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Robb Family Farm

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Vermont Bowl Co.

PIECES OF VERMONT

Owned & operated by
RES eCom, Inc.
PO Box 578
Jacksonville, VT 05342
800-507-7721
About Us   Contact Us

Home   Shop by Merchant   Robb Farm

Robb Family Farm Sugarhouse
Open to the public

827 Ames Hill Road, W. Brattleboro, Vermont 05301
Charlie Sr. & Helen Robb, Owners
Charlie Jr., Sugaring & Farm Management
Contact Us  |  (802) 258-9087

The Robb Family Farm, a southern Vermont small working dairy farm...
Well, we used to be. If you read the article below you'll learn that after generations of dairy farming and maple sugaring, the Robb Farm is closing the dairy farm and focusing on maple sugaring, raising natural beef, and selling hay to Vermont goat, sheep, horse, and alpaca farms.

• Robb Farm to close dairy
  By BOB AUDETTE / Reformer Staff. Posted 05/13/2011
• Dairy farmers diversify to make a living
  By CHRIS GAROFOLO / Reformer Staff. Posted 09/24/2009

Locate just outside Brattleboro, Vermont the Robb Farm has been in operation for over one hundred years ago when Charlie Robb Srs' great grandfather started milking Jersey cows at the present location on Ames Hill Road. Charlie and Helen Robb bought the farm in 1973 from his parents and began milking Holsteins. The family decided to shutdown the milking operation in 2011 due to years of falling milk prices.

Now the good news! In addition to their maple sugarhouse, the Robbs' also operate a small, cozy Country Shop store which is directly adjacent to the sugarhouse. This quaint little gift shop is filled with craft items, baked goods, Vermont cheeses, and pure maple syrup products, all in a room that is heated by an old-fashioned wood burning stove. It is from this cozy, often snow-covered sugarhouse that the Robbs pack and ship hundreds of mail order gifts each year. In fact, UPS has made the Robb's off-the-beaten-path gift shop a regular stop as Helen Robb generally has several packages going out the door even during the "off season." And during the holidays there's a flurry of boxes, some of which UPS delivers and some are taken to a nearby post office for USPS Priority Mail delivery. Recently the Robbs also expanded the sugarhouse with an addition, making the mail order fulfillment area twice its original size.

"Our mail order and Internet sales through PIECES OF VERMONT quite literally kept our small dairy farm in operation for years," says Helen.

"With milk prices as low as they are, we needed to have other income just to keep the farm going, and that's why our maple syrup, wedding favors, and cheese gift sales are so important. Recently we expanded our sugaring operation, as well as expanded our mail order shipping area with an addition to the sugarhouse. Our sugarhouse is open to the public and we welcome hundreds of visitors each sugaring season. Come taste our maple syrup, the moment it's boiled. Give us a call (802) 258-9087 or email for directions."

 

For the past 30 years Owner Helen Robb and her family have created delightful holiday gift baskets and boxes using their own pure maple syrup, pure maple candy, Helen's fantastic fritter mix, the Robb Family pancake mixes, select Vermont cheeses, and various other delicious Vermont specialty foods.

Over the last few years the Robbs have found a niche in two other areas; Vermont wedding favors and maple sugar candy gift boxes, each of which are customized with special ribbons and gift tags. It truly is a family operation as Charlie Jr. makes the maple syrup, while Charlie Sr. fills the wedding favor bottles and other syrup containers. Helen and her small staff then fasten custom ribbons and tags, and then box items for delivery.

Recently the Robbs were lucky enough to stumble onto a family heirloom logo, an old label that the family originally used more than a century ago. They are reintroducing the label on syrup items sold at their sugarhouse Country Shop and here online, starting with a Gallon Glass Syrup Jug, the most popular syrup size with customers who visit the Robb Farm Sugarhouse. Read the Full Story in the Brattleboro Reformer newspaper.

"There has been a shortage of syrup tins in Vermont lately, and many sugarers are switching to plastic syrup containers," says Charlie Robb Sr. "We have reluctantly made the switch as well, but have also opted to offer our syrups in fancy glass bottles because more and more customers are requesting glass. With the new retro label on the front it's really an attractive syrup. We're hoping that more customers will give glass a try. We've invested a lot of time and money into perfecting the shipping. Though heavier than plastic, we can ship glass. And frankly, glass looks so much better on the counter or table then plastic."

When it's maple sugaring season, the Robbs have a 3-4 week window of opportunity to gather maple sap from roughly 2,500 sugar trees and boil the sap into pure maple syrup. Needless to say, it's busy, busy, busy around the farm, and the sugarhouse is always bustling with activity. Often the whole family chips in to help and the only other time of year that there's so much activity is in the two weeks prior to Christmas when the Robbs are busy shipping hundreds of maple syrup gifts to customers.

"Life is good in Brattleboro Vermont," says Helen. "We wouldn't want to live anywhere else, and we really do love farming. You have to love it. It's too tough running a small farm these days, but we've been fortunate to have a strong family and lots of help from people along the way. Brattleboro has always supported us, and that's reassuring."