Business Focus

Bruce Hennessey and Beth Whiting at Maple Wind Farm

Diversified family farm based in Huntington and Richmond, selling pastured eggs, poultry, beef, and pork, as well as organic veggies. Maple Wind Farm sells at the Burlington Farmers’ Market; direct wholesale to VT restaurants and retail; regionally to Boston and beyond via coop; and has future plans to open a farm store in their new barn.

Loan Summary

Beth and Bruce were far along rebuilding their barn after a fire burnt it to the ground in 2014 when they contacted the VFF for a $30k Business Builder Loan. The extra funds went to upgrade their poultry processing, cooling and freezing equipment, a marked improvement over their previous facilities.

The Backstory

Husband and wife team Bruce Hennessey and Beth Whiting established Maple Wind Farm in 1999 to bring everything they love all together: living in a beautiful place, providing great food, and teaching customers about choices that are best for the land, animals, and personal health.

The farm had been steadily growing when the couple decided to purchase an additional property in Richmond in 2013 with a historic barn, as well as refine their business to become a more efficient and focused operation.

Everything was progressing according to plan for Maple Wind until a tragic fire burned their barn to the ground in January of 2014, taking with it equipment, tons of storage veggies, a poultry processing trailer, and lots more.

After shock, grief, uncertainty and weighing all their options, the family decided to rebuild a facility that would vastly improve on the old structure. A combination of insurance, grants, a loan from Yankee Farm Credit, and donations helped to finance the new construction, but the farm was short on funds to build out the poultry processing, cooling, and storage to meet their high expectations.

In January of 2015, Beth and Bruce took out a $30,000 Business Builder Loan from the Vermont Farm Fund to purchase and install the new equipment to help boost daily poultry processing capacity by 25% and provide a year-round facility dedicated to adding value to all their meat products.

This new setup is so much more efficient than what we had in the past. We are able to more easily and safely move our poultry through processing, packing, and freezing.

The Bottom Line

“An unexpected advantage of our new blast chiller over a conventional ice and water bath is that the birds are coming out without the extra water from the bath. With bath-chilled poultry, you can end up with a bird that is 8-10% heavier due to water weight.”

It’s taken about two years to finish up the new barn in Richmond, but Beth and Bruce are ready to show it off in an open house on Saturday, March 12th. Those who visit the farm will be impressed by a hyper-efficient blast chiller to get poultry quickly and safely down to temp. Because fresh poultry processing is seasonal, the space can be re-purposed for low humidity cooler storage during the winter.

Moreover, larger onsite freezing and cooling capacity allows for freezing of meats and value-added products on-site, increasing their process efficiencies, lowering costs, and providing other farms and customers the ability rent freezer space. The Result? Maple Wind will be able to produce almost 50% more of their own chickens per year, enabling them to sell year round to customers like American Flatbread and UVM Medical Center.

The Vermont Farm Fund was crucial in helping to fund our new barn construction after our barn fire in 2013. We now have increased cooler and freezer capacity in addition we built a meat processing room for packing our poultry and creating value added products. Thank you!

Photos courtesy of Maple Wind Farm and the Vermont Farm Fund.