Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen Voss.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My husband’s hobby turned into a business we’ve had for 35+ years now. He always loved pecans, even when we were dating 50 years ago, we would pick up pecans on fall Sundays. If I wanted to see him and spend time with him, it’s what we did, I joke I should have known what I was getting into. Now fifty years later, we own 160 acres of pecan trees and manage another 100 acres. We are farmers, growing corn, beans, wheat and pecans is like another crop to us. But this crop takes lots of hand labor, and lots of help from our whole family. Our 3 children, their spouses and 8 grandchildren all help with this speciality crop. Their nights and all day long on the two weekend days from mid-October till mid-December is help with pecans, it’s family bonding time for sure. We are always 3 generations working together, a few years back it was 4 generations involved.
Sell at farm store seasonally, in co-op stores, stores that feature grower products, speciality stores, bakeries, farmers markets, Market Wagon, and on our website,
Sell pecans: whole, half cracked open by machines, and completely made out, cinnamon sugared too.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Weather plays a huge roll in this fall crop harvested in late October, November and December. The weather is against us, cold, snow, and wet ground that doesn’t dry. Also the time change makes for shorter days – with it dark at 5:00.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Owned: By my Husband Ralph & myself Karen
Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Finding knowledge about pecans when we first started growing this pecan crop, was hard in the Midwest, we found my husband was the expert around here – and that was not good enough, so we found and contacted a Pecans researcher in Kansas, who ran a pecan experiment field for Kansas State University. He had a wealth of information, (who has since retired). We attend pecan conferences in Southern states to also gain knowledge. We bought equipment – new and used that we had never seen work before, like a tree shaker. We just said “shake a tree for us – never seen a tree shaking before”.
We are now Illinois’ largest pecan grower.
Contact Info:
- Email: vosspecans@hotmail.com
- Facebook: Vosspecans
