Gingue Family Farm | Nek Grains, Waterford
Shawn and Sara Gingue needed to find the right business model that would ensure the farm’s viability and also provide them with healthy growth opportunities.
Shawn Gingue is the fourth generation to work the land at his family’s farm in Waterford, located in the Northeast Kingdom near St. Johnsbury. However, the farm today looks different from what he and his three brothers knew when they were kids.
“We had always been a dairy farm until we sold the herd in 2015 and started raising dairy heifers for other local farms.” Shawn remained committed to staying on the farm and transitioning to full ownership with his wife, Sara, and their four children. The couple just needed to find the right business model that would ensure the farm’s viability and also provide them with healthy growth opportunities.
With the full herd gone, Shawn had fallow fields he could crop in other ways. Eager for a challenge, he attended the annual grain growers conference in Burlington in March 2018 and made connections with other growers and experts in the field of northern grains. “I had a great time, met some good people, learned so much, and came home excited to grow something new.”
Two months later, Shawn planted barley, and in autumn, he planted a winter wheat called Warthog. “It’s a hardy variety with great milling capability, which makes it versatile for pancakes and wedding cakes, bread, pasta, donuts, and even breweries,” Sara Gingue explains. Shawn grows and harvests the grain; Sara mills and markets it.
But at that point, while the couple was still settling in as grain growers, Shawn hired Seth Johnson from Morningstar Farm half an hour north to bring his combine down and harvest the grain for him. That arrangement continued for three years as the Gingues built their infrastructure, adding grain bins, seed cleaners and dryers, and finally their own combine in the winter of 2022. “We had the mindset of going all-in and becoming self-sufficient, but we took the Vermont approach and developed the business incrementally,” Sara adds.
In the first years, Shawn and Sara pieced it together with the help of Seth Johnson, grain guru Todd Hardie, and Blair Marvin and Andrew Heyn of Elmore Mountain Bread and New American Stone Mills. “Blair brought us some flour and said, ‘Play around with it. If you’re interested, we’d be willing to mill for you, if you decide to take your business in that direction,’” Sara says. “Those two milled our grain for the first couple of years until we were able to get our own mill in the spring of 2023.” Shawn adds, “We actually had no interest in or knowledge of milling or flour and never envisioned entering that realm. But we quickly realized that milling our own flour would be a smart, valueadded aspect of the business.
So we went from thinking we wouldn’t pursue a mill to getting on Andrew’s waitlist as soon as possible. Those six months gave us the time to set up the milling room and to build a new farm store.”
A phalanx of freshly milled whole wheat flour and pancake mix in the Gingue Farm Store in Waterford. Their New American Stone Mill is visible through the glass in the adjacent milling room.
Golden wheat grains await harvest at the Gingue Family Farm in Waterford.
The Gingue Farm now includes three entities: the dairy heifer boarding program; the farm store where Shawn and Sara sell their own beef, pork, and chicken along with other local products; and NEK Grains, the grain and flour aspect of their business. Sifted all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and wheat berries are available in 2- and 5-pound bags. Sara also offers a popular whole wheat pancake mix that she calls our “gateway grain.”
NEK Grains wholesale accounts include Trenchers Farmhouse Pasta in Lyndonville, Local Donut in Woodbury, Patchwork Bakery in Hardwick, numerous pizzerias and bakeries, and several breweries in Vermont and New Hampshire (Foam, Schilling, and Rek’-Lis) The flour and wheat berries are also distributed to co-ops through Farm Connex in Hardwick.
“My parents have been supportive and excited to see us breathing new energy into the farm as we all work toward completing the transition,” Shawn says. “Sara and I feel comfortable now that we have built multiple streams of income, and we both really enjoy working with grain. It’s been a great decision on so many levels.”
