By Andrea C. Pedrick
Feel like your job is a daily grind? Kevin L. Richardson does too; but he really likes it that way. Richardson is president of North Country Farms, LLC; a local mill that stone grinds wheat into flour. When the wheat is delivered to the mill, it is transported into a 30-ton silo. From the silo, the wheat is cleaned and moved to the stone ground mill. Eventually it is packaged into twopound bags of pancake mix, muffin mix, and pastry flour.
Located in the former Brown Bag Bakery on Route 37 in Watertown, North Country Farms seems to be the answer local wheat farmers are looking for, all the while providing what consumers want in whole foods.
“Our product is unique because of the milling style we use,” said Richardson. “All of our wheat is stone ground. It’s a cool temperature milling process. So you don’t lose any of the nutrition in the wheat itself. We don’t add any preservatives to our flour. You’ll get the full taste. So when you are eating your pancakes, which everyone loves, you are eating an all natural food.”
Richardson says the organic quality of North Country Farms products is what sets them apart from the larger competition like Kellogg’s or Pillsbury. “It’s all in the taste. When people buy North Country Farms pancake mix, it’s the same mix every time. With the others, you are not sure what you are going to get,” he said.
The organic quality and consistenttaste of the food is also why Richardson was able to strike a deal with Sharp’s Amish Store in Belleville, the Jefferson Bulk Milk Co-op in Watertown and nearly two dozen Hannaford Supermarkets as far away as Herkimer, Utica, Watertown and Massena. Products are also distributed to The Mustard Seed in Watertown, as well as the Big M and P&C grocery stores. All of these outlets have a mission to provide the consumer with organic products or locally grown products.
“We’ve built a business from nothing into a positive food business that’s heading in the right direction,” said Richardson. “With us being a fairly new business establishing that brand awareness is going to get the people to buy it. The best way to get the products out there is to have the consumer taste it.”
Richardson can be found reaching out to the public and promoting North Country Farms at regional food shows and farmers’ markets. He noted that, at a recent food demonstration, he was able to obtain the contacts necessary to secure a spot in the commissaries at both Fort Drum and West Point, as well as the commissary at a small naval facility in Saratoga. He says the red, white and blue packaging of North Country Farms pastry flour, muffin mix and pancake mix certainly helped seal the deal with the commissaries. “It is the perfect niche for a military base. Everything we do we tie into making the consumer feel good. It’s all natural. It’s a red, white and blue package of wholesome food.”
Richardson is looking to also land accounts with several regional supermarket chains and warehouse stores.
The idea for a flour mill in the North Country was developed by Richardson and his business partners, which include Ron Robbins, a Sackets Harbor farmer. It is about this time in the season that Robbins is harvesting his wheat. Now, instead of having to truck it 300 miles to southern Pennsylvania or 180 miles to Buffalo, he delivers 25 tons of his wheat every six weeks just 18 miles up the road to the mill on Route 37. “We are cutting down on transportations costs and giving back to the community,” said Richardson. Robbins said that his former routine would be to truck the wheat to southern Pennsylvania for processing, only to have it return to the Watertown area to be placed on lolocal grocery store shelves. Now it’s a much simpler process. He is confident that other farmers would benefit from doing business with the mill and having their raw materials stay local. “This is what North Country farming is about,” said Robbins.
North Country Farms opened in July of 2008. In that brief time, the company has developed partnerships with not only Robbins, but with others who hold the same vision for local foods.
Richardson has expanded the food line to include jams from Sillmans Jam in Dickinson Center; honey from Many Flowers Honey in Alexandria Bay; and syrup from the Morse Family Farms in Mannsville.
The next time you see the red, white and blue label on any of these items know that you can trust the homegrown success story that started from the ground up.
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