QUINCY (WGEM) – Terripin Farms is a small family-owned local business in Quincy. It specializes in bringing farm fresh to your table and it has been planning for something for five years that is now coming to life.
In late 2023 – early 2024, owner of Terrapin farms, Jessica Whiston, applied for the Illinois Stewardship Alliance grant. Terripin Farms was one of 19 farms in Illinois to receive the grant.
“Well, I’ve been dreaming of building this bakery-and-cooperative kitchen for a long time, and it’s very expensive,” Whiston said. “I knew I wanted to offer it, not only for my farm, but for the other farms in my co-op as well. So, I just started researching and found out about the grant through the Illinois Stewardship Alliance and studied the grant and I felt we would be a perfect fit.”
Using the kitchen, Terripin Farms is able to make a wide range of pastries and food using farm fresh ingredients. It makes weekly soups and even have fresh produce in the new storefront.
“[The grant] helped me finish the product. I started this project in 2019 and it took until just now, we’re still not all the way done, but we are getting closer to getting completed. So, without that grant, we would have never been able to build the kitchen that we built or build this storefront that we built. So, it was a big help that wouldn’t have happened without it,” said Whiston.
Terripin Farms brings in 47 farms within a 100 mile radius to Quincy, allowing them to sell local, fresh food. With the new kitchen, Terripin Farms has almost no waste, finding a way to use every product that’s created.
If you want to learn more about Terripin Farms, you can visit their website here.
