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- One-half Acre Pizza Farm Offers Profits for Direct Marketers
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- By Karen Gentry
Associate Editor
- Darren Schmall would often speak in classrooms when teachers wanted someone to talk about agriculture. The kids were “not interested in the slightest” about ag, Schmall said.
Trying to relate agriculture to their food, Schmall would ask children to name their favorite food and overwhelmingly the answer was “pizza.”
From these classroom interactions spawned Schmall’s idea of The Pizza Farm after children got excited about the ingredients of the pizza and how they were grown. The Pizza Farm, in operation since 1993, educates children about the ingredients in their pizza in a way no textbook can.
This half-acre demonstration farm is shaped like a circular pizza and divided into eight pie-shaped sections. In each section, Schmall grows the crops and livestock that make up a pizza, such as a cow for milk to produce cheese, a pig for sausage and pepperoni, the wheat for crust, bell peppers, tomatoes, peppers, onions and olives. Schmall and his wife, Barbara operate The Pizza Farm as an educational entertainment center. Each year approximately 25,000 school children and adults tour The Pizza Farm, located in Madera, Calif., a few miles from Fresno.
“The Pizza Farm is not just a farm, it’ more a novelty,” Schmall said. He said the farm has been a huge success. In a one-hour tour visitors learn about pizza ingredients and many other topics such as suburban sprawl and IPM. At the farm, open from March through October, there is a $3 admission for children, $5 for adults and $4 for seniors. The Pizza Farm is available for birthdays, parties, fund-raiders, corporate picnics, family reunions and receptions. It’s a fun way to teach children about agriculture while giving the media a great visual image, according to Schmall. During school tours, Schmall might discuss planting techniques or explain how to plant peppers.
Schmall believes the Pizza Farm concept can be a boon to small-scale farms that are located near large urban areas with a minimum 250,000 in population. Schmall said he believes growers can make $100,000 on less than 1/2 acre if they can attract 20,000 or more visitors per year. He said the Pizza Farm concept gives hope to the small farmer who might already be involved in direct marketing. The demonstration farm creates revenue and attracts potential new customers.
Schmall, who personally owns the trademark for the Pizza Farm, has been busy presenting the concept to farmers and direct marketers at trade shows. He has begun franchising the concept of The Pizza Farm and has sold the idea to an entrepreneur near Cincinnati, Ohio and one near Lancaster, Penn. Cincinnati has a population base of 1.5 million people while Lancaster can draw from Philadelphia and Baltimore.
It takes an investment in $10,000 - $15,000 in materials to construct a Pizza Farm and a part-time worker of 20-30 hours per week to maintain the farm. He operates the Pizza Farm himself along with a part-time maintenance person, part-time tour guides when the farm is open and a part-time office person.
Schmall also charges a licensing fee, payable over five years, that includes advertising design, an established curriculum with lesson plans for kindergartners through sixth graders, access to a wide variety of Pizza Farm souvenirs and tips on promotion and collaboration with tourism partners.
“The benefit to the farmer is the service. We’ve been doing this for 10 years. We’ve made a good deal of mistakes, We want to make it profitable for growers,” said Schmall, who hopes to have upwards of 200 franchises in the country in the future.
The Pizza Farm partners with a regional pizza chain that became the official pizza of the Pizza Farm. As part of the farm tours, a $2.50 pizza lunch is offered. The pizza company sells Schmall pizza wholesale that he can sell retail to his visitors. As part of the licensing fee, Schmall will help growers find a sponsor.
His farm has been attracting the attention of legislators and fellow farmers. In January 2000, Schmall won top honors in the American Farm Bureau Federation’s 12th annual Idea Exchange.
The scope of Schmall’s operation doesn’t end with The Pizza Farm. There’s also a pumpkin patch, a haunted cornfield called “Scary Acres” and the Bulldog Cornfield Maze, a seven-acre labyrinth with 2 1/2 miles of twists, turns and dead-ends.
For more information call (800) 557-1222, visit www.pizzafarm.org or e-mail pizzafarmer@psnw.com.
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