Insight on Business

w w w . i n s i g h t o n b u s i n e s s . c o m J u n e 2 0 17 • I NSIGH T | 27 BayCare Clinic, works with patients to take a more holistic or alternative approach to their health. She calls Waseda Farms a great resource for her and her patients, who she oen directs to the store. "If you're trying to eat a clean diet, you can find everything you need there," she says. "I think it's important because it's a hub that connects the consumers to the food producers." Each January, Waseda Farms Market holds its "you buy, we give" campaign, donating 25 cents to local food programs for every dollar spent on ground beef. is year, it donated more than $22,000. e Lutsey family also established the omas H. Lutsey- Waseda Farms scholarship in honor of Matt's grandfather. Tim Prestby, a freshman studying landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, received one of the four-year $10,000 scholarships. "It really aligns with my goals because it's a very local company," he says. "It's really a value I take to heart." As Matt looks toward the future, he takes a balanced approach, noting that it's not easy to expand or radically increase production. He'd like to continue to increase Waseda's footprint and anticipates growing operations to a certain level and then looking to partners. "I'd love to say we're going to just keep getting bigger and bigger, but I don't think we will," he says. "Finding those different people to work with is easier than just buying every piece of land that comes up and finding more labor." makes a difference in the quality of the meat. "It's one of the few operations that consistently puts that practice into place." A FA M I LY A F FA I R A t the heart of Waseda's 36-employee operation is family. Tom and Matt, the oldest of the Lutseys' four sons, persuaded brother Jeff to join the company two years ago. An engineer by trade, Jeff now works as the farm administrator, managing the farm's 80 different plots of land and animals, handling logistics and human resources, coordinating commercial sales and working with restaurants. Like Matt, Jeff didn't see himself working on a farm. "We've always been excited about it, but excited from afar — intentionally," Jeff says with a laugh, describing his and his other two brothers' reaction to the farm. e actual working together presents its share of joys and challenges. Gathered in a one-room schoolhouse on the site of Waseda Farms, Tom, Matt and Jeff reflect on working with family. "It's a real amazing roller coaster, as it would be for all families to kind of work together so closely," Jeff says, describing Matt as creative and visionary, like their father, whereas he's detail-oriented and analytical. Matt breaks into his brother's reverie: "It's a work in progress," he says to big laughs. "Let's not go and say this is a perfectly well-oiled machine. We're family." Tom puts it elegantly. "Each day, somebody's got a burr up his butt about something." "What's important to Dad isn't always important to me or important to Jeff or vice versa," says Matt, who co-owns the farm with his father and other family members. "But if you step back, of course all the things are important … but we just have to work through it, keep checking boxes and getting stuff done." G O O D T H I N G S I N S T O R E T he De Pere market was borne of Matt's realization that as Waseda Farms grew, it was missing "the other parts of the plate" — i.e. vegetables. All the store's meat comes from the family farm, and Matt strives to offer local dairy and produce as much as possible, filling the gaps with certified organic products from geographically close when not. e store, which includes a deli and grab-and-go items, serves as a platform for one of Matt's passions: educating people about the benefits of organics. "ere's a stigma about the price," he says, and that, combined with availability and convenience, sometimes holds people back. At the same time, however, Matt sees an increasing interest in organic and locally grown food. "Not only in our store but other places, organic products are slowly getting a bigger section." Dr. Lynn Wagner, an integrative medicine specialist with "When you reduce the stress, you reduce the amount of adrenaline that goes into the animal, and adrenaline is shown to affect the quality and flavor of meat, and so by eliminating that throughout the whole course of (the animal's) life, you create a better product," Matt Lutsey says of Waseda's beef. More than 45 restaurants throughout Door and Brown counties and beyond serve the company's products. C O U R T E S Y W A S E D A FA R M S

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