The Rural Voice, 1996-07, Page 30The
added
touch
The Morrison family sell
more than berries — they
sell the country
experience
story and photos by Keith Roulston
Michael and Emily join parents,Sandra and Ralph at the farm market, complete with huge,
attention -getting strawberry. The family constantly seeks new ways of selling their products.
When you grow 12 acres of
strawberries, you can't afford
to borrow the idea from the
movie that "if you grow it they will
come". The Morrison family at
Morrison Berry Farm and Country
Market near Lucknow, know they
have to market, market, market if
they aren't going to be left with more
berries than they know what to do
with.
So, says Sandra Morrison, one of
four family members in the business,
berry season isn't just a few short
weeks in the summer, it involves
year-long planning to make sure the
summer's harvest is a success. It
means coming up
with new ideas to
get people to the
farm, new ways of
making their stay /
enjoyable, new
ways of selling the
products grown.
This will mark
the 10th season for
the operation
following the first strawberry
planting in 1985. Sandra's husband
Ralph had put forward the idea of
growing berries after seeing berry
farms during a college trip to the
U.S. As well, berry growing
experience was brought to the family
26 THE RURAL VOICE
by Vicky, wife of Ralph's twin
brother Roger. Her family has run a
pick -your -own berry operation in the
Kippen area of southern Huron for
years.
The first year they grew two acres
of strawberries at the front of Ralph
and Sandra's farm where they had
the natural advertising advantage of
people travelling along Highway 86.
Since then they've grown and
diversified, adding raspberries,
rhubarb, pumpkins, peas and
ornamental corn to lengthen the
season. They draw customers from a
15-20 mile radius plus the cottage -
bound traffic along the highway.
Dissatisfied with
the amount of
highway traffic they
were attracting with
their small roadside
stand, and realizing
that they had about
reached the limits of
their local business,
the Morrisons built a
market building in
1994. Here Sandra operates a bakery
selling homemade glazed pies,
cookies, muffins, home made jams as
well as strawberry shortcake,
milkshakes and sundaes made with
frozen yogurt.
In summer the farm becomes a
Growing a
good product
is only one
step toward
success in
berry farming
beehive of activities. Sandra has a
staff of five in the market building
where the board and batten pine wall
paneling gives a warm, bright
atmosphere to the store. Out in the
fields, Vicky oversees the operation
of 12 pickers (in a normal year about
60 per cent of the berries are
harvested by pick -your -own
customers and 40 per cent are sold
picked). Roger Looks after the
outdoor work while Ralph looks after
the irrigation and spray programs,
does the maintenance and handles the
advertising. During the peak season,
the family involvement expands to
take in Ralph and Roger's father
Gordon, younger brother Carl and
brother Lloyd and his wife Glenda.
The amazing thing is that the four
family members carry on these
duties on top of full-time jobs.
Sandra works at Wingham and
District Hospital while Ralph works
for the Lucknow Co-op. Vicky
operates Grassroots Hair Studio from
her home across the road while
Roger operates the rest of the 400
acres the two families own plus
another farm they rent. They also
operate a beef feedlot, buying and
fattening 400 stockers at a time.
To co-ordinate the berry operation,
the family members sit down in
January and plan the year ahead. This