Shop Our Organic Product Line:

• Sign In

In The News

We tend to think that if you do right and you live right, good news has a way of catching up with you. Here are some things that people have been kind enough to write about us:

Ela Family Farms brings new concept single variety organic applesauce to market

Company to partner with Wegmans for introduction to consumer.

Hotchkiss, Colorado – November 10, 2003. Ela Family Farms, growing organic fruit in Hotchkiss CO., announced they have shipped the first orders of their new concept single variety organic applesauce to Wegmans food stores, Rochester, NY (www.wegmans.com). This is the first production for Ela Family Farms and was quickly accepted by the aggressive specialty foods buyer at Wegmans. Tasting the product for the first time it was pronounced “Yummy”!

Ela Family Farms brings to applesauce the popular trend of single varietals found in wine, chocolate, and coffee. After producing a “medley” sauce for several years they decided that just as consumers seek different varieties of fresh apples for the different tastes they provide why not single varieties in a sauce. Voila, in their 4 new sauces you can taste the unique flavors of the individual apple. Varieties released this year: Gala Gala, Fully Fuji, Boldly Braeburn, and Just Jonathan. Also available: Apples Aplenty (a sauce medley).

Ela Family Farms is a 100 acre 4th generation family farm. All the fruit is grown and processed organically. All applesauce comes from fruit grown and hand harvested on their farm. Production is limited, available at 22 Wegmans stores, local Colorado farmers markets, and by internet direct to consumer www.elafamilyfarms.com

5280 Profiles: Bumper Crop

When Steve Ela (rhymes with Sheila) loads up his truck in Hotchkiss with fresh cherries, pears, Western Colorado peaches, and apples to make the five-hour drive to Denver area farmers markets, he brings with him more than boxes of fruit. He also brings a commitment to organic farming, a passion for the art of growing fruit, and a desire to sustain a way of life that has supported his family for three generations.
In marked contrast to the countless hours Ela spends in solitude on the family farm pruning, irrigating, and caring for his thousands of fruit trees, his mornings at the farmers’ markets are abuzz with community, chatter, and the constant distribution of samples. “Want to try a slice of peach?” He’ll ask with a bright smile, “You can’t know you’ll want one until you try.”

After growing up in Grand Junction, Ela earned a bachelor’s degree from Beloit College in Wisconsin and a master’s degree in soil physics from the University of Minnesota. Unlike many of his peers, Ela passed up a career in engineering or research, opting instead to put his knowledge to work on the most challenging of agricultural frontiers: He came home to manage and become an owner of Ela Family Farms.
In the 10 years since making that choice the reality of managing a family farm as a profitable enterprise has stretched his know how, creativity, and commitment to the art of farming beyond his imagination.
“Obviously, you know you’re jumping into a line of work fraught with its own set of difficulties,” says Ela. In addition to the usual market pressures and price fluctuations, Colorado fruit growers – particularly those in the North Fork Valley located west of Paonia – must negotiate the challenges of a potentially brutal frost season every spring, hail storms in early summer, and droughts as summer stretches toward August.
“But those challenges also force you to innovate, to move in new directions that will solve old problems and are sustainable over the long term,” Ela explains. “That’s what led us to transition our acreage into certified organic fruits.”

One hundred percent of Ela’s fruit is organic. That entrepreneurial spirit is also what led Ela to get involved with farmers’ markets on the Front Range last year, selling at both the FlatIron Crossing Fresh Market (at FlatIron Crossing Shopping Center) on Saturdays and the City Park Esplanade Fresh Market (in front of East High School) on Sundays.
From an economic standpoint, the farmers’ markets allow growers to sell directly to the public, generating vital revenue. But for Ela, the personal feedback he gets about his fruit is even more rewarding. “You know whether you’ve done good or bad right off,” he says. “When you give someone a bite of peach and they get that euphoric look on their face that’s pretty satisfying…You really find out if people like what you grow.”
In Ela’s case, people certainly seem to. While neither the FlatIron nor the City Park Esplinade market boasts the frantic pace of the Cherry Creek market, business has been on the rise at both and Ela sells to several repeat customers week after week.

In addition, the smaller markets are filled with in-state growers who offer palette after palette of what farmers’ markets are all about. “The best way to make sure you’re getting true Colorado produce is to ask the farmer if they grew it and where it came from,” says Ela. “I love it when people ask us (the farmers) personal questions: it gives us a chance to talk a bit about what we do and how we do it.”
For Ela, his passion is as grand as the 112 acres he farms on a fertile mesa outside Hotchkiss. “There are a lot of other things in the world that are interesting, I suppose, but this is what I want to do,” he explains. “I mean, I love working outside…that’s a big quality of life thing for me – and I love living on that farm and looking out at the moon rise, you know. I’d rather have those simple things than anything else in the world.
“And in a more historical sense, I like doing what my granddad did. I’d hate to say that this part of our family died,” Ela says. I never knew him – he died when I was 2 years old – but I know what he did and I know the way my family talks about him. I feel like that’s the ideal to stand up to.”

Ela concludes with a smile, “And I guess the rebellious part of me wants to show that you can be an intelligent person and be a successful farmer and enjoy it.”

Nick Hartshorn

(Reprinted with permission from 5280 Magazine, August/September, 2001, www.5280.com)

Questions or Comments | Order FAQ's | Privacy Statement