First incorporated in New Hampshire, our company started by raising cattle and hogs for selling farm meat in 1967. Maple syrup, produced on our own land, became a focal point for visitors, as well as honey from our own hives. In addition, Jolly Farmer products soon included freshly-pressed apple cider and home-made granola.

Jolly Farmer Sausage
The hallway where Jolly Farmer started selling its farm-raised pork. In a news article published in 1971, it was described: “People used to step inside the front door and ask where the store was… We had one refrigerator and one freezer.”

These delicious products inspired an expansion to a larger country store and restaurant using our own recipes and high quality farm foods. After adding a petting zoo, ice cream bar, and water fountain, the restaurant became the “Jolly Farmer Village” and was always landscaped using hundreds of flowers, grown on site and tended with care. With the fuel crisis in the late 1970’s, it became impossible to attract enough travelers to our location, and we transferred into a wholesale company selling our famous pies.

Our love of growing things was the easy segue into the greenhouse industry. Started in 1982, our wholesale nursery offered flowering plants to garden centers in New England. Over the next few years, our one greenhouse quickly became 3, then 6, then 18, then finally 40. With the invention of the plug tray, we began offering seedlings, shipping our trays further and further afield until our market included all states of the continental US and even Alaska.

Jolly Farmer Transport
Back in earliest days, this small straight truck was the entirety of Jolly Farmer’s transport fleet.

New Hampshire Aerial View 
Even at full capacity in this facility, our orders exceeded the space allowed.

Finding ourselves constricted for greenhouse space and available labor, we opened a second location in New Brunswick Canada in 1996. Constructed on a sloping piece of land purchased from H.J. Crabbe & Sons, Ltd, the greenhouse facility required a large cut-and-fill project to provide a level surface.

On 14 November, a fire started near the boiler room. It tore through the warehouse, destroying the heating system, and causing massive damage.

Back In Business
Only two months after the devastating fire, the new complex was operating again.

Since 1996, we have expanded three times, bringing our total area under cover to approximately 13 acres. As we perfect our methods, our niche market of small to mid-size growers continues to increase. Our attempt to be a “one-stop shop” for them has really paid off, as well as our production teams’ efforts to minimize waste.

Some of the ways we’re honing our skills include both efficiency and mechanization. For example, we contracted with Flow Vision to help us reduce unnecessary costs. They trained us in new ways of thinking such as, “Every touch should add value”. If we are handling and re-handling and it does not in some way improve quality or service, we’re wasting our time. So we’re learning to work smarter, not harder. Their help in reorganizing our shipping system has increased our efficiency over 40%.

2010 MTZ Hanger Line
Previously, the thousands of baskets we grew every year hung in the structure above the benches, which made accessing them difficult and unsafe. Eventually we were able to switch them out for MTZ lines, which move the hangers around on a pulley system, allowing them to be watered by weight, and lowered down for shipping.

2017 Irrigation
With the available technology, we’ve been able to adapt growing systems to be much more accurate and less labor-intensive. For example, for watering, each grower had a clipboard where they can write the watering and manually entered it into the irrigator. Now, the settings are online and formatted for mobile devices. Once the information is complete, the watering will be synchronized to the irrigator automatically.

In 2018, with our customer base and sales continuing to increase and with orders exceeding the space available, we expanded for the third time, adding 3 more acres of greenhouses. With this new phase of construction, we implemented innovative technology from the start, such as MTZ hanger lines, new benching, concrete floors and LED lighting. Our state-of-the-art complex now covers 13 acres, and we continue to fill it to full capacity each year.

We’re breaking ground again, this time, on a new office building! Employee break areas and offices will be moved to the new building in the summer of 2021, and the old office section of the complex will be transitioned into much-needed production space.