Family-owned organic farm near Canandaigua tests techniques it can teach to others

Danny Wegman gives you a look at the 50-acre Wegmans Organic Research Farm located near the shores of Canandaigua Lake. Wegman has built a team of experts to research organic farming to share their findings with partner growers.

For Wegmans Food Markets Inc., the green practices in its produce departments are incubating down on the farm. The Wegmans farm.

This Wegman family farm sits on 50 acres with a panoramic view of Canandaigua Lake, near Canandaigua and within shouting distance of the lakeside homes of three members of the Wegmans family -- including Wegmans CEO Danny Wegman.

The farm sits astride property that would likely have been carved up for McMansions for other executives who make the commute to Rochester.

It was the accidental Wegmans farm -- and an accidental link in the chain of sustainable practices.

"We bought the property because we didn't want anyone to do anything with it," said Wegman, dressed casually in blue jeans as he stood outside the doors of a modern, two-story barn on the property on a hot August day. "We went to the zoning board because we wanted to put a storage building on the property. They said we could only build it 15 feet tall. We asked, 'Is there a way we could we build it bigger?' They said, 'Only if you have a farm.' So we said, 'OoooK ... we're going to have a wonderful farm.' "

The land is now back to its circa-1800s roots as farmland. It's home to the Wegmans Organic Research Farm, generating a few crops for two stores -- the Canandaigua Wegmans nine miles away and the Pittsford store 29 miles away -- and produce and eggs that land on the dinner plates of nearby residents whose last name is Wegman.

See, this farm has its emphasis on research -- learning best practices in organic farming so Wegmans can persuade some of its network supplier farms to go organic and meet a growing customer demand for organic products, said Wegman.

It grew into an organic research farm quite by accident.

Wegmans has been putting an ever-growing emphasis on natural and organic foods since 1994. Colleen Wegman, Danny's daughter and now president of Wegmans Food Markets, developed the Nature's Marketplace store-within-a-store concept that has grown as Wegmans has grown into 71 stores.

As shoppers nationwide grew increasingly more interested in natural and organic products following food scares, supermarket chains started adding more natural and organic products.

Organic products are the fastest-growing segment in Wegmans' supermarkets produce departments, said Dave Corsi, vice president of produce and floral operations.

And as those numbers grew, supermarkets -- including Wegmans -- started placing the products throughout the stores, instead of departmentalizing them.

Wegmans, like other supermarket chains, uses networks of local farms -- Wegmans has 800 -- to put fresh seasonal produce in each store's produce department. But the network of local organic farms in Wegmans operating territory, from New York to Virginia, is quite a bit smaller than farms that use chemical sprays and aren't certified organic.

"We felt we should take a leap," said Wegman. "But we didn't know how we could ask our growers to go this way if we didn't do it ourselves."

So they are.

The Wegmans organic farming lesson grew not just from a look at corporate sales, but from the hard determination of a Wegman-family housekeeper.

That housekeeper was Anne Grover, who grew up on a farm in Rushton, schooled by a father who believed in the self-sustaining cycles of nature. She started doing housekeeping work for the Wegmans to help pay her daughter's college tuition.

Grover would often bring to the Wegman family produce she had grown organically.

"When you eat only organics for six months," said Grover. "The next time you eat anything that isn't organic, you can taste the chemicals, I promise you. You won't go back."

In 2005, Danny Wegman asked her to become the garden manager of the Wegman farm.

"I told Danny I had no formal education in gardening," said Grover, standing by the kitchen inside the barn. "I just did it all my life. He said, 'That's good enough for me.' And here I am. I have a great respect for the Earth. I'm just so glad we can be supplying this to the stores now."

It takes two years without chemicals for farmland to be growing what can be certified as organic. What's growing on the Wegmans farm is just that; it started growing organically in 2007, two years after becoming Wegman property.

The company is experimenting with different products, including heirlooms, grown in small quantities as a test bed to see if the company wants large fields of the product.

Farm manager Steve Strub said some five acres of the 50-acre farm are planted. There are 20 acres of open field, growing naturally and designed to draw insects helpful to plants and deflect those that are harmful. There are 25 wooded acres, a large retention pond, 15 beehives, 750,000 bees and natural meadow space for them.

There's compost and chickens, 31 of them, some pets for the Wegman grandchildren, some producing eggs that will only go on the dinner plates of the Wegman family. Otherwise, the chickens are there for weed and bug control.

While the produce from the Wegmans farm is landing in two Wegmans stores, it probably won't end up in Syracuse.

Standing near strawberry plants at the far climb to the top of the growing areas, Danny Wegman looks at the future of how organic products will end up in Central New York stores.

"Our goal is not to keep what we grow, here. We're not going to be a big producer," said Wegman. "As soon as we have something that works, we'll give it to our suppliers. Already, it's helped us understand the plight of the farmers. Organic farming is hard work. It's not for everyone. That's why we felt an obligation to learn about this."

Staff writer Bob Niedt can be reached at bniedt@syracuse.com or 470-2264.