More Than a Market

Ross Turner’s twin children John and Tara Turner grew up on the farm, but then left with their own ambitions – Tara to pursue a career in science and medicine, and John to become a philosophy professor. But it wasn’t long into their careers that they both felt called back to the farm. Tara returned with her wife Kat in 2011, and John returned with his wife Kelli in 2017. Ross, Tara, and John are now co-owners of Turners Farm and Turners Fresh Market, and they’re transforming it into a year-round community market that features fruits & vegetables, meat, and dairy products from other local family farms. And Kelli Turner, who helps manage the market, has brought in a wide variety of locally-sourced refrigerated and shelf-stable grocery items.

Turners Fresh Market has come a long way since Lulu Turner first set up a roadside card table to sell fruits and vegetables grown by her husband John. Yet as different as today’s market is from that roadside stand, what hasn’t changed is the warmth, welcome, generosity, and kindness that customers experience when they visit Turners Fresh Market.

Goodness In a Jar - Turners Fresh Gourmet

The seed for the idea of Turners Fresh Gourmet was planted in the brain of community resident and Turners customer Chuck Reynolds in 2019. Chuck and his wife Laura were on vacation in Oregon when they saw (and tasted) a locally-produced ketchup at three different restaurants. “Local ketchup,” Chuck thought; that’s interesting. Three bottles of that ketchup were among the gifts under the tree that Christmas. They enjoyed the ketchup, and began experimenting with recipes to make their own.

Shortly before the pandemic, Chuck and Laura went to a Waupaca Historical Society presentation on the history of Turners Farm. Ross was the main presenter, but John and Tara shared a few remarks near the end about plans to expand the market. Chuck approached John and said: “What’s next? What do you think about ketchup?” John immediately thought about the abundance of tomatoes they were already growing and agreed the idea had merit.

Then the pandemic happened and not much progress was made for a couple of years, except Chuck did give John some of the ketchup they’d been making at home, which John liked very much.

In 2023, Chuck and John met and decided to test the idea of making and selling ketchup. And, they agreed on some core values - that the ketchup and anything else they would produce would:

Be made with locally-grown ingredients, because locally-grown is good for health, good for the environment, and good for the local economy.

Be low in sugar, because major brands of ketchup and just about everything else are loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other forms of sugar.

Have an honest flavor, meaning that you should taste the ingredients we grow on Turners farm in the products we sell. You should taste the tomatoes in tomato ketchup, the corn in corn salsa, the pumpkin in pumpkin butter…

After months of work to refine the recipe, identify a commercial kitchen partner, receive needed certifications and approvals, and design a label, they were ready to roll. Tomatoes were harvested from Turners farm and transported to Central Rivers Farmshed in Stevens Point where they were cooked down into tomato puree. Then Chuck, with help from his nephew John and wife Laura, worked at Farmshed to cook nearly 1,000 jars of ketchup. Nearly all of those jars sold in just one month at Turners Fresh Market, and customers not only said they loved it, they returned to buy cases of it so they could share with friends and family, and have enough for the winter.

So where does that put us?

We have ketchup people love because it’s made with locally-grown goodness, has just one gram (4 calories) of added sugar per serving, and tastes fantastic.

We will be introducing Turners Fresh Corn Salsa this summer, followed by Turners Fresh Pumpkin Butter this fall.

You can find our products at Turners Fresh Market of course, but also at a growing list of retailers from Wausau to Stevens Point and over to the Fox Valley.

That’s our story. We invite you to visit Turners Fresh Market or any of our retail partners, pick up a jar of ketchup (and other products as they become available), and tell us what you think.

The story of Turners Fresh Gourmet is deeply rooted in the story of the Turner family farm and roadside market.

Following a Dream

John and Lulu Turner had a dairy farm that Lulu affectionately called “Faraway Valley” in the town of Belmont until 1949, when they sold the land to the state of Wisconsin. The land was incorporated into the Emmons Creek Fishery, and was named the Faraway Valley Loop. The parcel is adjacent to Hartman Creek State Park, extending the park’s nature trails and including a segment of the Ice Age Trail. Selling the land gave John and Lulu the opportunity to follow a dream they’d had of starting a fruit and vegetable farm with a market.

A Card Table and a Welcoming Smile

On their new land, John managed the planting and harvesting, while Lulu became the face of Turners, selling the farm’s produce to local customers from a card table at the side of highway 54 and door-to-door to vacationers on the nearby Chain O’ Lakes. Lulu was an extraordinary lady who made an impression that remains in the community and in Turners Fresh Market today. She was generous, thoughtful, kind, and had a real gift for seeing people. People came to Turners not just to buy fruits and vegetables, but to be in her loving and welcoming presence.

Growing the Farm and Market

John and Lulu’s son Ross left the farm for college with plans to become a history professor. But while studying overseas, he realized how much he loved the family farm and practice of farming. So, he returned to the farm, purchased it in 1976, and worked to grow it. Ross introduced new farming practices focused on sustainability as well as productivity, built up a wholesale operation that featured Turners Sweet Corn, which remains the farms #1 product. He also helped Lulu replace the card table with a small market, which was then replaced by a bigger market, which was replaced once again with an even larger market attached to the barn, and that’s where Turners Fresh Market stands today.