West Road in Canterbury slopes and settles into an open valley that, on a bluebird day, stretches out of sight.
Brookford Farm’s sweeping fields at the mouth of this dead-end street share no resemblance with the capital city just a 10-minute drive south. Convincing prospective visitors to make the journey, however short, has presented challenges and required creativity, but owner Luke Mahoney has had little trouble enticing customers to this rural corner more recently.
The expanded farm store, being inaugurated Saturday after a soft-opening in March, is the reason why.
“It’s been really well received, we’ve had a lot of new people, it’s kind of crazy,” Mahoney said, idling by the wraparound counter made from the wood of silver maples, trees prominent in the Merrimack Valley. “One guy came in here and was like, ‘What you guys have done is awesome. I told all my friends in Boston, and we’re going to come up here.'”
Mahoney described the store as a long-term investment in scaling up, a natural transition from operating an online store that did well despite its corresponding brick-and-mortar store being only a cramped, miniscule sliver of Mahoney’s family home on the farm.
The market has multiplied in size and potential. The family still lives on the other side of a refrigerator-lined wall, albeit in shrunk quarters, as two of Mahoney’s four sons have moved out of the house and freed up space for the store’s expansion. Where the family’s dining room and living room once were, jars of kefir, sealed slabs of gouda with basil and cartons of pasture-raised chicken eggs sit on chilled shelves.
“Of course, we could have still used the dining room, living room, but we have to always put the horse before the cart here on the farm, meaning that the power to drive the farm needs to come before,” he said.
The store will serve, for visitors, as a gateway to the rest of the farm, especially as Brookford continues to invest in events that cultivate local exposure to agricultural life and help support the farm business, like the Sunflower Soiree in August and Christmas with the Cows in December. The offerings stocking the shelves are, themselves, an extension of an approach that encourages community connection and involvement.
About 80% of the products sold in the store are produced at Brookford Farm: the produce, the dairy, the krauts, the meats, the eggs. The remaining products are sourced thoughtfully, with health and nutrition in mind.
Mahoney said customers don’t hesitate to let him know if a product they purchased at the store is out-of-step with their expectations, but he’s built enough trust to know that when people come to the farm, “they want to be able to come in here and not have to read labels so much.”
Several direct-to-consumer stores have faltered in the last year, buffeted by external financial headwinds, as in the case of Warner Public Market, or facing internal challenges allocating staff and other resources that could be more producitvely utilized in other parts of the business.
But Mahoney doesn’t see those challenges coming into play at Brookford Farm. The 14-month renovation required a substantial upfront investment of about $200,000, but the way he sees it, from here on out, the farm store can only hold promise.
In the past, the farm’s steady production has strained its storage capacity. Mahoney said he processes eight animals at a time — “we’ll never run out of ground beef, ever” — so stocking the store won’t be a problem.
Rather than hindering productivity, the farm store has given some employees, whose jobs involve event planning and marketing, an air-conditioned sanctuary for a workspace that’s made simple business operations much simpler. They’ve even started consistently manning the phone, he said.
“It probably sounds weird, but you want to know that we’re going to have bone marrow on the shelf. They don’t want to have to find some sales clerk and see if they can dig up chicken feet,” he said. “I think the variety and the dependability of the products is really easy for people. Everyone I’ve talked to is thankful.”
The farm store’s ribbon cutting ceremony will take place on Saturday, April 18 at 250 W Rd. in Canterbury.
