From Pumpkin Patch To Goldmine

Meet Illinois’ Pumpkin Queen, The Biggest Producer In The Nation

(CBS)  It’s that season again: Pumpkin season.

But for Sarah Talley, it’s really that season, CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds reports.

She runs Frey Farms Produce, the single-largest pumpkin producer in the nation.

Does she have a soft spot in her heart for the pumpkin?

“I do, I do,” she said. “You can tell. I just love ‘em. They make me happy.”

Today, during all the pitch and catch of a pumpkin harvest at its peak, it’s hard to imagine that all of this began with a young girl and a dream.

The youngest in her family, Talley was the only offspring who stayed on the land, sharing her parents’ interest in farming - and especially marketing.

“I think that I probably transitioned into a businesswoman at the age of 8,” she laughed.

With a healthy dose of Midwestern moxie, she literally began to grow her family’s business - one plant after another.

“It really wasn't until just a few years ago that it was like 'wow', we're selling millions of these,” she said.

That’s when she saw the pumpkin as a means to another end - reuniting her far-flung family in the business, persuading siblings Ted, Harley, John and Leonard to join her.

As well as a host of others, on land that has expanded from 15 acres to 5,000 acres.

In one field alone, Sarah and her brothers produce more than 350,000 pumpkins. And yet that is less than one tenth of their annual pumpkin harvest. They sign up customers in Illinois, Indiana and beyond.

The Harvard Business School has even made a case study of her negotiations with Wal-Mart. Sarah started small, bought pumpkins from other farmers when her harvest yield was low, and now sells more than 1 million pumpkins a year to the superstore.

Today her pumpkins come in different textures, different sizes and different colors. She’s even written a book about the business, which now involves a lot more than humble Jack o’lantern motifs.

Talley and her beloved pumpkins have strong roots that run deep.

[flappyfolley]

'' ... eternity consists of infinitely recurring events, each of which is forever infinitely distant in the future ... ''

[flappyfolley]

'' .. a big man said he''d feed the world for her for but quality small time business plans, and the little girl scoffed at caring and swore by daring and so taxed the world what would have been fed for her .. and when she reached into grass and dirt and pulled out bottled eternity, she scoffed at the man and caring and swore by little girl daring and pledged to tax all forever .. the big man laughed: silly, which came first?: eternity or earth? feed eternity and yours is fed; but, tax it, then it''s taxed .. ''

'' .. i ran wild cramming trillions dollars pills down throats, waving trillions dollars guns in faces, preaching: be good or else .. ''

'' .. moses went to pharoah to say: you preached feed the world and don''t kill, yet taxed the world and starved, raped, tortured, and slayed trillions dollars of babies, the rest know not what they do, but you, for fear of moses unseen, who screams at your face day after day: you''re doing it wrong, you taxed the world and starved, raped, tortured, and slayed trillions dollars of babies; yet, you preached feed the world and don''t kill .. ''

'' .. as long as the home of the richest cannot be bought by poorest neighbor, economy is crashed and half world goes without toilets, lightbulbs, lunches; and, as long as home of richest cannot be bought by richest neighbor, economy is crashed and half world goes without toilets, lightbulbs, lunches .. ''

[mbmlaw]

Where can I get the book mentioned in this story?