Jon R. Pike
There is a new business in the food court of the Moorhead Center Mall that offers an alternative to what you may think of as mall food.
Kreps Family Farm, an actual farm in the area, is operating a stand in the food court section of the Moorhead Center Mall. The Kreps’ are Mathew and Mary Jane.
Mary Jane enthuses that the preserves, sauces, breads, and baked goods are, “all homemade and not filled with preservatives.” She is a New Englander and says she came west to marry Matthew. Her background is in the high profile resort business in Vermont, where she worked in food service.
The Kreps have been in business together since 2017, and have been selling their products at local farmers markets.
They operate a licensed commercial kitchen in West Fargo where they make the selections offered at the mall.
While there are a variety of baked goods available, you may want to pick up some muffins or cookies to snack on with your loaf of banana bread. If you want something to drink that is caffeinated, you are going to have to settle for plain coffee, and not a variety of coffee drinks. “I have no ambition to be Starbucks,” says Mary Jane
The company is very much a family organization. Their kids contribute to the operation and Mary Jane gets frozen blueberries from family in New England.
She says that when she told people they were going to open up a new business in the midst of the
COVID Crisis, they were told, “We were crazy.” However, she insists that with the businesses that are already in the mall, combined with city hall, temporary COVID clinics operated by both Sanford and Essentia, and the DMV taking over some space that there is enough foot traffic to sustain their retail operation.
“If enough people like what you have,” she says, referring to their previous success of selling at farmer’s markets “they’ll keep buying from you.”
She likes showing the ingredients on their products, like their bread, which lists easy to understand ingredients like yeast, flour, and sugar and notes how it compares with long strings of words that people cannot pronounce on many more commercially manufactured food items.
The emphasis on natural products carries through to the picante, sauces, pickles, and other canned items that are available.
Kreps Family Farm Corner Coffee is open at the mall from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. every day except Sunday and offer delivery through Grubhub.