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Ron Hamilton flashes a smile and dives into the difference between plain organic and certified organic as a customer listens intently. Two minutes later, he’s swapping stories with another customer, this one on a first name basis. And down at the other end of the refrigerated units his eldest daughter Shae and her husband Adam Belanger are chatting pleasantly and helping another set of customers.
This is Saturday afternoon at the Strathcona Farmers Market, just north of Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. The morning has been a blur — it usually is — as Hamilton and his helpers deal out turkey sausages and eggs and whole chickens and pork cutlets — to name but a few of the items that are stocked in the refrigerators and freezers.
“Every weekend we have people come up to us and say, ‘thank you’. The personal gratification you get from that is just huge,” says Hamilton.
Hamilton’s Sunworks Farm has been selling its certified organic products at the Strathcona market since 2000.
Nearly all of Sunworks Farm retail is done at farmers markets, with Hamilton’s wife Sheila and younger daughter Erin and son-in-law Matt Paulson selling the goods at the Calgary Farmers’ Market at Currie Barracks.
“We quickly realized that at the market here we can be price makers. If we go into the retail markets, we’re constantly being squeezed. We’re price takers there,” says Hamilton.
Also important was making organic food available to a larger clientele. “Sheila doesn’t want to have organic food available to just a certain high-end population. She wants it to be available to everybody. If you want to make the decision to go organic, we want it to be affordable and available to all,” says Hamilton.
Approximately four per cent of Sunworks Farm’s product is sold to restaurants and Planet Organic, a health food store.
The Hamiltons spend 51 weekends a year selling their goods at the two large city farmers’ markets.
“It’s been really cool, these relationships we’ve developed. We’re a big extended family,” says Hamilton.
Selling certified organic goods is a long road from the oil industry work Hamilton used to do. But changes in priority and a need to deal with family health pushed Ron and Sheila into changing their lifestyle in 1992. That year they bought a farm near Armena, east of Edmonton, moving from their Leduc home.
A few years later, the couple took a holistic management course. “Through the holistic management course we became aware of the possibilities for our family,” said Hamilton.
Family members suffered from severe allergies and all had celiac (allergy to gluten). Sheila also had fibromyalgia (a disorder causing aching muscles, sleep disorders and fatigue).
“We used food as our medicine. We realized organic food was helping our family and we wanted our land to be well, too,” explained Hamilton.
Sunworks Farm became a certified organic operation, meaning three years in which fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides were not used on the land. The land was planted in hay crops, making the transition easier, and thistle mowed down. Now, a certified organic inspector regularly visits the farm and follows the audit trail, which includes records of every input, all the way down to ensuring that the feed is organic. An independent reviewer regularly examines all documents. Any non-compliances are noted and a time frame is given for corrections to be made. The land must remain free of chemicals and pesticides.
“We have to keep a documented set of books. Anybody can come to our farm anytime and review our books,” says Hamilton.
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Sunworks Farm is a veritable domestic zoo.
Hamilton admits it’s unusual to have an operation with chickens, pigs, and cows, but their decision to have such a varied farm was based on what they heard from their customers.
“We learned quick and real early that the customer is number one. They’re pushing us to where we are,” says Hamilton.
As an example, he talks about the change in their chicken-rearing schedule. Unable to keep up with customer demand by raising chickens only in spring and summer, the Hamiltons asked their customers if they would be opposed to purchasing chicken raised indoors in the winter in a penless barn.
“The customers said they trusted us to be humane, to look after our chickens properly,” he says.
Not only is Sunworks Farm certified organic, it has been certified humane since 2003.
Chickens, ducks and geese are all free range. Laying hens have two square feet each on the floor. The sows enjoy loose housing outdoors. There are a number of guidelines established by the Humane Society that Sunworks Farm must adhere to.
Sunworks consists of three quarter-sections of land divided among three separate farms. Sheila’s sister Dorothy Marshall has an operation in Rosalind, further east of Edmonton, and Shae and Adam bought a farm (with the land already certified organic) near Holden. While Erin and Matt are not members of Sunworks Farm, they sell organic fruits and vegetables and live in Calgary. Between the farms, meat, chicken, duck, geese, turkey, pork, lamb, beef and layer hens (for eggs) are raised.
In the Edmonton market, Sunworks sells beef, but in Calgary the beef is switched for bison.
Hamilton explains that one of his fellow retailers in the Edmonton market sells bison and that is his “bread and butter”, while in Calgary they were brought on board by a farmer, who sold beef.
Hamilton, Shae and Adam work the Strathcona Market, which runs 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays. It means an early morning rise at 3:30 a.m. to get ready for the day. Two part-time employees also help out at the market.
In Calgary, Sheila is joined by Erin and Matt. The young couple has their own booth next door to Sunworks Farm, where they sell their organic fruits and vegetables. Three to four part-time employees work at the Calgary Farmers’ Market. Sheila leaves the farm on Thursdays and returns home late Saturday. Erin and Matt and the employees finish off the Sunday market.
There are also three full-time employees on the farm.
Sunworks Farm also sells value-added product, both fresh and frozen, including sausages, chicken pieces, wieners, and cutlets. The meat is processed at Messinger Meats in Mirror, and Lakeland Poultry Processors in St. Paul, both of which are certified organic processors.
Sunworks Farm has also begun developing recipes. Because of the family’s challenge with health issues, Sunworks Farm’s meat has no gluten, no chemicals or preservatives, no refined sugars, no wheat, no filler, no excess water and no loaded fat.
“We try to make our food just as healthy, clean and pure as possible,” says Hamilton.
“We want all our meat to have the wow factor,” he adds.
And with all the people that Hamilton greets by name, it’s obvious the “wow factor” has brought the customers back.
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