ORTMAN OPERATION DEFINED BY CURIOSITY, ADAPTATION, HARD WORK

July 8 visit by newspaper folks features up-close look at lastest endeavor: ice cream

JEREMY WALTNER – PUBLISHER

Berrybrook Organics, a diverse East Freeman farming operation that has been evolving for the past quarter-of-a-century, was the first rural stop during the International Society of Weekly Newsapaper Editors’ pre-conference gathering last week Tuesday, July 8.

There, the group of 20 learned how this year marks 26 years that Will and Sherilyn Ortman have been working in a unique rural agriculture setting as part of the larger Ortman family farm. How — after about a year-and-a-half — they had to abandon what was at the time the centerpiece of the farm — 30,000 conventionally raised commodity egg-laying hens.

“The industry consolidated, and we were told to remain viable we could upgrade our operation to one million birds, or we should look at getting out,” Sherilyn told the group, “So we got out.”

They learned that the Ortmans then pursued a path of experimentation and adaptation that included a u-pick berry patch, indoor produce-growing, various crops that stray from the traditional grains produced around here that, today, includes hemp.

“If there are opportunities, we generally try to be open to those,” Sherilyn said, who notes the operation became fully certified organic in 2012, and that they eventually found their way back into eggs — this time cage-free, with weekly deliveries to outlets in Sioux Falls and Freeman’s two grocery stores — in addition to a robust crop rotation system, grass-fed, grass-finished beef, outdoor heritage pork, and most recently, ice cream.

“The thing all those products have in common, is that we’ve always focused on products for direct human consumption,” Sherilyn said. “We’ve always focused on adding value to as much of what we produce on the farm as we can, and direct marketing.

“Ours is a very dynamic operation,” she continued. “If you had been here five years ago we would have been doing some different things, if you’re back in five years we’ll likely be doing different things again. I think that causes some of our neighbors to say either, ‘Wow, they really have a short attention span,’ or ‘they have no idea what they’re doing.’ And I would argue on both counts that when we change or add or abandon something, that is prompted by necessity, and we would rather change and adapt on our own terms and our own timeline than getting the call that says the industry is consolidating and we need to get out.”

And Sherilyn notes that the nature of the operation and their willingness to adapt has a built-in connectivity.

“We talk about this frequently — that the connection we made here was critical to what we ended up doing 10 years later,” she says, reflecting on the first time they made ice cream for the inaugural South Dakota Chislic Festival in Freeman in 2018. “Since it was featuring a hyper-local specialty food, we said, ‘OK, our farm needs to have a presence at that festival; what’s it going to be?’”

So, Will and Sherilyn signed up as a food vendor and decided to capitalize on their years as a u-pick strawberry patch that they were known for — as well as the small dairy located just a mile-and-a-half down the road — by making strawberry ice cream.

It was a hit, and the positive feedback the Ortmans received, coupled with connections through their previous direct marketing and contact with customers, resulted in a rapid expansion of what has become the coolest arm of the operation: chemical-free, made-from-scratch ice cream that operates under the moniker Berrybrook Dairy Nook.

“The personal connection we have with our customers has ingrained itself in pretty much everything we do,” Will says. “Because we are so in tune with our customers, it has really impacted how we view the food system and how we produce a product for people. That’s been a really important part of the evolution of our farm.”

Will says that foundational principle folds nicely into ice cream because many want a healthier option; “We’re eating a lot of ultra-processed food, and one of the things that is often at the top of the naughty list is ice cream,” he says. “It’s just full of processed factory ingredients.”

The Ortman’s path toward something better-for-you included an invaluable continuing education course through Penn State that gave them the tools they needed to pursue a product in line with their mission.

They also built a new facility just a stone’s throw away from their home that would allow them to have complete control over their ingredients, which includes a homemade mix rather than the premade mix most ice cream producers use as a base.

“Most every ice cream that you consume, even in the quaintest little ice cream shop that looks local, is made from a mix,” Will said. “And a mix is basically a powder that gets reconstituted and thrown in an ice cream maker, and if you’re buying a mix you have no control over your ingredients and have to take whatever they put in it.”

The result, he continued, is that, for a lot of people, eating ice cream makes them feel sick “because of all the stuff that is added to it,” Will says, “and none of it is necessary by the way, but it might be a little cheaper, so you trim a few cents here and a few cents there. This is the factory model of food production. We’re a backlash to that.”

Ortman says their recipe for ice cream includes eggs laid by their free-range chickens that are misshapen and/or miscolored and therefore don’t make the cut for their direct-sell approach, and also fruit they grow on their farm, picked directly from the plant, including Asian pears for their Asian Pear Ginger ice cream.

“We think we have a unique product because of that,” Will says. “And because we’re making small batch ice cream we can use as many local ingredients as possible. We’re kind of using the craft beer model.”

And the response from people who say they will only eat Berrybrook ice cream is gratifying, he says, and has helped them establish a nice new niche.

“We’re teeny, teeny tiny and don’t have aspirations to become the next big brand,” Will says, “but the positive feedback we’re getting will keep us going when the chips are down.”

The facility itself is USDA-inspected and includes two rooms. One is where the raw ingredients are mixed — where Sherilyn has designed each of the 30-some flavors from the ground up — and the other includes a pasteurization station for the mix, an ice cream maker, and cold storage for the finished product.

The ice cream itself comes with a label that shows it as non-GMO and as organic as possible.

“It’s not a certified organic product like our eggs are, only because it’s difficult to source organic products consistently,” Will says.

“In this setting, for sure, and at our scale,” Sherilyn adds.

For the Ortmans, the past 26 years have been marked by adaptation, experimentation and change, but there is a long game here, and that is the opportunity to pass along their agricultural knowledge and systems to their three boys — if they’re interested in carrying on the alternative agriculture tradition Will and Sherilyn have established.

“In most everything we have done in the past 25 years, we have had one thing in the back of our mind,” Will says, “and that is to figure out ways that the door can be opened for our kids to come back. If that is not done really intentionally, it seems as though it doesn’t happen.

“The goal is that our boys (ages 19, 17 and 15) will see some aspect of what we’re doing and say, ‘I want to run with that; I would like to develop that further,’” he continues. “And we’re hoping that ice cream can be part of that.”