The sign as you pull in the driveway reads Blake’s Turkey Farm.
It is older, and the green paint around the edge has faded, most notably in the lower right corner where the show of wood is encroaching on the M in farm. The colorful bird in the middle is weathered, but still looks good for a sign that has been hanging for decades.
Yet the sign is a bit misleading. The name of the business has changed to Blake’s All Natural Foods, and even more noticeable is that there are no more turkeys raised on the property. In 1929, the Blake family entered the farming game and it remained a fully functioning turkey farm until just after the turn of the century. But well before the sweet sounds of the gobble, gobbles went away, the future of the business was put in motion.
With the family struggling to make ends meet in 1970, Charlie Blake decided to try something new. He pulled out his grandmother Clara’s recipe for turkey pot pie and made a dozen of them, using fresh meat processed at the farm, hand cut vegetables and gravy and crusts from scratch. Blake drove around with his then 8-year-old daughter, Amy, and sold those pies out of the back of his van. The response was overwhelming. So he kept making the pot pies and the good people of Concord kept buying them.
“He’d have his little route where he’d set up his blue van. I thought it was just the coolest thing,” said Amy. “But I didn’t know all the behind the scenes reasons as to why he had to do it.”
Along the way, Blake and his wife, Sally, built a production facility on the property to meet the growing demand for Blake’s pot pies. What started out as a small side business has flourished into a product that was sold all throughout New England. Then in 2006, Amy and her husband, Chris Licata, moved back to New Hampshire after quite a few years in the ski industry and took over the family business.
“Up to that point there were only four or five items sold,” said Licata. “It was run as a quintessential mom and pop business.”
The Licatas saw a lot of potential for the business. They knew that Blake’s could expand and do very well, but never envisioned what the business has turned into.
“I didn’t know how it was all going to happen and happen the way it did,” said Amy. “The growth has taken us all a little by surprise, but it will always be done in those small batches and taste homemade.”
In just the last seven years, Blake’s has gone from a New England only product to a nationally recognized brand that is sold in 46 states and close to 6,000 retail locations. There were just a handful of items that Charlie and Sally Blake produced in their facility located across the street from their home, but now Blake’s has over 30 items and likely more to come.
But even through all the expansion, the top priority has always been to keep the products as close to homemade as possible. That is why the turkey and chicken are still pulled by hand for the pot pies. It is why real cheddar cheese is used in the macaroni and cheese. It is also why almost every job in the facility is done by a real person.
“The food is no different than the way you’d make it at home,” said Licata. “You walk into our facility and you see people making our food, by hand, in small batches. If I won’t feed it to my children, we won’t make it here. People have come to trust Blake’s because it’s made from scratch.”
And despite the change in sheer quantity of the food that leaves the facility on a weekly basis, the quality of the ingredients has never wavered. When the Licatas took over, one of the first steps was to make it a certified organic facility. As a result, Blake’s launched a line of organic meals as well as an all-natural line rolled out last year. With the organic meals, the ingredients are 70-100 percent organic, while the natural meals still contain organic ingredients, just not with as strict a guideline, and in turn can lower the cost to the consumer.
The ingredients come from all over the country and have changed some in recent years to meet the company’s demand.
“We have a number of farms around the U.S. that we use,” said Licata. “And because the volumes are getting so significant we have to use farms that can produce what we need.”
In the natural channel, which includes organic stores, Blake’s Chicken Pot Pie is the top seller, while the Shepherd’s Pie is ninth. Not too shabby for a small fourth-generation business.
“To have two items in the top 10, we feel pretty good about that,” said Licata.
Every meal is made in small batches and with the same recipe that good ol’ Charlie used from his grandmother’s little blue recipe box. They just make a lot of them, sometimes up to as many as 25,000 in a day.
But one thing that the Licatas use as a litmus test to see if the business is staying true to its family roots is one simple question.
“If great grandma Clara came back today, would she approve of the meals we make?” said Licata.
The answer is a resounding yes. And that is why Blake’s keeps making each meal, one small batch at a time.
