tackled value-added processing on my own,” LaPoint says.

She says the professional and positive evaluation of her products by Food Venture Center Director Dr. Olga Padilla-Zakour was “the seal of approval and the reassurance I needed to know I could make this new enterprise work.”

The Center, located at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, helped LaPoint convert recipes into gramweights and develop nutritional assessment labeling for her product line that now includes three vinegars and three chutneys. The blueberry, rhubarb and tomato chutneys sell for $4.95-$5.50. The blueberry, elderberry with pear, and gooseberry with nasturtium blossoms vinegars sell for $5 to $9.
LaPoint harvests two of her 88 acres (a neighbor rents the rest). Twenty-tive percent of her u-pick blueberry patch is reserved for processing. A sweet and spicy blueberry vinegar made without additives was LaPoint’s first product.

LaPoint kept start-up costs low by making test batches at the Food Venture Center and using the business incubator kitchens at Morrisville State College’s Nelson Farms to make her 50-case commercial product batches.

She estimates her starting investment was approximately $1,500 to form a limited liability corporation, purchase umbrella liability insurance, and cover fees for the use of Nelson Farms. About every six months, she makes new supply at Nelson Farms through a co-packing arrangement. Walk-in coolers at nearby farmstands keep her supply until she harvests enough berries for processing.

LaPoint’s six children and a friend have placed her products in 24 specialty and natural food shops across New York and in Eastern U.S. states. LaPoint sells and distributes to Western NY retailers. She sells at food festivals statewide, and belongs to the state-run Pride of NY and the regional Finger Lakes Culinary Bounty promotional programs. One son is her website and product label designer. LaPoint has a daughter who lives in Austria, but says she is not quite ready to ship overseas.

She says she wanted to supplement her retirement “by doing something near and dear to my heart. I have met my immediate goal to have three vinegars and three chutneys and to offer sampler packs to introduce the products into new markets, particularly roadside stands.”

LaPoint is expanding her rhubarb, elderberry, currant and gooseberry crops. Mulberries will add value to her next product creation.

For More Info on New York Farm Viability Institute-funded value-added processing assistance:
Dr. Olga Padilla-Zakour
NYS Food Venture Center
315-787-2259

Amanda Hewitt
Nelson Farms Processing Facility
315-655-8331x1

For More Info on Hill’n Hollow Farm products:
Pat LaPoint
www.hillnhollow.com
585-584-3978

This article first appeared in the July 2007 issue of American Agriculturist.