IF YOU FEED THEM, THEY WILL COME Horstmeyer Farm & Garden: Your One-Stop Feed Shop

BY ALLISON VAN TILBORGH

Co-owner Annie Horstmeyer loves making people happy. “People love their animals, and it’s a pleasure to provide them with the items they need,” she told me on my visit to her French Avenue storefront and warehouse. Annie, her husband, and two sons have been owners of Horstmeyer Farm & Garden for two decades. Their general storefront boasts hay, feed, tack, and pet items ranging from horse saddles to chicken feed to a wide array of premium dog food.

History in the Making

Horstmeyer Farm & Garden (formerly known as Tuckers’) was founded in 1972. In 2003, perhaps by fate, Annie’s son Justin began working at Tucker's. When he started to hear that the Tuckers were interested in selling, Justin introduced his parents, Annie and Doug, to them. On January 1, 2004, they held the keys to the store, then on Laurel Avenue. Justin became General Manager, joined by his brother Luke, who would become Logistics Manager. In 2021, they moved from their Laurel Avenue storefront to a massive warehouse on N. French Avenue, which allowed them to store all their product and transportation onsite.

Family at the Heart

“I owe the growth of this business to our sons,” Annie told me. Working long days and early hours hauling hay bales for your parents is not what most consider a fun occupation. In any family business, conflict can ensue, and dysfunctionalities can run rampant. But Annie and Doug’s experience has been different. “It’s a special trust that you have when you all work together,” Annie shared. “They brought the business exponentially to the next level… It’s beyond my wildest dreams!” The mural outside their storefront is inspired by family (including pets) past and present. The three chicks represent her children (her third son, Derek, is President of Network Cabling Services), and the two sunflowers represent Annie and Doug.

“We can feed it!”

Their new, huge warehouse, which used to hold the Sanford Herald printing presses, now regularly stores 10,000 units of premium horse forage freighted from family farms as far out as California and Toronto. This one-week stockpile will supply 30 wholesale clients and hundreds of local weekly deliveries.

In addition to their mind-boggling premium-horse-forage business, a considerable emphasis has been placed on growing the horse and small-pet sections of their store. Harnesses, saddles, stirrups, and even rider accessories, grace the walls of their ample horse section, which earned a major homage in Horstmeyer’s current logo design. Across from their steed section is a wide variety of small-pet supplies from puppy crates to indulgent dog food flavors to the likes of “pork and applesauce” and “beef frittata veg.” You can also purchase hard-to-find goods such as locally crafted cypress bat homes that can help reduce mosquito counts by hundreds of thousands (bats, apparently, can eat up to 1,000 mosquitoes an hour). From horses to dogs, chicks, and even bats, Annie tells me, “If you have an animal, we can feed it!”

Visit Horstmeyer Farm & Garden at 300 N. French Ave in Sanford for all your animal-feed needs. n