LANESBOROUGH — Motorists are often puzzled when they drive by Red Shirt Farm on Williamstown Road.
“This is what they see,” said the small family farm’s owner Jim Schultz. “You don’t have a farm store? We know there’s a need.”
Schultz is solving that problem by building a combination community commercial kitchen/farm store on the road in front of his small 10-acre farm. But state legislators and local officials see this project as more than just a building. They see it as another way to tie the Berkshires into agri-tourism and the growing farm-to-table movement.
Plans call for the commercial kitchen to be available to other farmers, food pantries and local organizations interested in making their own products to reduce food insecurity and improve nutrition. Schultz expects the commercial kitchen/farm store to create two full-time jobs and have two seasonal employees.
In a presentation to local business leaders and lawmakers, Red Shirt Farm owner Jim Schultz formally announces the farm’s plans to construct a farm store and commercial kitchen at its Lanesborough property. The project, which is will cost over $770,000, according to the farm’s website, is already underway, and is projected to be complete by December.
Work on the almost $800,000 project has already begun and Schultz expects the 30-foot-by-40 foot structure to be open by December. He sees the facility as a year round aggregation and distribution hub for products produced by small farms across the Berkshires.
The commercial kitchen will be a licensed facility geared to extending the shelf life, diversity and consumer appeal of local food items.
Local food and agriculture are identified as an important job cluster in Berkshire Blueprint 2.0, 1Berkshire’s updated economic development plan for the county that was released in 2019.
“We don’t want to compete with the industrial farms of the Midwest. That’s not who we are,” said state Sen. Paul Mark, D-Becket, on Friday when the project was announced to the public for the first time. “What we want to do is diversify. We want to be special. We want to give people a reason that you’re going to eat something that’s local because you know how it was grown.
“It supports our local economy. It supports our local culture. It supports who we are as residents of Western Massachusetts and the Berkshires” he said. “To see this project come together and hear about all the good work that’s been done it’s amazing.”
Schultz began working on the project a year ago when he joined Entrepreneurship For All Berkshire County, an organization that helps entrepreneurs develop their business plans. He has raised half of the project’s total estimated cost of $734,874 for construction and equipment through grants from a variety of sources, including two state agencies.
He’s hoping to raise an additional $60,000 through a crowdfunding campaign on the Patronicity platform that launched on Friday.
In a presentation to local business leaders and lawmakers, Red Shirt Farm owner Jim Schultz formally announces the farm’s plans to construct a farm store and commercial kitchen at its Lanesborough property. The project, which is will cost over $770,000, according to the farm’s website, is already underway, and is projected to be complete by December.
The new building’s foundation is expected to put in within three weeks, and Schultz hopes to have the 30-foot-by-40-foot structure constructed and ready for a soft opening by December. He sees the facility as a year-round aggregation and distribution hub for products produced by small farms across the Berkshires. The commercial kitchen will be a licensed facility geared to extending the shelf life, diversity and consumer appeal of local food items.
“During COVID we saw what happened with the supply chain,” Schultz said. “There were delays in everything. If you have local food production you have security. We can produce the food that we need.”
Red Shirt Farm is an organic, no-till farm that does not used pesticides or herbicides. Schultz grows vegetables, raises pigs, chickens and turkeys and operates the farm year-round under the community supportive agriculture model, a system where people buy shares in the farm in exchange for a portion of the produce.
Originally from the Boston suburb of Winchester, Schultz originally came to the Berkshires to attend Williams College. A teacher and administrator in the Pittsfield Public Schools for 26 years, Schultz dabbled in farming before entering the profession full-time when he retired in 2015. He believes the time is right for this kind of project.
“People want connection, they want local food, they want good nutrition,” Schultz said. “They want more plant-based diets. There’s a movement to more home-based cooking. They don’t want chemicals on their food.
“We think we have a very strong opportunity,” he said. “There aren’t a lot of people who do what we do.”