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Press

Franklin Business Famed for Fowl – By Christine Sparta

Posted on July 28, 2008

Griggstown Quail Farm Highlighted for their Poultry

FRANKLIN — For a local market, the answer to the age-old question, “Which came first …?” the answer is, “It all depends.” The Griggstown Quail Farm & Market sells fowl and eggs to stores, restaurants and individual customers. For its supply of chickens, the business acquires live chicks and raises them to maturity, but for its pheasants and quail the market incubates eggs. Griggstown’s chef, Matthew Sytsema, said it’s more cost effective to raise pheasants and quail from eggs nurtured on the premises and to have the chicks shipped in once a week. The baby chickens would need a separate incubation system that would cost at least $30,000, and more labor would be involved to take care of them. Sytsema turns the fowl and eggs produced by the farm into prepared food that is sold in a number of places, including an on-site store, green markets, other retail outlets, and online. The operation, located in the Griggstown section of Franklin, includes an incubation room for pheasant eggs. That room can accommodate 20,000 eggs at a time. An alarm is connected to farm owner George Rude’s cell phone to alert him in case the machine overheats. “Pheasant and quail eggs are really expensive. That’s why we do those on-site,” said Sytsema. Breeder flocks of those more exotic fowl — male birds and hens that can lay eggs — are kept at the facility. Pheasants stay in closed-in areas for about two months before spending time in the fields for an additional 10 weeks or so. Sytsema said 25,000 to 30,000 pheasants are raised on the farm each year for their meat, not for hunting purposes.

The birds have a fan in Corey Heyer, head chef at The Bernards Inn in Bernardsville. Quail and poussin from the farm turn up as specials in the restaurant every other month. And Griggstown’s chickens are a dining staple at the elegant eatery. “The meat is plump. It is very juicy. It has a wonderful, rich flavor,” said Heyer, who gets about 30 chickens a week from Griggstown. “People love our chicken,” said Heyer, who notes that the complete menu for the restaurant in Bernardsville changes four times a year with the seasons, but that the Griggstown chicken always has a permanent spot on it. “We have people that come here and say that this is the only chicken that they’ll eat.” “We’re not organic and don’t claim to be,” said Sytsema. But the poultry is natural, free range and raised without hormones and antibiotics. For instance, the animal feed for the poultry they raise is a corn-and-soybean mix with vitamin supplements and minerals. A Pennsylvania-based company analyzes the feed and determines the best mix for each of the types of fowl they have on the farm. The retail store has been in operation for five years, but the farm dates back to 1973, when Rude started off with raising 12 quail on just two acres of land. Now, the business has expanded to 70 acres and raises thousands of chickens, quail and pheasants take up residence each year. The entire operation brings in about a million dollars annually, Sytsema said. An aerial photo of the entire operation hangs in the shop. “We’re not known for our produce,” said Sytsema, but they do grow a number of vegetables on the premises including peppers, eggplant and butternut squash — foods that are often used in the prepared items they sell. Customer Colin Bitter from West Windsor found out about the business at the West Windsor Farmers Market. He said the turkey burgers are a favorite food from the shop and popular barbecue fare for family and friends. “The turkey burgers are really tasty. I like them. It’s not supermarket hamburger,” said Bitter, 21, a music major who is home for the summer from the University of North Texas. The market carries an assortment of items like soups and some gourmet products like raspberry wasabi dipping mustard. It also makes and sells 500 to 600 chicken pot pies a week.

Griggstown products can be found in 23 retail outlets from New York to Philadelphia. The business also participates in nearly a dozen farmers markets. Local sellers of Griggstown’s products include Pennington Quality Market in Pennington and Maple Tree Produce in North Brunswick. Even though Griggstown has a USDA-approved processing plant on the premises, Sytsema is careful with the language when speaking to customers. “Mrs. Jones doesn’t want to take the leap from cute chick to poussin on the grill,” he said. Inspectors come in twice a week to inspect the fowl that will go out to customers. Sometimes the inspectors do double duty and change clothes to inspect the kitchen the same day. Sytsema, 26, grew up on a farm in Sussex surrounded by 200 cows. He wasn’t sad when his family sold the business when he was 13. “I hated milking cows,” he recalled. His father used to give farm tours. “The parents didn’t know where milk came from. They thought it magically appeared on the (grocery store) shelf,” he said. Sytsema, now a Manville resident, was trained at the Culinary Institute of America and interned at a French restaurant in Manhattan. Sytsema later got a job at The Ryland Inn in the Whitehouse section of Readington Township. Recently, he had a job offer at a similar retail outlet, minus the farm. Even though he wasn’t too fond of milking cows as a younger person, the pastoral atmosphere at Griggstown still has a hold on him, and he declined the move. “I couldn’t sleep at night thinking I wouldn’t be on the farm.” Article by Christine Sparta

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