YORKTON - “My two favourite words are why not – why not try this,” said Barb Stefanyshyn-Cote the speaker at the 25th edition of the Yorkton Chamber of Commerce Business Dinner Wednesday.
The words have certainly rang true for Stefanyshyn-Cote co-founder, co-owner and CEO of Black Fox Farm and Distillery, located just outside of Saskatoon along with husband John Cote.
Stefanyshyn-Cote told the full house at St. Mary’s Cultural Centre “look at me, I’m nothing special,” but then added an important caveat noting she has been “willing to take a chance.”
That has sort of been Stefanyshyn-Cote ‘s core mantra since growing up on a farm in the Springside area, so the opportunity to speak in Yorkton was really a trip home for her.
“I am thrilled – I am humbled,” she said of the opportunity to share her story.
It is a story with more than a few twists along the way.
“We’ve done some interesting things,” she said, adding in the end they are sort of back to their roots, the distillery very much connected to farming.
Today they measure “yield by the barrels per acre instead of bushels per acre,” said Stefanyshyn-Cote.
Certainly agriculture has always been at the heart of what Stefanyshyn-Cote has done through the years.
“I grew up on a mixed farm,” she said, adding she loved driving equipment and their Simmental cattle.
So post graduation from Sacred Heart High School Stefanyshyn-Cote said she was excited to learn she could “actually do a degree in agriculture. I could actually study in the field.”
Stefanyshyn-Cote would earn that degree, meet her future husband at university, and end up on a grain farm near Leask, Sask. The couple would expand the farm from 1500 to 5000 acres, diversify the cropping mix and add soil and fertilizer and an animal nutrition business.
It was a story of success which had the couple chosen as Saskatchewan’s Outstanding Young Farmer’s, and ultimately the national award too in 2001.
“It puts you in contact with people across the country,” said Stefanyshyn-Cote, adding those people were always willing to share business insights and that was so important.
From there Stefanyshyn-Cote applied for and was accepted to receive a Nuffield Agriculture Scholarship, which allowed her to travel to England, Scotland, China, Japan and other countries to learn more about agriculture.
The trips abroad opened Stefanyshyn-Cote’s eyes to the possibilities beyond Saskatchewan, ultimately leading to the couple deciding to rent the farm to spend a year living in Mexico and then a year in Chile.
The experiences in Mexico and Chile was one which made the couple realize to remain successful on the farm near Leask they needed to grow.
“A 5000-acre farm was not going to be an economically viable unit, so what are we going to do?” she asked.
The answer was to sell the family farm.
But they were not done farming.
The couple bought 80 acres on the outskirts of Saskatoon, a locale closer to a larger population base they could market what they envisioned would be a vegetable farm and winery.
Back-to-back disasters growing corn, and a realization they never liked wine very much would lead the vision of what they would do on those 80 acres to change – ultimately focusing on Black Fox distillery making whisky and gin.
Yet the farmer in Stefanyshyn-Cote remains, as they grow the core ingredients used in the distillery – such as triticale.
“It’s based on grain, and growing grain we’re good at,” she said.
Controlling the product by growing ingredients is behind the concept “crop to connoisseur.”
While not exactly a business course typical of many, Stefanyshyn-Cote reiterated it has worked because they have at times taken significant leaps of faith in terms of what they have tried.
“It’s been an interesting journey,” she said, adding the distillery has been hard work.
“But it has been a fun time. It is an exciting business that is growing.”
