Turners Fresh Gourmet

Today I'm talking with Chuck and John at Turners Fresh Gourmet. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Chuck and John at Turner's Fresh Gourmet. Hi guys, how are you? Good. And you're in Wisconsin, right? We are. Okay, so you're neighbors. Yes. Yeah, we live...

00:28
I don't know, less than five minutes apart, right, John? That's a true story. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I meant neighbors to me because I'm in Minnesota. But hey, we're all neighbors. Oh, yes. Yes. No. So where in Wisconsin are you? So we're in Wapaka County and in the the closest town is Wapaka, whereby the beautiful chain of lakes area.

00:56
I guess the only other way I would describe where we are is we're in the central sands farming area, which is where the glaciers dumped a huge amount of sand. That's interesting because as my grandfather used to say, it used to be before irrigation or modern irrigation, some of the most difficult land to farm on.

01:26
And then with the advent of irrigation, which was something that really exploded during his generation, it became some of the best land to farm on because it has great drainage and you have more control over the water input. Awesome. So what's the biggest city near you?

01:54
We're between Appleton and Stevens Point, almost midpoint, a little bit more toward point, but about 40 miles west of Appleton, west a little bit north. Okay. That gives me a dot on the map to picture in my head. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So tell me the story of how you guys got together and started the project here. I'll start out because I was sort of the instigating person on this. I was actually on vacation with my

02:24
my wife in the Oregon area, Portland, we landed in Portland, and we were heading to the Willamette Valley to do some little wine tasting, do some hiking along the coast, et cetera. But first place we went to eat was a restaurant that had Portland ketchup on the table. And I've not been a particular foodie.

02:49
necessarily, but I do, I've always noticed that sort of thing. If a restaurant says we've got house ketchup, I'm like, okay, I want something with that ketchup on it. And so I ordered a burger, whatever had the ketchup next restaurant, same thing, portly ketchup, and I'm kind of turning the bottle over and looking at it, looking up on the website, portly ketchup, I'm just curious, like this regional ketchup company. So long story short, I just kind of put that in the back of my

03:19
marketing and healthcare consultant, very specific niche. That was my job. And we had just moved to Wapaka in this sort of retirement transition I had been doing, or we've been doing. And we knew the Turner family for years because we'd be coming up here. And at a historical society presentation about three months later, we see John, along with his father and his sister presenting all about Turner Farms.

03:47
and the history of it, all that stuff. And the last people to get up were John and his sister, Tara. And they talk about, you know, here's some things we're looking to do to kind of expand and looking toward the future. And this idea resurfaced in my head. I went up to John, I said, what do you think about making a ketchup and having your own ketchup? And he said, that sounds interesting. And for reasons that he knew that I didn't, which was that they have a bunch of tomatoes left over every year, so why not?

04:17
And so that was, I think, February right before the pandemic. In the ensuing, you know, couple of years, we'd been working on our recipe and just kind of making the ketchup from home and sharing some jars of John, but not really talking too much about it because there's a pandemic. And then about a year and a half later or about a year and a half ago, John and I met up and he said, you know, we've been talking. We'd love to have your ketchup on the shelf. And I said,

04:47
John it's not my ketchup. This is this be Turner's fresh ketchup. It's it's the it's your brand your tomatoes your farm I'm almost a minority player in this thing because I think you guys have got the local farming Etc. So that's it. I'll let John fill in the rest of it, but Okay, that that became the idea Yeah it's funny because I had

05:12
recently moved back to the farm after being away for a number of years. And, um, as Chuck said, like, uh, there was a presentation of mainly about the past and as I remember it, Chuck just was like, you know, what's next and how about ketchup and, uh, it all sounded good. Uh, but I, I really didn't know how serious Chuck was about, um, this project until, uh, he returned. And then we.

05:42
We sort of talked about some of the elements that made this a good idea. One was he's hinted on, which was, was more personal to our farm, but on most years we have a high yield on our tomatoes. And, um, even though we sell, uh, tomatoes wholesale, we sell tomatoes through our market and often if we have too many, we will, uh, donate them.

06:10
to local food pantries, we inevitably still have tomatoes. So, you know, when I brought this to my dad, he was like, no, that's a great idea. We need a place for these tomatoes to go. But the other thing that upon more research and definitely through Chuck's investigation was just that ketchup has been dominated by, you know, corn syrup.

06:40
Um, for a long time, um, I don't know the full history, but you know, when people come and they buy our ketchup and I'll ask them like, have you ever had homemade ketchup before and if they say no, I'll say, well, it's sort of like going from log cabin maple syrup to real maple syrup. I mean, you're, you're, you're shedding, um, a massive amount of corn syrup.

07:07
and you're getting the natural product. And what we found is that the natural product is much, much lower in sugar, which is one of the key things that we like to stress with this ketchup. And Chuck can say more about this, but there's just a huge amount of people who are looking to lower their sugar intake and have completely given up on ketchup

07:37
most catch-ups are extremely high. You know, like I always used to joke there's reason why kids hate tomatoes but love ketchup. And so, you know, through, you know, multiple testings of recipes, we found that the natural ketchup can be sweet enough without being like sort of a health liability.

08:07
or at least something you might want to steer away from. So we've seen real success in terms of the appeal, not only because of the flavor of the ketchup, but because of the fact that due to its all natural composition, it's lower in sugar and just generally good for you, which I don't think, at least in this age, most people would go, you know what I need to do to improve my diet?

08:37
eat more ketchup. And we've really found that, I mean, you know, it's amazing how every, you know, from diabetics to just people who are generally trying to get preservatives out of their diet, the overall appeal of a low sugar, all natural ketchup. So that's really been also a big part of.

09:06
us finding traction in our local area. Okay, so can people, can you ship it? Are you allowed to ship the ketchup? We are working on it. We have, we have our process thus far has been, we piloted it last last October, and we sold nearly 1000 jars in one month out of the market that John and

09:35
his wife run Turner's Fresh Market in Wapaka. And so that was a pretty strong signal that we were onto something because it wasn't just people buying it. Well, we know the Turners will just buy a dryer and make them happy. They're coming back for cases saying, I need this over the winter. And so we then, this year we've gone from Wausau, Wisconsin down through Oshkosh, which is south of Appleton. And we were available there through...

10:05
basically meat shops, cheese shops, co-ops, other specialty retailers. And so it's got retail distribution. We're now working on restaurant distribution so that in those markets people can taste it because when we do tastings, which we'll sometimes do, you know, it's just like people taste it and they're like, oh, this is really good. And so that has convinced us that, you know, if we can get into these restaurants, I'm sorry, restaurants,

10:34
then people will be able to sample it in market. So that's our next step. And then this fall before Christmas, we will have some sort of online distribution option, but that'll be soon. And if people are interested, they just go to tern and keep an eye on their order Facebook page. Fantastic. It's funny how we get these little ideas of, oh, it'd be really cool to make a ketchup that doesn't have as much sugar in it.

11:03
And then you find out that everybody else thinks it's cool too and you're like, oh my god, I need to make so much more. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead Chuck. Go ahead John. All I was going to say is, you know, this being the sort of gourmet shelf stable food product is something new for both Chuck and I. And one of the other things that's...

11:28
unique about ketchup is just how much of America consumes ketchup. And so we had an interesting conversation with one producer who had a much more niche product. And so one of the things that has encouraged us is just realizing how much ketchup America consumes. Some areas more than others.

11:57
But there was one article that I read, which was, you know, like, what is your state's favorite condiment? And outside of barbecue being favorite in certain southern places, you know, ketchup really dominates how we dress up our food. And so another thing, yeah, I'm just sort of stating that one of the

12:24
The things that has excited us is that people are ready for ketchup. But when they find out there's a healthier alternative that also tastes really good, they jump on board pretty quickly. As Chuck said, the tastings, I mean, I don't know what the exact percentage of, but it feels like over 80% of the people who taste it, they take a step back. They're like, wow, this is pretty good. And then they go, yeah, I'm going to get a jar.

12:54
So one of the things obviously that is different is the price point, but I also think that so many people, like I said, whether it's for health reasons, whether they want to support the local economy, or whether they see the environmental factors positives of shopping local. We've also seen that...

13:19
outside of people liking ketchup, there's multiple reasons why they're drawn to locally made good for you ketchup. Mm-hmm. Well, you were mentioning the difference between the not real maple syrup and real maple syrup. When I was a kid, I grew up in Maine, so there was the Maine Maple Sunday thing every year. Oh, yeah. And my parents would get real maple syrup. And it was not inexpensive, but it was worth buying.

13:48
And they loved it. I did not love it. I wanted the fake maple syrup because that's what you usually had. And then as an adult, like, I don't know, 20 years ago, my parents sent me a small bottle of the Maine maple syrup. And I was like, I don't even really like real maple syrup. And my dad was like, try it again. Try it again. And I did. And I was like, oh my God, this doesn't taste like I remember it tasting. This is really good.

14:16
We haven't had fake maple syrup in the house in years. Like we have found the place to get it, the real stuff, and that's what we get. So once you convert, that's it. Right. Right. It's that way with a lot of things. It's a John, they sell a pasta that's sort of locally made that, you know, you taste that and say, oh, this just makes a huge difference. There's a lot of examples of that, particularly, I guess, as you get older.

14:45
at least in my experience, he slowed down a little bit. You're not so concerned with just cramming food in your mouth to get to the next thing. You do tend to take a moment to be a little more choosy about what you're consuming. Yeah, I'm a slow eater. My husband makes fun of me because what takes him five minutes to eat takes me 20 because I actually chew my food and I actually really like tasting my food.

15:13
It's not just shove it in my mouth and move on to the next thing. So I consider myself to be a little bit of a foodie. I love to cook. I love to try new foods I've never tried before. And then I like to try to make them myself. So my husband teases me all the time. He's like, you have been eating that, that burger for like 10 minutes. It should take two minutes. Eat a burger. I'm like, no, no, I'm actually tasting my food. Thank you. Yeah. You're just elongating the time in which you're enjoying.

15:43
which is terrific. Yeah. Food, food should be an experience. Yeah. Well, one thing we see, and I know that is an interest in your, of your podcast is being at a, a fresh produce market. There are so many of our customers who are homesteaders, who are, have continued the tradition of putting up food themselves or making their own

16:13
whether it's pasta sauces or you know what have you and it's really neat to see or learn it you know the again the number of reasons why people are doing this and I think that just one more thing along with you know for health reasons supporting the local economy or environmental reasons is the the wool gathering that goes on when

16:42
people take time to put up their own food. A lot of the folks who come in and buy bulk items for them to process at home, usually do it with their family or they do it with friends. It's often an intergenerational activity. And it is so much fun to hear about the level of enjoyment they get out of partaking in these activities. And

17:11
Which is all just to say that the more we slow down, the more there is time for time together. Yeah, I think that farmers bring together communities. It's just part and parcel of that profession. And when you bring communities together, people love to talk, they love to tell stories, and then everybody feels connected. And we need more connectedness right now. Oh yeah. Yeah, if you were to go to the...

17:41
to the Turner's Market on a Saturday now, particularly this time of year, it's fall and pumpkins and whatever. You just see such a conglomeration. And I'll say Wapaka is generally a very community-minded place to be. We got a lot of different events and concerts and whatever that bring a lot of people together. But you see that every Saturday at Turner's Farm. And there are people who are just there because of their common love for food and

18:11
the family atmosphere and for fresh produce and to support the local economy. And nothing else matters and it's a wonderful place to be. Josh, do you guys just grow one kind of tomato? One variety? No. Though I will say we grow, now that we're in the ketchup business, we grow more of a variety of Roma or paste tomatoes.

18:40
the key tomato that we grow for our ketchup. But we also have some other varieties that we grow that show up a little bit earlier so we can extend the season. And tomato season, depending on the year, this was a tougher tomato season due to the excessive rain that we got in the spring and early part of summer.

19:08
You're telling me, buddy. You know all about it, I'm sure. But you know, typically, I mean, even on a good year, I would say, it's still, you know, the season doesn't last forever. It's not like our sweet corn season, which goes on for months. You know, it has its window and we live, you know, in the Midwest, which...

19:35
Uh, it's seasons are shorter than further south or, um, in California. And so, uh, you know, there's, there's a window in which you really have to be ready. I mean, we joked this season, especially because of some of the difficulties that, you know, this harvesting time was, was our Superbowl. It was, you know, it's the big time for this ketchup production to put up as much puree as possible.

20:02
you know, that will last us, you know, up until the next season. Um, I will say we also, you know, beyond the, the, the Roma's and the paste tomatoes, we grow plenty of canning and slighter tomatoes. And, uh, we grow multiple varieties of those then heirloom tomatoes. And then also a lot of snacking tomatoes too. I mean, people love.

20:28
fresh tomatoes and I mean fresh produce in general is is is such a different experience. But I feel like maybe more than other produce. I'm amazed at the people who we won't see for you know the rest of the season and then tomato season will show up and they're like yeah this is really important to me. I love fresh tomatoes and I'm you know I'm ready to make my pasta sauce or what have you.

20:58
Um, my husband sells our produce at the farmer's market and this summer has been rough. We have not had a lot of produce to sell because of all the rain we got in the spring as you guys understand too. And we didn't think we were going to have a single tomato. My husband was smart and he planted three different times and the second planting actually started coming in like a month ago, month and a half ago. And we have the third planting has green tomatoes set.

21:27
but they aren't turning yet. We're praying it doesn't frost for a couple weeks so we might be able to get more out of that third planting. My point to this story is there's a guy that shows up five minutes before the farmer's market opens since we started selling tomatoes a month and a half ago. And he buys my husband out of all the tomatoes that my husband has out on the table. And then he says, I'll be back at the end of the market to see what you have left. Wow. And...

21:56
The reason I asked about the different varieties is because San Marzano tomatoes, I feel like are the most versatile one you can grow because they're good sliced in a salad. They really are. They're good for tomato paste. They're good for tomato sauce. They're good for tomato juice because the flavor of them is so delicious. So if anybody listening wants to start growing tomatoes next year, start with some early girls because they're super easy.

22:26
And some San Marzano's because they're the ones you want to make paste out of. Yeah. And it's, go ahead, John. Oh, I was just going to add to that. There's something fun too about, uh, with the San Marzano's of, uh, of growing something, especially for, um, anything pasta or whatever related that has a long history as well and, uh, you know, San Marzano's have proven to be a really terrific tomato for

22:54
quite a long time for a lot of different populations. Yeah. Yeah, and they don't taste like any other tomato either. No, and they're pretty darn durable. I will say that the tomato that turned out the best this year, the variety that did the best for us was the San Marzano. Aromas in general, I think again, because they have a lot less water content than the

23:22
Slicers and canners, I mean, they just were, they held up to the, the excessive rainfall a whole lot better this year. Yeah, us too. Okay, Chuck, you were going to say? Sorry. I was just going to say the, there's a cute little picture on our website, Turner's Fresh Gourmet.com that has a picture of my granddaughter with John's father, Ross Turner. We went into the field when my, when my grandkids were visiting and

23:52
he was explaining to her why they're growing San Marzano tomatoes and emphasizing it. And in the picture, I think it's the picture we captured, that one of the other things is that when you go to pick it, it comes off the vine easily. And you know, the little knob, and it just has all sorts of interesting facts about it. And my granddaughter's just intrigued. I've learned a lot because as I tell John, I go like, I don't really like dirt. I'm the oddball in this. I don't like touching it.

24:21
I clean things that are dirty compulsively. Um, but it's been so fun to be part of something that is, you know, obviously involves soil and growing and all that sort of thing. Yeah. We, we actually have some San Marzano sliced tomatoes drying in our food dehydrator right now, and my husband sliced them with the mandolin thingy. That's Sunday. I think it was. And.

24:49
He did not rinse it off right away. So guess who got to clean it after all that gook had dried? How would it be me? And I was like, this is gross. I hate this, but I could smell the tomatoes and the sure the hydrator. I was like, okay, I guess it's all right. I just got to make sure. And make sure I rinse this off right after he's done with it next time. Yeah. Uh, this is one of the things that your listeners might be interested in is the, we, uh, so last year.

25:18
I was actually in the kitchen making the ketchup. And it was in the commercial kitchen locally called the Stephen, the farm shed, Central Rivers Farm Shed, which is a nonprofit sort of collaborative cooperative kitchen operation in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. And this year, they actually have staff that, you know, we bring the tomatoes in and the other ingredients we procure, peppers and onions and other ingredients.

25:47
garlic, bring that stuff to them and they're basically making the ketchup. They're making the puree from the tomatoes. They're freezing it. They're taking that back out. They're making the ketchup on our behalf. And so it's what a wonder. It's a great example of why those places exist. We didn't have to buy commercial kitchen equipment. We don't have to lease the space really. I mean, they've got the staff to do hundreds of jars a day. Whereas, you know, I was doing

26:16
At my top, I was doing maybe 100 jars a day by myself, but they've got the operation down. So it's been a wonderful collaboration and really helping us launch our business. Yes, I actually saved the post that has their name in it from your Facebook page so that I can contact them to talk to them. Terrific. Yes, because I really want to talk to people who are doing things that improve.

26:42
the world in some way. And I feel like they probably are doing a lot to improve the world. They are. And they've got some clients that have got, they have one of their clients makes a shrub, which is a, like a drink mixer, vinegar based, that this year, this summer launched a pilot to be available in local roundies or, you know, safe pick and save.

27:07
It's part of the Kroger brand. Okay. So a bunch of different program variations in our state. Okay. So they're doing it. They're basically you. They started the farm shed and now they are going, you could say big time, which is a wonderful story to see, you know, that's exactly why they exist. Well, I'm going to have to come in and have to email them or message them later tomorrow and be like, Hey, come talk to me. Yeah. So I was telling Chuck before John showed

27:37
episode that one of the things that I use ketchup for is homemade cocktail sauce for shrimp because Anyone who doesn't know this all cocktail sauce is is ketchup minced garlic and some apple cider vinegar Whisk together that's cocktail sauce and I the reason I was thinking of this is because I every New Year's week Get one of the rounds of the cooked shrimp and always comes a little thing of cocktail sauce in it. Sure

28:07
And I always eat it and it's gone, but I have shrimp left because I'm not gonna eat an entire circle of shrimp myself. And my husband and kid don't eat shrimp. They don't like it. So I make my own for the next day. So I feel like your ketchup would probably be perfect for that. I think it would be. It wouldn't be quite so sweet. Well, I appreciate you bringing that up because again, what we found is when you're using all natural ingredients, your product

28:36
is more versatile. So we have customers who come in who have done exactly what you're talking about made cocktail sauce. We've had people make salad dressings. We've had people do sloppy joes, meatloaf, Bloody Mary mix. It's amazing. It's like just the suggestion of, hey, you can have an all natural ketchup.

29:06
has gotten people to go like, yeah, well, I'm gonna make my own Bloody Mary mix with this now, or I'm gonna do this. And it's been really inspiring to see just how versatile the ketchup has ended up being, the recipe that we've settled on.

29:23
Well, actually, I have one more question, and I'll let you guys go, because we're almost at half an hour. What is the difference between tomato sauce and ketchup? Because I feel like tomato sauce is ketchup is just tomato sauce with some sugar added to it sometimes. So what's the difference? Well, I could tell you what, based on our recipe, and it's funny because people taste our ketchup and they pause and some people say that's like a really an interesting marinara because...

29:51
Ours is so tomatoey. It's tomato forward, I guess, from a, you know, if you're talking about it that way. We have over two pounds of tomatoes used to make a 16 ounce jar of ketchup. So it's pretty dense with that flavor. That's where the sweetness comes from. And then the second ingredient is apple cider vinegar. And so you get that acidic taste.

30:17
along with the sweetness of those natural tomatoes and then I guess what you might call it an umami sort of flavor that comes from the tomatoes themselves. But and then we have just a little sugar. We have like half a gram of added sugar per serving, which is eight times less than you'll get in a national brand. And then spices. And so I think what just differentiates our ketchup from

30:43
just other ketchups is that spice profile, the amount of tomatoes we're putting in. And I think if I were to go, and my wife actually last week was experimenting with like a marinara sauce, and we didn't put apple cider vinegar in it. That's one thing we definitely didn't put in. And then the spice profile is a little bit different, a little more of the savory spices than the sweeter spices. Okay.

31:07
Yeah, and I would just add consistency too. You know, ketchups, you know, famously need to be thicker. And so that's also just a big difference between your typical tomato sauce recipe and a ketchup recipe. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Alright guys, well I have been schooled on ketchup today. I'm very excited about this. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thanks for having us.

31:35
Have a great afternoon. You too. Thank you. All right, bye.