Market Forces: Vacchiano Farms

This week, Patch spoke with Anthony Vacchiano, owner of Vacchiano Farms in Washington, N.J. Customers circled his tables at the Summit market selecting from boxes and mounds of tomatoes and deliberating over which to choose from the farm’s fruit pies. The stand is located at the corner of the lot at Maple St and DeForest Ave.

Would you describe your business?

We have a 100-acre farm in Washington Township. It’s been in our family for about thirty years. Our main business is tailgate markets. This is our 18th summer doing them. We have fifteen acres of vegetables. Our biggest, most important crop is tomatoes; we grow thirty different varieties on five acres–we have heirlooms, beefsteak, and six different colors of cherry tomatoes. That’s what we’re known for—we sell more tomatoes than anything else. A new thing that we‘re starting is we raise chicken and turkey, free-range. We do pheasants, quail, and ducks also–all are free range, organic-fed, and we do not give them any kind of hormones. This is our third year doing poultry, and it’s getting more popular. We sell them at the markets, and we do turkeys for Thanksgiving–fresh free range birds. We’re starting to take orders for them. We have a herd of Black Angus steers, about 40 a year. We sell them at the market—everything is frozen and vaccum-packed.

 We have a bakery on the farm, we make fruit pies, using whatever is the fresh fruit. During the summer with excess tomatoes, we make our own tomato sauces–probably ten different styles of tomato sauce. Just this past week we made a yellow tomato basil sauce that’s great on fish because the yellow tomatoes are low in acid.

It’s a family-run operation. My wife runs the bakery, and my mom and dad help me sell. We have a lot of help, which is seasonal. My kids are getting older, my oldest is 16. I have a son that’s 8 years old that works as hard as I do. He’s my right hand. I have five kids, so it’s mostly family run.

How did you get into farming?

My parents immigrated here from Italy. They’ve all passed away, but they all had farms in Italy. Our summers were spent in Italy farming with my grandparents. They farmed the old-fashioned way. That’s also been my interest, that’s where we come from. That’s what we’ve always been. They were peasants, they owned their own land but were literally just farming, grew potatoes and tobacco and tomatoes, just outside of Naples. We are old world, old school. We have new equipment, don’t get me wrong, but we farm like you would a hundred years ago.   

It’s always been a love of mine. I went to college, I have an accounting degree, I was a CPA at one time, but my love has always been being outside, and feeding people. When you go to markets, you’re feeding people and feeding these towns, people are grateful to know where their food is coming from, and who’s picking it–from the picking it and selling it, we do it all.

Who makes your pies?

My wife. It’s all my mom’s recipes. We sell as many as we can make. It depends on what fruit is available at the time. Right now we’re making apple pies. Whatever’s available, we make.

What’s your best-seller at the Summit Farmer’s Market?

Tomatoes.

What’s the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part is the hours. All summer long, we’re working 16-18-hour days, seven days a week. As you get older it gets harder. Also, when the markets are over, it’s hard saying goodbye to the people. Some people I’ve known for eighteen years, and the market goes until Christmas there. Sometimes people cry, ‘oh I’m not going to see you.’ The farm is an hour away, I tell them to come out. They’re like, ‘Where are we going to get our produce?’ I say enjoy it during the summer while you can.

What’s the best part of what you do?

What keeps me going are the people. There was one week years ago, our truck had broken down going to the market and I ended up having to get towed to the market. I had calls and people were saying ‘Where are you? We need your food.’ So many people rely on you–whether they are having party or need food for the week, people rely on you to have your food there. A lot of our customers I know by name. That’s really what keeps me going is the enthusiasm of the people. Not to be obnoxious, but I feel like they love us there.