Tapping into the Entrepreneurial Spirit

TRICIA PHELPS, CEO

For farmland to be kept in farming it must show the potential to yield a profit. Over the last 50 years, this simple fact has been a difficult road block for many family farm businesses and the next generation has had to decide whether farming is a viable career.

While this hurdle remains, a new era of agriculture is on the horizon. Demand for locally produced food is growing, and young entrepreneurs are getting creative. It’s in this changing environment that Harwood Gold, a family-owned maple producer, operates today. It’s story begins back in the 1800’s in Charlevoix, Michigan.

The legacy began with George Parsons who first tapped the trees and packaged the “liquid gold” into canning jars for friends and family. Slowly, the maple side of the business grew alongside the family's dairy operation, at the time it’s financial mainstay. However, as George’s grandson Dave took charge of the family business times had changed, dairy margins were slim and the business struggled to support the family. Ultimately, Dave had to find work off the farm. Still he kept family tradition alive and even made significant commercial improvements to the maple syrup operation, but as he neared retirement, both the farm and the family business were at the crossroads of an uncertain future.

Amber (Parsons) Munday, one of Dave’s four children, couldn’t imagine selling the family property, but in order to keep it, they needed a viable business model. With the vision to build an extensive product line around the farms syrup operation she decided to become the family’s fourth-generation entrepreneur and work to save the farm.

Harwood Gold Maple syrup already had a strong customer base built by Amber’s father in the early years at northern Michigan farmers markets. This core group of supporters was critical, because they gave Amber the confidence to take the next step. In 2014, she began expanding the product line adding at least 4 or 5 products every year. The ideas would come from customer requests and recommendations or simply trial and error.

“The potential for maple syrup is limitless,” Amber says. Not only is syrup a more flavorful replacement for refined white sugar, but it’s sweeter so you can use even less. Harwood Gold now offers over 75 different specialty products, all sweetened with only maple syrup. The syrup for these products comes directly from the Parsons Farm, stabilizing the farm’s purpose of production and harvesting nearly 1,000 gallons of sap each year.

Today, Harwood Gold has a storefront and cafe in Downtown Charlevoix. By expanding the maple syrup product line, improving visibility and adding a cafe, Amber has developed a booming business that continues her family legacy and keep the farm in operation.

This summer another five new products will debut and the cafe will be opened for special pop-up dinners featuring some of their amazing maple-infused cocktail recipes. And don’t miss the Parson Farm Tours to experience the place where it all started; every weekend from May-October.