Survivors

VERONA — Dave and Kim Perry used to sell farmgate beef but sometimes they didn’t have the requested cuts when customers arrived at their Harrowsmith farm. So they decided to bring the beef to the consumer and started a farmers market in the village of Verona, about 18 kilometres north of Kingston, four years ago.

"But then people asked, ‘where can I buy it during the week?’ Dave Perry said. "So, we opened a store."

The store, Local Family Farms, builds on the trend toward buying locally grown food, stocking only what has been produced or prepared within 100 kilometres. Their motto is "food less travelled."

They celebrate the store’s first anniversary June 4 and are already expanding by adding 700 sq. ft. to the store’s existing 1,000 sq. ft. A local radio station plans to broadcast from the store on June 14 and the Frontenac Cattlemen’s Association will set up a beef barbeque.

Located on Highway 38, which becomes main street running through the middle of the village, the store benefits from heavy commuter traffic to Kingston and weekend shoppers in cottage country.

"We get a lot of people driving up from Kingston who just want to know where their food is coming from," said Perry, who works off-farm at the Joyceville prison.

The store stocks frozen beef, lamb, pork, venison, as well as maple syrup, honey and locally made chocolates, said Kim Perry, who runs the store when she’s not managing their four kids. They also have a commercial kitchen with a full-time cook preparing beef-pot pie, tourtiere, homemade-style soup and pumpkin chocolate cookies, she said. They sell sheep hides, books by local authors and cheese made by a co-op owned by more than 35 area dairy farmers.

Like many farmers, the Perrys were pushed into marketing when the mad cow crisis hit in 2003. They remember local farmer Dave Taylor selling his beef out of a local church basement. It was a novel idea but the attraction was short-lived. That’s how the farmers market got started. "People were hanging on to their animals because they couldn’t get money for them," Kim Perry said.

With a year of shop keeping under her belt, Perry laments she doesn’t have a background in retail. She hit the ground running. "The margins are very, very small so you can’t afford to make many mistakes," she said. "You can’t think something should be really popular and then it’s not. And you can’t stock everything. It feels like every decision I make could make or break the progress I’ve made."

The Perrys quadrupled the size of their beef herd — to more than 80 head — as their businesses prosper.