09 Apr From the Fields to The Market: Our Longtime Relationship with Smit and Sons Farm
At The Market, we talk a lot about real food. More than just organic growing practices, we’re looking for produce that hasn’t spent a week in transit getting to us. We want greens that haven’t been sitting in a pressurized shipping container. Our customers want tomatoes that smell like a vine and cantaloupes that make the whole house smell sweet when you cut them open. Achieving that level of quality requires a local partner who refuses to cut corners, and for us, that partner is Smit and Sons Farm in Oswego.
The type of legacy the Smits have cultivated doesn’t grow on trees. Forgive the puns. They’re a third-generation family farm with roots in our community dating back to 1963. Long before the western suburbs were quite so suburban, the Smits were farming 105 acres at 31st and Wolf Road in Westchester. As the local landscape changed over the years, they moved their operations to Kendall County. Today, they still grow everything they sell on that same land, less than 30 miles from their farm stand and less than 40 miles from Barn Owl’s Market. It’s incredibly local!
We all probably know how important it is to shop locally to support your local economy, but maybe you don’t know the extra benefit of buying local produce like what we get from the Smits. Your typical suburban grocery store stocks produce that can survive a long trip from the source to their shelves. That means things like fruits are picked while they’re still hard, green, and flavorless. No wonder everything we grow in our own gardens tastes so great by comparison. The Smits are the opposite of the big stores. Their produce is picked daily at the peak of ripeness. They also use staggered planting with veggies like corn, meaning that with multiple planting days and harvests, the corn you buy in August is just as tender as the first harvest in July. The family oversees the entire lifecycle of their plants from the greenhouse to the fields. They care and their craft agriculture shows it.
When you walk into The Market and grab a heavy, sun-ripened watermelon, or one of their deep purple eggplants, you aren’t just a customer. You and your family are the destination of this food’s months-long journey from seed. Supporting a family farm like Smit and Sons is about more than the taste we’ve been bragging about. Don’t get us wrong, that is a huge perk, but it’s also about preserving the agricultural heritage of Illinois. Family farms make sure that “fresh” isn’t just a slogan big companies can hide behind. Next time you stop by The Market, look for the Smit and Sons labels. Take it from us: it’s the freshest you can get without getting your boots muddy yourself.
