Blog Post
Martin’s Family Fruit Farm
Sylvia Pond • Sep 24, 2019
If you are from Waterloo Region you have likely heard of Martin’s Family Fruit Farm. Their farm, processing facility, and store can be found just on the other side of the St Jacobs Market.
The Martin Family Farm has been operating since 1820 and have made a name for themselves when it comes to apples, both locally and worldwide!
I visited the farm early in the apple growing season, a few weeks before the first crop of the season would be ready for picking. Most of the trees were still very much filled with fruit! Unripe apples just starting to grow and a few here and there beginning to change colour.
Martin’s apples are always orchard fresh! When they sold their first bushels of apples it was at the local farmer’s market. It remains true today as their apples are sold by the truckload, they are still handpicked and offered at the finest retailers spanning the globe.
It’s a beautiful sight to see walking through the orchard. The symmetry of the trees lined up in rows as far as the eye can see is impressive. This is no small operation. Just the variety
of apples Martin’s grows can’t be counted on two hands!
I know of the Gala, Red Delicious, McIntosh, and Fuji; but have you ever heard of Crispin, Idared and Jonagold? I may be new to the apple game here because there are so many to choose from!
When an operation becomes this large you need a place to process, sort, and clean the apples before they go out to the consumer. At Martin’s, they have that right on the farm.
So what do you do with apples?
You can throw them in your lunch bag and have them as a snack of course! Oh, but you can do so much more!
Being a fan of salads and greens the first thing I did (after eating a bag of Martin's Apple Chips LOL) is make a salad!
Apple slices in salads are amazing! Apples pair well with many vegetables and cheese of course! I used feta cheese in this salad but you can also use goat cheese, a sharp cheddar or a smoked gouda.
For the second recipe using Martin's Apples I needed the helping hand of my momma! I don't bake so she helped me create an Apple Rhubarb cake.
Q&A from Steve Martin, Retail Sales Manager at Martin's Fruit Farm
1. Tell me what a typical day looks like for you?
I am not sure that i really have a typical day. But my weeks are fairly typical.
Monday. I start every day by reviewing reports of sales from the previous sales day. The rest of the morning is spent catching up on emails from the weekend as well as going over the next weeks schedule and price changes with the store staff. In the afternoon I head to the Elmira Produce auction and stock up with fresh produce.
Tuesday is often meeting day: management meetings. client meetings, employee meetings, other board meetings I sit on, etc.
Wed. I go to EPAC at 9 in the morning. Also pick up some other produce at other local farms and in the afternoon I do some local deliveries. In the summer months I will often do a Niagara run to pick up peaches and other tree fruit.
Thurs. morning I do a run into to the Toronto wholesale farmers market leaving at about 2 am and am usually back around 8. After unloading and spending a few hours helping to restock and organise the store I usually take a 2 to 3 hour nap over lunch. I come back for 2 to 32 hours in the afternoon to do misc. jobs that have accumulated.
Friday morning it is back to Epac. Upon return I spend the next 2 to 3 hours doing some small wholesale delivery accounts in town.
Saturday I usually check in on the store as needed. Some days that means a full day of work and some days it simply requires a bit of oversight but i am usually on call.
And Sunday Is a day we spent with our family as well as our church family. For us it is a much needed day of rest, worship and reflection.
As retail sales manager of our operation this is what my week consists of. Obviously were you to ask either of my brother,s their week would look very different from mine.
2. What do you want people to know about farming and/or what you do?
Farming like all professions involves a great deal of knowledge and professionalism. Learning to grow and market a crop of apples well is not something that a person will learn in a year or two. In fact it takes a lifetime and even then no two years are exactly the same. Due to the fact that so much of what we do is dependent upon good weather we are constantly aware that much is out of our control; which is a constant reminder to us that we are simply stewards of what has been given to us and we recognise we have a tremendous responsibility to use what we have wisely. It is with a great deal of satisfaction that we go to bed at night knowing that we have played a little part in helping to provide our neighbours with good healthy food that they can enjoy and feel good about eating. .
3. What do you love most about being a farmer?
I think the last part of my answer in question two is the answer to that. I personally also enjoy the opportunities I get to speak with groups all over Ontario and talk to them both about food issues and what we as a company do specifically.
4. If you weren’t a farmer what would you be doing?
My early dream was actually to be a teacher. However partly because my eye doctor told me in my early twenties that if I pursued that I would likely be blind by the time I was 4 I gave that idea up. Now instead I get to teach people about food. :)
5. Describe what your favourite meal looks like?
It would start with an Iceberg wedge salad smothered with blue cheese. For the entree I would choose either a filet mignon medium rare covered in roasted garlic and blue cheese dressing or pork tenderloin with a side of baked apple or apple sauce, A side of vegetables including either corn on the cob, Swedish roasted potatoes or fresh green beans would be great.
And of course finishing it off with dutch apple pie and a cup of high quality coffee would be extra special.
Follow Martin's on Social Media
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