Meet the Farmers
Avrom Farm was started in 2015 by Hayden Holbert while in college in North Carolina studying sustainable agriculture. He operated the farm during summer breaks, raising a few hundred chickens, a dozen or so pigs, and an acre of vegetables until 2017 when he graduated and began running the farm full time.
Currently we are finishing about 5,000 broiler chickens, 200 pigs, and grow 6 acres of vegetables. We employ 6 full time summer crew members, 2 in the winter, and host an annual music and food festival (cancelled for this year). We have traditionally sold our meats and vegetables to restaurants, small grocery stores, and at 6 weekly farmers markets in Milwaukee and Chicago. When the stay at home order went into effect in March, in the span of a week all our restaurant accounts paused and our farmers markets closed. During this time we started an online store that offered home delivery to sell all of our products. Soon after, we started working with other farmers in our area to offer their items on our store. Now we work with 24 local farmers and artisans to supply local, wholesome food produced using regenerative farming practices across central Wisconsin and the Chicagoland area.
Sustainable Agriculture Practices
We decided to be an integrated vegetable and livestock farm from the beginning so that we could use the ecosystem services from each enterprise to reduce inputs and increase biodiversity on our farm. We manage our livestock carefully on pasture so that their manure fertilizes and stimulates biodiversity wherever they go. This lifestyle also contributes to what makes the meat we produce exceptional. We practice deep-bedding farrowing so that we can collect large amounts of manure and bedding to be composted and used in our vegetable fertility program.
We are not yet certified organic. We were planning on it this year, but due to COVID-19 completely changing our business model on the fly, we did not have the administrative time to get it done. We are excited to try again next year.
Steward Comments
Steward has been working with Hayden and his team for the past year to fund general expenses around the farm and we're excited to help them fundraise for this next development in their business. We visited them in 2019 and acknowledge that Avrom upholds our environmentally regenerative standards with respect to livestock, and provides meaningful, fair work to their farm employees. They have a sincere mission to bring good food to the mainstream and play a key role in their community's food system.
The way that they've handled changes during the COVID crisis and have continued to supply their community with fresh produce should be admired and speaks volumes to their character and business resilience.
