NELSON — After over two decades of supporting New York State businesses, Nelson Farms Country Store & Production Facility is planning to permanently close its kitchen and retail location on May 31, 2024, due to financial challenges.
Nelson Farms, which encompasses a country store, taproom, and food processing incubator, is located at 3261 Rt. 20 in the Town of Nelson.
The business has three employees and is owned and operated by the Morrisville Auxiliary Corporation (MAC), a non-profit that provides non-academic services to SUNY Morrisville, such as campus dining services, two housing facilities, facilities maintenance, catering services, and the campus store. MAC also owns and runs the Morrisville IcePlex and the Copper Turret restaurant.
“The revenue from Nelson Farms was unable to keep pace with the expenses associated with running the facility,” said MAC Executive Director Jennie Bowden. “Over the last few years, we instituted a variety of strategies to help close this gap. While these strategies ensured that we were continuing to offer excellent products and a service to the community, they fell short of achieving financial viability for Nelson Farms.”
The Nelson Farms Country Store is a New York specialty market featuring more than 55 active products produced in its kitchen, as well as products from all regions of the state. Available items include pancake, muffin, and other dry mixes; syrups; jams and jellies; sauces; salsas; gourmet condiments and dressings; snacks; ice cream; coffee; chocolates and candy; beef jerky; and gifts.
The 4 Corners Tap Room, which is currently closed, offered select, locally sourced craft brews.
Located less than eight miles from SUNY Morrisville, Nelson Farms serves as the college’s small-scale, FDA-inspected food processing incubator, providing entrepreneurial agri-business opportunities for specialty food processors, farmers, growers, and producers.
Throughout the years, the commercial kitchen facility has been made available to local users on a contract or time-share basis, giving users access to production-scale food processing equipment in an inspected environment.
The Nelson Farms website explains that shared-use clients are responsible for providing their own ingredients and production staff and are given the option of ordering bottles through Nelson Farms. The facility provides one trained team member to set up, assist with production, and supervise cleanup following production.
Throughout the years, students in several SUNY Morrisville programs of study have also utilized Nelson Farms as an experimental laboratory, enabling them to gain real-world experience in agritourism, marketing, entrepreneurship, dietetics/nutrition, and value-added agriculture and development.
“Students in agriculture business development took a class on product development, and the learning lab has been used by courses in hospitality management and business courses focused on marketing,” said Bowden.
According to the SUNY Morrisville website, Nelson Farms has helped form some 1,000 businesses and developed more than 600 food products.
The kitchen facility is currently used to produce Farmstead 1868’s culinary lavender; Doug’s Fish Fry sauces; Landmark Tavern’s dressings, cornbread, and scone mixes; Our Farm’s rhubarb sauces; Pumpernickel’s Deli pasta sauces; Tom’s Bootleg Barbeque Sauce; Streaking Moose BBQ Sauce; Stone Chimney BBQ Sauce; Miss Sydney’s sauces, etc.; and dozens of products developed by SUNY Morrisville students in agri-business classes, such as slather sauces, hot cocoa mix, marinades, dressings, jams, and mustards.
“It’s been at least 12 years since we first came to Nelson Farms to develop a recipe schedule and then process and sell our rhubarb sauce,” said Jimmy Golub, owner of Our Farm at 1590 Peth Rd., Manlius. “Nelson Farms was a local facility in close proximity to us with a commercial kitchen that was equipped to handle our scale of production. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to develop and produce this product. We realize that for us, this product is something extra we can offer, so [the closure] won’t change much for us, but we probably won’t be able to offer this product after we run out of inventory. We will try to find another source for production, but for us, Nelson Farms was a perfect fit. The staff there has changed over the years, but they’ve all been helpful, especially Marge Wilcox. Thank you, Nelson Farms. We’ll miss you.”
In the past, Nelson Farms also served as a production facility for In My Father’s Kitchen’s pasta sauce; Larry’s All Natural salsas; Farmer Street Pantry mincemeat and salad dressings; Bella Cucina’s marinara; Collins Creamery products; and Juanita’s Soul Classics spices and sauces.
According to Bowden, the reasons for the past clients’ departures included moving to a co-packer, closing their business, or opening a commercial kitchen of their own.
The final day of kitchen production for shared-use clients is May 24.
Monica Cody, who owns the Farmstead 1868 lavender farm in Fenner, said she plans to schedule as many runs to Nelson Farms as possible until the kitchen closes to meet her current demand.
“I started using Nelson Farms to process my culinary lavender as soon as I was ready to bring it to market,” Cody said. “The staff, support, knowledge, connections, and programming were indispensable. To have that resource in our backyard and lose it is a huge loss for all the small-batch manufacturers either trying to begin a new agri-business in the community or [trying] to learn how to scale what they’ve started to something bigger. . . . I will need to either create my own 20-C kitchen space or find a contract manufacturer to take over the production if the economics don’t support my immediate investment into creating a space in our facility or if I run out of product before a new location can be qualified.”
According to its website, Nelson Farms is no longer accepting new shared-use clients.
Bowden described working at Nelson Farms as an extremely rewarding experience.
“Our facility has helped the next generation of agri-business entrepreneurs get hands-on, real-life experience,” she said. “We have enabled local producers to take their product from an idea to a value-added product. The genuine connections we’ve made, as well as seeing dreams come to fruition, has been heartwarming.”
For many years, the store has been a member of Taste NY, the official eat-local, drink-local program for NYS.
Launched over a decade ago, Taste NY highlights the quality, diversity, and economic impact of food and beverages grown, produced, or processed in New York State. Taste NY aims to create new opportunities for producers through events, retail locations, and partnerships.
“Nelson Farms was part of the Taste NY program at its inception, proudly highlighting and promoting NYS food and drink items while offering opportunities for NY growers to produce in our kitchen,” said Bowden. “Nelson Farms also operated the Taste NY Marketplace [at the NYS Fair] prior to COVID and has been involved in other Taste NY initiatives and events.”
In a March 21 Facebook post announcing the upcoming closure of the store and kitchen, Nelson Farms said it has been an honor and a privilege to be a part of Taste NY and to serve the greater Central New York Community.
“Because of your support, we have been able to help local entrepreneurs add value to their product and share our love of New York State food, drink, and gifts with you for over 20 years,” the post says. “We hope you will stop into our store to say goodbye and to stock up on your favorite Nelson Farms products because once they’re gone, they’re gone for good. We have so much to be grateful for; thank you for being a part of our story.”
The post also encourages community members to continue to shop locally at other Taste NY store locations, including an incoming store in the Morrisville area. The current Taste NY locations can be found at taste.ny.gov/taste-ny-store-locations.
“Nelson Farms has been a well-kept asset at the center of our hamlet for a very long time,” said Jim Cunningham, supervisor of the Town of Nelson. “Their kitchen/production facility and customer service are just amazing, producing great products. The next time you order a product online that you could have purchased from a local store, please remember our small retail stores and buy local, [because] this loss impacts our community and NYS agriculture. We thank SUNY Morrisville and MAC for the many years and hard work your staff have contributed to our hamlet.”
To learn more about Nelson Farms, its offerings, and its current hours, visit nelsonfarms.org/country-store.
