Waldingfield Food Company Producing Heirloom Tomato Sauces
By Vanessa Richins
The Waldingfield Farm in Washington, Connecticut, has seen a lot of crops since it was begun in the 1780s.
Since the late 1990s, the Horan brothers have been growing mainly tomatoes on this family farm.
This year’s crop was about 28,000 tomato plants, of 80 different heirloom varieties, though unfortunately yields were low due to blight and fungus from too much moisture.
Starting in 2006, the farm started making perishable products such as salad dressings and pesto.
Their main focus is producing a shelf stable heirloom tomato sauce. They experimented with many different kinds oftomatoes. The heirloom they finally chose for the first batches was a Polish paste tomato named Opalka.
However, they ran into production problems. They couldn’t find a heat source that would work efficiently for bulk cooking. It would also take too long if they did all the canning themselves.
The problem was solved when they turned to Palmieri’s, a family-run bottling plant. They were able to work with production manager Josh Rossner to produce a sauce that tasted the same as if it had been made in a restaurant kitchen, but in bulk production.
The latest batches include Opalkas, Stupice (a Czech tomato), Gilberti Paste and Amish Paste heirloom tomatoes. Mr Horan is working on making all ingredients come from organic sources - currently his tomatoes are organic, but not all the herbs and spices are yet. He would also like to make sure to use crops grown locally in Connecticut.
Waldingfield Food Company tomato sauces can be found at farmers’ markets, gourmet stores and gift baskets. The jars sell for $6. This sounds delicious.
Have you ever tried Waldingfield Farm sauces?
