The growing season : how I built a new life -- and saved an American farm /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Ballantine Books, 2020Edition: First editionDescription: 251 pagesContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780593129395
- 0593129393
- 338.7/63092 B 23
- HD9010.F74 A3 2020
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Biography | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | B FREY FREY (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022741669 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Biography | Hayden Library | Book | FREY-FREY (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022519651 | |||
Standard Loan | Metalines Community Library Adult Biography | Metalines Community Library | Book | B FREY (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 50610021192062 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"A gutsy success story" ( The New York Times Book Review ) about one tenacious woman's journey to escape rural poverty and create a billion-dollar farming business--without ever leaving the land she loves
The youngest of her parents' combined twenty-one children, Sarah Frey grew up on a struggling farm in southern Illinois, often having to grow, catch, or hunt her own dinner alongside her brothers. She spent much of her early childhood dreaming of running away to the big city--or really anywhere with central heating. At fifteen, she moved out of her family home and started her own fresh produce delivery business with nothing more than an old pickup truck.
Two years later, when the family farm faced inevitable foreclosure, Frey gave up on her dreams of escape, took over the farm, and created her own produce company. Refusing to play by traditional rules, at seventeen she began talking her way into suit-filled boardrooms, making deals with the nation's largest retailers. Her early negotiations became so legendary that Harvard Business School published some of her deals as case studies, which have turned out to be favorites among its students.
Today, her family-operated company, Frey Farms, has become one of America's largest fresh produce growers and shippers, with farmland spread across seven states. Thanks to the millions of melons and pumpkins she sells annually, Frey has been dubbed "America's Pumpkin Queen" by the national press.
The Growing Season tells the inspiring story of how a scrappy rural childhood gave Frey the grit and resiliency to take risks that paid off in unexpected ways. Rather than leaving her community, she found adventure and opportunity in one of the most forgotten parts of our country. With fearlessness and creativity, she literally dug her destiny out of the dirt.
One woman's tenacious journey to escape poverty and create a billion-dollar farming business--without ever leaving the land she loved. The youngest of her parents' combined twenty-one children, Sarah Frey grew up on a struggling farm in Southern Illinois, often having to grow, catch, or hunt her own dinner. She spent much of her early childhood dreaming of running away to Hollywood, Chicago--or really anywhere with central heating. At fifteen, she moved out of her family home and started her own fresh produce delivery business with nothing more than an old pickup truck. Two years later, when the family farm faced inevitable foreclosure, Sarah gave up on her dreams of escape, and, at seventeen, took over the farm and started her own produce company there. Refusing to play by traditional rules, Sarah talked her way into suit-filled boardrooms, made deals with the nation's largest retailers, and became so legendary that the Harvard Business School published a case study on her negotiation skills. Today, Sarah's family-operated company, Frey Farms, has sold more than a billion dollars' worth of fresh produce, beverages, and consumer packaged goods, and has become one of America's largest fresh produce suppliers, with farmland spread across seven states. Thanks to the millions of melons and pumpkins she sells annually, Sarah has been dubbed "America's Pumpkin Queen" by the national press. The Growing Season tells the inspiring story of how a scrappy rural childhood gave Sarah the grit and resiliency to take risks that paid off in unexpected ways. Rather than leaving her community, Sarah found adventure and opportunity in one of the most forgotten parts of our country. With fearlessness and creativity, she literally dug her destiny out of the dirt.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Introduction Social Grace (p. ix)
- Chapter 1 Hunting and Fishing (p. 3)
- Chapter 2 Growing Wild (p. 23)
- Chapter 3 Betting the Farm (p. 35)
- Chapter 4 Through the Eyes of Jesus (p. 41)
- Chapter 5 A Proper Education (p. 53)
- Chapter 6 The Melon Route (p. 61)
- Chapter 7 Chomping at the Bit (p. 77)
- Chapter 8 Taking the Hill (p. 99)
- Chapter 9 Frey Farms (p. 111)
- Chapter 10 Seeds of Hope (p. 127)
- Chapter 11 Every Which Way (p. 137)
- Chapter 12 Serious Business (p. 151)
- Chapter 13 On the Road (p. 167)
- Chapter 14 Hunting Grounds (p. 183)
- Chapter 15 Sunshine and Rain (p. 195)
- Chapter 16 Field Run (p. 207)
- Chapter 17 The Family Table (p. 223)
- Chapter 18 Harvest Time Again (p. 233)
- Acknowledgments (p. 249)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
Farmer, entrepreneur, and now author Frey traces her life from a largely unsupervised childhood roaming her parents' farmland in southern Illinois to her current position as head of a billion-dollar company: family-owned Frey Farms, one of the largest produce companies in the United States. Similar to Tara Westover's Educated, this part memoir, part entrepreneurial story, tells of one woman's success in business based on relationships of mutual trust with other farmers, accompanied by her sheer hard work. Frey shows how successful personal interactions have helped along the way, as she brings fruit and vegetables, including the company's signature pumpkins, to various states. The author also adds some of her thoughts on what it's like to be a modern farmer, which are sometimes hilarious and often endearing. She has the inimitable quality of appearing not as someone who accomplished so much at such a young age but rather a person readers will enjoy getting to know, chapter by chapter. VERDICT Frey brings a breath of fresh air to both the personal memoir genre and the business world. Her writing is crisp and her personality winning. A must-read.--Stacy Shaw, DenverPublishers Weekly Review
In this passionate, though humble, memoir, Frey, CEO of Frey Farms, writes of growing up in poverty and becoming a successful businessperson. Frey traces her scrappy upbringing on a ramshackle Southern Illinois farm in the 1970s, where the house didn't have indoor plumbing and was heated only by a wood stove. There, she worked with her older brothers and father who insisted she do the same work as her brothers (in one particularly intense passage, her father insists that seven-year-old Sarah throw an enormous snapping turtle in the back of his pickup). After working summers with her mother selling melons to local grocery stores, a 15-year-old Sarah began spending more time on the road hauling produce than she spent in the classroom. At 18, she took out a loan and bought her family's failing farm, which her father had nearly lost in foreclosure; by her early 20s, she was supplying tractor trailers full of produce to Walmart. As Frey explains, through sheer grit and business acumen--she was selective in what produce she sold, negotiated better prices with retailers, and aggressively marketed her goods--she had turned the mismanaged farm into a multimillion-dollar business with hundreds of employees. Frey's energetic, inspiring memoir will appeal to small business owners and anyone who likes a bootstrapping success story. (June)Booklist Review
The first part of Frey's memoir describes a young life in the vein of Tara Westover's Educated (2018) or Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle (2005). Born into a large, hardscrabble family with a charismatic but ne'er-do-well father, Frey recalls a happy early childhood. As she grows, she sees that other families live vastly different lives, and realizes her family's poverty hinges on her father's seldom-fulfilled schemes. One by one, her bullied, overworked older brothers leave the farm. Frey accompanies her business-savvy mother to buy and sell melons, and this proves to be Frey's way out of both poverty and southern Illinois, which she has longed to leave. A moment of reckoning, however, reveals her deep love of the land, her commitment to agriculture, and her drive to succeed. She ends up staying. The book's second half details Frey building a fruit and vegetable empire and beckoning all her brothers to join the business; she's now known as "America's pumpkin queen." Frey's story of grit and grace is the best kind of American success.Women in Focus: The 19th in 2020Kirkus Book Review
The story of a hardscrabble childhood that, through dint of hard work, blossomed into a multimillion-dollar fruit business. Frey details her life growing up poor on a southeastern Illinois farm, where they had no indoor plumbing and burned wood for heat in winter and where they grew or shot their food. The author and her brothers learned to be tough at a young age, but she doesn't relate her circumstances in anything less than a matter-of-fact, frequently enthusiastic voice, making the narrative move along in a highly engrossing manner. Though life was demanding, the family was tight. Frey's father might have taught her independence, but he had no head for business and got by on his wits. Her mother would do what she could to help--e.g., running a melon route where she would pick up local watermelons and cantaloupes and sell them to regional markets. It was backbreaking work, but it put cash in their hands to pay the mortgage. "I loved meeting people, making deals, and I also knew that this was something that could be scaled up exponentially," writes Frey, who, at 14, learned the fundamental elements of commerce. At 15, she had her own melon route; at 17, she bought the family farm when the bank came to foreclose. "Without this land, I thought, where will we be? More importantly, who will we be?....If I walked away," she writes, "my brothers and I would never have anything to come home to." Throughout, Frey makes clear her belief that family sticks together. "Blood is blood," she writes. "Alone in the world we would be broken. Together we could withstand anything. Right?" And they did, with endless determination and a lot of learning on the fly. With earnest, effective storytelling, Frey demonstrates her character: "impatient, driven, restless, and at time obsessive"--and highly successful. A heart-gladdening memoir of a rare triumph over poverty. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Sarah Frey has been described by The New York Times as "the Pumpkin Queen of America." She sells more pumpkins than any other producer in the United States. Her family business, Frey Farms, plants thousands of acres of fruits and vegetables in Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, and West Virginia. With a mission to end food waste in the fresh produce industry, the family makes natural food products and beverages from imperfect or "ugly fruit." Inspired by her humble beginnings and early life on the farm, she continues to create opportunities for those living and working in rural communities. Frey lives in Southern Illinois and is raising her two sons, William and Luke, on the same family farm where she grew up.There are no comments on this title.