Robbinsville resident Joe VanHandel has sold produce from his farm in this area his entire life, but this summer he’s going mobile.
VanHandel, his wife Jeanette and his parents operate Cedarville Farms, a Hightstown-based operation that has been in VanHandel’s family for more than 100 years. His grandfather helped form the Trenton Farmers Market, where Cedarville Farms still has a stand.
But Cedarville Farms will also sell some of its produce, along with fresh fruit cups, this summer in a newly acquired rolling farm stand. It’s a trailer with a full kitchen that the VanHandels hope will become as much as a summer staple as an ice cream truck.
“I would buy from it just because it’s there,” VanHandel said. “It will make it easier for people, and it’s 10 times better quality than what you’ll get. I’m sure once we get into neighborhoods it will take off like crazy. People don’t have stuff like this available to them.”
Cedarville Farms is essentially a four-person operation, with Jeanette and her mother-in-law Lillian running the stand at the Trenton Farmers Market and Joe and his father Jim working the farm and, now, travelling the area with the rolling farm stand. They work on farm business 15 hours every day from April to November. They started the stand so they could sell their sliced fruit and expand their business to more than just the people who go to the Trenton Farmers Market.
Three of the VanHandels’ four children attend Robbinsville public schools, and parents of their friends have been waiting for an offering like the traveling stand.
“They’re very excited we’ll be coming around,” Jeanette VanHandel said.
Grand opening was June 20 at Etra Park in East Windsor. The stand will make appearances at Community Park on West Manor Way throughout the summer. People eager to catch the stand can request a visit to their neighborhood either on the farm’s Facebook page, called Cedarville Farms Rolling Farm Stand, or by e-mailing jennvan609@verizon.net.
Cedarville Farms grows just about anything that can be grown in New Jersey, VanHandel said, and all of it can be purchased at the farmers market stand. The rolling farm stand has space constraints, so offerings will initially be limited to corn, tomatoes, whole melons, sliced fruit and fruit cups. Fruit, traditionally, is Cedarville Farms’ biggest seller.
But VanHandel said requests are welcome, and he’d be willing to make regular stops in neighborhoods if he knew the demand existed. For example, Jeanette VanHandel said she regularly delivers basil from the farm to LaPiazza Ristorante in Allentown. Cedarville Farms grows more than 30 crops, including various beans and berries, cantaloupe, cherries, cucumbers, herbs, peaches, plums, squash and zucchini.
New types of crops are ready each week at this point of the year, and the relatively dry spring has pushed the schedule earlier. Normally, produce like corn isn’t ready until the first week of July, but the VanHandels started selling corn on June 22.
Along with pushing crops earlier, the dryness has made the growing season slightly more difficult. Usually, Cedarville Farms uses a drip-irrigation system, but the VanHandels have had to use a last-resort watering system they call “the big gun.” Last year, they didn’t have to use it at all.
The machine pumps out 600 gallons of water every minute. While saving the crops, the system also can raise the price of growing and, for customers, buying produce.
But VanHandel said the quality and freshness are much better from farm produce compared with store-bought produce. Corn loses some of the sugar that gives it its taste every day, and store-sold corn could be almost two weeks old by the time it hits the shelf.
Regulars at Cedarville Farms’ market stand have discovered this, and the VanHandels said they’re sure their neighbors in Robbinsville will do so soon.
In an age where battles with obesity and diabetes are common, the VanHandels hope their new stand proves a lasting rival to their frozen treats counterparts. They think their products are a natural choice.
“Not that we’re health nut people, but we eat what we grow,” Jeanette VanHandel said.
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