A Minnesota company that has spent more than three decades working to bring year-round fresh tomatoes to the region has expanded into also producing cucumbers. Bushel Boy Farms began in 1990 by Owatonna entrepreneur Jay Johnson, who saw a need for backyard garden quality tomatoes to be produced year-round in a climate like Minnesota.
“He saw a need there and just started building the business, one small greenhouse at a time,” said Chuck Tryon, president of Bushel Boy Farms
In 2018, Bushel Boy Farms was acquired by another Minnesota company, Shakopee-based Rahr Corporation. Following the acquisition, the company gained the support to expand the variety of tomatoes it grows, along with looking beyond just tomatoes.
The latest Bushel Boy Farms product to hit shelves is cucumbers, making the company the first in Minnesota to produce the crop year-round. “Bushel Boy has been producing for going on 32 years now, and for those first 30 years, it was all tomatoes,” said Tryon.
In the last couple of years, the company has added strawberries into that mix — and, within the last month, cucumbers. Tryon — who was named president of the company in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — said that strawberries were in trials at the time of his arrival in the company’s newest greenhouse space.
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