Cottage Industries - Montana Style: Midway Colony's Gift of Freshness and Quality at Whitehall's Farmers Market

Every year as summer approaches, Whitehall starts looking forward to Midway Colony’s stand at the Farmers Market, with the experience that the assorted produce, eggs, and fryers will be fresh, and the canned goods a treat. Knowing that Don and Ted Wipf drive 240 miles from Conrad to bring their goods to Whitehall, only adds to the community’s appreciation.

Everything is seasonal. Throughout the summer shoppers can expect cucumbers, carrots, radishes, beets, onions, garlic, kohlrabi, peas, snap peas, new potatoes, three kinds of peppers, cauliflower, broccoli, zucchini, green beans, tomatoes, lettuce, and Brussels sprouts; watermelon, cantaloupe, blueberries, Rainier cherries, strawberries, and rhubarb. Some produce is frozen like shelled peas or canned like pickled vegetables, beets, snap peas, hamburger pickles, jalapenos, and tomato soup. Then there are baked bread and rolls, honey, eggs, and all-natural Hutterite frying chickens.

The Hutterites began coming down to Whitehall’s Farmers Market about 30 years ago, also selling in Twin Bridges, when Ted and Don were part of the Miller Hutterite Colony. In 2008 Midway Colony was founded, as a division of Miller Colony, following the same growing and lifestyles. Midway also participates in Farmers Markets in Conrad and Boulder.

The question is - what sets Midway’s produce apart, guaranteeing that by the end of market day, the several tables laden with goods will almost be bare? The answer is quality and freshness.

“What I think is that, simply, everything is fresh. What we bring this week, we won’t bring the same produce next week,” Ted Wipf said. “In order to do that we need to have a large quantity.”

“With freshness, you get quality,” added Don Wipf. “We don’t have waste. Anything we don’t sell one week, the colony will can or use for themselves, and we also donate a lot to the food banks.”

Their planting philosophy is to be as natural as it can be, using limited chemicals, fertilizer, and a combination of microbes, increasing the health of the soil.

“If you have a healthy soil, you have a healthy plant, then what people eat will also be healthy because it has the nutrients,” Ted said. “And to get healthy microbes you have to feed the soil, just

like people taking vitamins.”

Freshness is a product of the strict schedule followed by the colony.

Whatever is harvested at the beginning of the week is sold in Conrad and Boulder. The Whitehall and Twin Bridges produce is harvested Thursday afternoon or Friday and placed directly in a cooler.

“We can start Thursday afternoon and be ready by noon on Friday. The truck is loaded by 5 p.m. Friday afternoon and we leave at 2:30 in the morning,” Don said. “We have a lot of help so we can do everything in two days. If we didn’t have that kind of help we’d have to start Monday to be ready for Friday.”

The women of Midway Colony are the critical workforce behind what is anticipated at the Farmers Market, absolutely 100%, and this applies to all Hutterite colonies. Midway has 10 acres for crops and 40 able-bodied women. Those 45 years and older work in the packinghouse, cleaning, preparing, and taking produce to the canning facility. The younger women, 14 to 45 years, go out and pick. Each woman knows what her job will be each week and the following weeks. The women of the colony also contribute to poultry farming and their own housekeeping duties, along with cooking, baking, and food preservation.

Midway has 45,000 laying hens and 6,000 pigs; 300 pigs are sold every week. They also raise fryers and turkeys and sell beef cows on the hoof. “The Farmers Market income is just a small portion of the overall colony income from the laying chickens and pigs,” Ted said.

The men of the colony see to the livestock and each has a practical occupation, such as a plumber, blacksmith, mechanic, carpenter, and teacher, among others. “We don’t need to outsource anything, we can do it ourselves,” Don said. “When we created Midway Colony we did all the work ourselves.”

The colony is 100% self-sustained and everything needed is on their 60 acres, including a centralized kitchen, rows of apartments, a church and dining hall and pig and chicken barns. Colonies learn from each other and help them out when necessary, allowing them to make improvements.

The first Hutterite colony began in 1535 in Moravia during the Reformation, later moving to Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine. In 1883 Hutterites migrated to the United States, settling in South Dakota, but left for Canada in 1918, because of the Selective Service Act, returning in 1948 to Montana. Today there are 50 to 60 colonies in Montana.

Ted and Don Wipf live for the good of the colony. “What’s important to me is that I do my job for the colony, that I am a good steward and really, I don’t want to be known for anything as an individual,” Ted said. “We look at it as a Christian-based entity rather than a self-based entity and we take care of our elders; no one goes to a home.”

“I want to do right and live right with God and have him in my heart,” added Don. “That’s what we live for, we live for the next life, not for this life.”

Ted and Don Wipf stress that Midway Colony wants to give thanks and appreciation to the community.

“Sometimes we’ve come down here and it’s raining. We’ve got a whole truckload of produce and we wonder who’s going to show up today.

Everything’s all wet but the people soften their hearts and they come down,” Ted said. “That’s a great feeling – they support us in the rain, they support us in the snow. When the weather’s not cooperative, they’re there as much as they are on a nice day.”

“It’s a two-way street and this town makes it possible for us to come down here. That’s why we can come 240 miles because we have good support,” Don said.

To get on the Midway Colony mailing list, get a card from Don Wipf or send him an email, that way, every week you’ll know what will await you at the Farmers Market.

For more information: don@midwaycolony.com