Main Street News

“Why, why, why?” asked me of myself following a recent visit to the Hawthorne Valley Farm Store in Harlemville, NY, do I continue to instinctively hop in the ol’ jalopy and heedlessly aim directly for the local supermarket when the larder needs restocking? And then, why might I find myself looking askance at things if the basic stuff I find there seems so … basic?

There for a sit-down with Director of Retail Operations & Enterprise Development Jeremy Laurange, I took a few free minutes to wander through the place, reacquainting myself (it had been a few years) with what the store had on hand. Instantly, the quality of choices presented became apparent, and that wasn’t  simply the result of shiny packaging designed to tempt. I was already geared to return, legal tender of one form or another in hand.

“My whole life is here…”

Talk about working your way up the ranks. In his high school years, Laurange, a graduate of Taconic Hills who went on to acquire a degree in fine art at Columbia-Greene Community College and an accounting degree at SUNY Plattsburgh, was hired to make granola in the store’s bakery. “Honestly, it was one of my favorite jobs. There was something cathartic about it. You get to put your head down and just make lots of granola. I grew into the passion of natural food.” He subsequently held a variety of jobs on his way up.

Nowadays, the Hawthorne Valley community is a family affair for 

the Laurange clan. Jeremy’s wife, Sushannah, serves as communications manager, and their three children attend Hawthorne Valley school, a K-12 Waldorf school. “My whole life is here,” said Laurange.

Education, agriculture, and the arts

He makes the point that Hawthorne Valley is “literally about education, agriculture, and the arts.” A common yet erroneous belief is that Hawthorne Valley and the store are part of a closed community, which couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Since its 1981 inception as “a cigar box into which one could deposit money on the honor system for milk ladled out of the bulk tank and cheese cut from a wheel,” according to the store’s website, the store has grown by leaps and bounds. In 2004, it moved into its current home, an 8,000-square-foot building, which underwent an expansion in 2015. It has outgrown that space too and has eyes firmly affixed now on expanding into Hudson, across from the train station.

Prices are not “Aldi-level,” Laurange acknowledges, but spend seven seconds in the store and it becomes abundantly obvious that low-cost food items are not what Hawthorne Valley store shoppers arrive here seeking. Rather, it’s the high quality the store’s purchasing guidelines yield as the buying staff goes about their business of prioritizing local and regional sources, clean ingredients, and trusted producers whose values align with those of the Hawthorne Valley community.

“One of our claims to fame is that we are able to sell raw milk,” he added, the result of being situated “on a 900-acre biodynamic and organic farm. It’s a beautiful place to come to work every day.” Further, the farm store carries all of the certified organic and Biodynamic® products grown, made, and raised on the farm.

The community and location

On top of that, the entire Hawthorne Valley community “is in the middle of nowhere. You have to really want to come here. I like to say we’re supported by three separate demographics: There’s the local community, which extends out to Hudson and across the [Massachusetts] border. There’s the school, with 300 students, their families, and teachers. And there are the second-home owners,” Laurange said. “It’s a unique crowd. It’s an experience, not just grab your food and go. It’s a very different atmosphere here.”

Bottom line, the store is a non-profit operation. “We are not here to make money. We are here to support our mission of education, agriculture, and the arts. Every single penny goes back into that mission. Our customers should feel good about where their money is going,” Laurange said.

The Daily Menu

Stuck for a meal idea? The Daily Menu – meals and side dishes “crafted with fresh, seasonal, organic, and locally sourced ingredients, reflecting the chef’s inspiration and ingredient availability” – is here to help. On a recent day, the menu sported such delicacies as a gluten-free beef stew, fashioned from grass-fed beef and organic onions, carrots, celery, garlic, fire roasted tomatoes, salt, black pepper, thyme, cumin, and rosemary. Or, there’s the lemon dill chicken, roasted zucchini, and mac and cheese. The Daily Menu is made available every day on the store’s website.

While the store processes “600-700 transactions” on a normal day, said Laurange, that number balloons when festivals are held on the grounds. The next scheduled event is the Fall Festival, held on the Saturday of Columbus Day weekend in October, which is “our biggest. We have thousands of people coming into the valley. It’s a celebration of the end of the season.” •

Visit Hawthorne Valley Farm Store at 327 County Rte 21C, Ghent, NY or call (518) 672-7500.