11Manning-Cline is manager of the Sequim Family Farms kitchen off of Cays Road, which has at last gained Clallam County’s approval as a commercial facility for caterers, bakers, soup makers, picklers and fruit preservers.
Sequim Family Farms began two years ago as an apple-processing center. Owners John Junell, Gary Smith and Leroy Beers specialized in lavender-laced applesauce, apple butter and apple dessert topping largely from local Gravensteins. They’ve marketed their products at QFC stores ever since.
The plant recently added raspberry and strawberry applesauces with fruit from the nearby Graysmarsh and Cameron farms, Smith said, and now the two new sauces are to be sold in Tacoma’s Thriftway supermarkets.
Added to menu
This past summer, Junell and Manning-Cline decided to add sandwiches, pies, cookies and catering to their repertoire.
But the expansion triggered fresh scrutiny from Clallam County, and Environmental Health Director Andy Brastad said the catering and kitchen rental had to be halted while his department investigated the plant’s septic system.
The apple-processing aspect of the operation still was permitted, Brastad said.
But “the kitchen thing is a change in use. We’ve been looking at that differently . . . it took us a while to work through that.”
Junell said it took 13 weeks to complete the paperwork.
“It’s been brutal,” he added, and Sequim Family Farms missed out on Thanksgiving catering work as well as rental income.
Now Manning-Cline, along with her husband, Tom Cline, the plant manager, hope for some Christmas and New Year’s catering jobs, even as they keep up the applesauce side of the business.
Sequim Family Farms puts out 720 jars of sauce, butter and topping in its 20-day production cycle.
No sugar is added to any of the products; Cline uses a small wooden labeler to affix “All Natural” stickers and the Sequim Family Farms label onto each jar byw hand.
The 15-ounce jars sell for $7.99, or $5.99 when they’re on sale at QFC — a price the producers acknowledge is on the high end.
The local Gravensteins are flavor-rich but labor-intensive, Smith has said.
This local-food business has been less than lucrative this year, he added, but to Sequim Family Farms’ staff, it’s part of Clallam County’s heritage that has abundant potential.
Smith knows this firsthand; his family has run the Maple View dairy and vegetable farm since the 1930s.
Manning-Cline envisions a local-food processing center where other entrepreneurs make soups, preserves and other products from locally grown crops.
She has assembled the equipment they’ll need: two commercial ovens, a Thunderbird mixer, a steam kettle that can cook 80 gallons of soup or steww at a time, a pie press and a Simplex filler.
“I’ve laid out the kitchen so it’s flexible,” for a variety of jobs, Manning-Cline added.
“My dream,” she said, “is to get the farmers working together so we can produce sustainable products. If we all work together, we can make it happen.”
Manning-Cline recently heard about a Colorado cooperative that markets packaged, freezer-ready meals with vegetables and meats from several farms.
She believes there could be a demand — and supply from local growers — for such products on the North Olympic Peninsula.
“It’s convenience food, but you’d know who grew it and where it came from,” she said.
Choosing locally made soup, bread and jam can reduce fossil-fuel consumption and help preserve local farmland by creating demand for crops grown here, Manning-Cline said.
“This is my green dream.”
She’s inspired, too, by her grandparents, John and Elsie Gilbert, who opened Long John’s Corner, one of the first mini-marts on the North Olympic Peninsula, in 1935.
“They were pioneers,” she said. “I want to preserve that heritage.”
For information about renting the Sequim Family Farms kitchen, phone Manning-Cline at 360-477-8552 or Junell at 360-477-5478.
To order apple products, visit www.SequimFamilyFarms.org or www.Sequim.LocallyGrown.net.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
