A Year in the Life of a Farmer: Seasonal business picks up

AgriNews will follow Ken Ropp throughout the entire year. Each month, look for updates about the farmer and the decisions he makes on his farm.

SPEER, Ill. — Ken Ropp made his first cheese delivery of the season to Tanners Orchard.

Tanners Orchard is a family-run farm destination with a bakery serving noon lunches, a large country farm market, wagon rides to the orchard for visitors to pick their own apples and pumpkins, a corn maze and the Back 40 Fun Acres with farm animals.

Ropp Jersey Cheese has a longstanding relationship with Tanners Orchard, about a 75-minute drive from Ropp’s dairy farm. Tanners’ opening marked its 78th season.

“I’m doing some catch-up because we didn’t have any smoked gouda ready for them last week when they opened. So, today I’m dropping off some smoked gouda and just touching base,” said Ropp on Aug. 6.

“The neat part about the gouda is it’s our cows, our milk, our cheese. From there, I take it to Matt Whitte at Bloomington Meats. Matt smokes all of our gouda, our Swiss, our blue, and our cheddar. We then bring that back out to our farm, package it and sell that.

“It’s worked out really well with Matt. He’s busy, as well, and it’s just a matter of when the smoker is going to be running. It probably runs around the clock. It’s just a matter of getting the product done.

“It worked out well for us to get these cheeses up here and I know that Tanners appreciate it, too, because these first few weekends, this weather is going to be more ideal for the visitors coming out here. So, traffic should be decent this weekend.”

Ropp delivered eight types of cheese that included four blocks, two different spreads and two different quesos.

The cheeses he delivered all have Tanners Orchard labels when they are placed in the coolers.

“The neat part about it, and something that’s popular in the dairy business, is co-packing where we put someone else’s label on it. Right now I’m holding a roll of green onion cheddar labels that I’m taking back home so that when my gang gets done packaging, we go slap labels on everything,” he said.

“We bring it here in coolers, we unload and it’s just kind of a transfer system for us. We’ve been doing this with Tanners for probably about 10 or 12 years now. We’ve built that rapport with these folks. It’s a seasonal deal, and that’s something we keep in mind, but they go through a lot of product in a very limited amount of time.”

Ropp Jersey Cheese and Tanners Orchard are examples of smaller farms that diversified through the creation of an agribusiness or agritourism.

“The neat angle that we’ve got is they’re dependent on flow. They need numbers here. They need nice, cool weather. When you come out here and you want to pick pumpkins or apples, you want to feel like you’re wearing a flannel and that it’s fall weather,” Ropp noted.

“Whereas, on the flip side for my business, I need that flow from Craig Tanner here because 95% of what I do is wholesale. It’s not so much customers coming to Ropp Jersey Cheese. It’s us taking the cheese to the customer. So, it’s totally a flip-flop marketing angle.”

Farm Update

The 200 acres of corn, 200 acres of soybeans and 50 acres of alfalfa at the Ropp family farm have enjoyed some timely rains.

“The crops look like bumper crops. It’s one of those things where I know we’ve got a really big crop coming. The question is, are we going to get enough for it? And that’s the hard part, I think, for all of us here in Illinois,” Ropp said.

“We’re ready to cut hay again. This will be our fourth cutting of hay. We normally do six cuttings year. So, we’re right on track, at least I hope.”