We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Molly Glasgow a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Molly thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you take vacations? How do you keep things going – any advice for entrepreneurs who feel like they can’t step away from their business for a short vacation?
Yes! Yes! Yes! While running a business requires dedication and hard work, regular breaks are crucial for both personal well-being and the long-term success of my business. For me, maintaining a healthy work-life balance is crucial for my long-term success and happiness. If I don’t take care of me who will? I have always felt that taking a break gives me the time I need to reconnect with family and friends, and enjoy life outside of work. This also necessitates delegating responsibilities to my employees, which I have found is beneficial to everyone. I have noticed over time that this delegation helps develop leadership and problem-solving skills among my team and it fosters a more resilient and capable crew. It also builds trust and autonomy within the team and this allows me to relax.
I also feel very strongly that when I take vacation I set a positive example for my employees. It sends a message that taking time off is important and acceptable, encouraging a healthier work culture where employees also feel empowered to take necessary breaks. I often ask my team ‘when is your next vacation? Let’s pick some dates now so you can be sure to take time off’. Vacation – be that a staycation or a trip to a far off destination is essential to remember who we are as humans and that we are not just our work.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am fine art photographer, farmer, mother of two college aged boys and partner to my husband, Eric. I was born and raised in Texas. I attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY and graduated with a BFA in Fine Art, 1995. After moving often for fifteen years, my family and I settled on a old and busted dairy farm on Martha’s Vineyard. While rebuilding the farm I fell in love with the light, the seasons and most of all capturing the moments daily life that surround me. My photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Culture Magazine, Edible Vineyard Magazine, Martha’s Vineyard Magazine and The New Farm: Contemporary Rural Architecture by Daniel Gregory.
I live and work on our 100 acre farm, The Grey Barn, that I co-founded and run daily with my husband. We are a small, diversified family farm that use to be the backbone of New England. We believe in simple, good food, which is the result of organic farming; it is better for us, our animals and the environment. Our animals are raised without hormones and antibiotics; our produce is non-GMO and grown without industrial pesticides and herbicides; and our breads are made with natural, heritage-breed ingredients. We are also certified organic and this certification brings us closer to the land and aligns with our values of sustainability and responsible practice.
My appreciation and love for our land, our animals, our community, and our coworkers is a daily fact of life at the Grey Barn. Farming on Martha’s Vineyard will teach you that life brings little slices of beauty every day, and it’s our aim to replicate that beauty in food for the farm’s patrons and visitors.
At The Grey Barn, we maintain a dual-purpose herd of forty-five cows – our “gals.” They supply us with certified organic milk and beef year-round. Cows are friendly, intelligent and curious creatures. Unlike most modern dairies, the genetics of our herd have not been manipulated to work in the modern, grain-fed confinement model. Our cows produce delicious milk on a pastured, grass-based diet. Unlike high-throughput dairy operations, many of our strongest gals continue to produce milk well into their teens.
Nestled in the picturesque landscape of Chilmark, Massachusetts, our creamery crafts extraordinary cheese. We see cheesemaking not as a job but an art form, a harmonious dance of flavors and textures orchestrated with meticulous care. Handcrafting each wheel of cheese is a labor of love. From the initial curd-cutting to the final art of wrapping, each step is an expression of dedication and finesse.
Over the past 15 years our cheesemaking journey has been sprinkled with moments of recognition, affirming the passion and care we pour into our land, our animals and each cheese we make here at The Grey Barn. In the ongoing tapestry of our cheesemaking narrative, we are honored to share that our commitment to taste and ethos has been recognized with a Good Food Award Finalist distinction in 2024. This additional nod to our craft joins a collection of acknowledgments, from the 2022 article in The New York Times titled The Big Cheeses from the Vineyard to the humbling First Place award at the American Cheese Awards in 2017. We have also been graced with a Gold Metal at the World Cheese Awards in 2021, a 2021 Good Food Award Winner, a 2021 The New York International Cheese Awards Silver Medal, named one of the best cheeses of 2022 by Culture Magazine, in 2021 we were named as one of the Best Cheesemakers in America by Food & Wine Magazine, we were awarded a 2020 Good Food Award Winner and in 2018 we were also named as One of The Most Important Cheesemakers by Bon Appetit Magazine. Each acknowledgment, including this recent Good Food Award Finalist Nomination, weaves together to form a narrative of passion and dedication that is a shared celebration of the flavors we bring to your table.
I am dedicated to regenerative agricultural practices that promote environmental sustainability, land stewardship, and carbon sequestration to ensure that our property continues to serve as a robust working farm for years to come. We strive to incorporate innovative techniques, such as multi-species pasture rotation, that bring small-scale, diversified farming to the forefront of responsible and sustainable agriculture. We work with other New England businesses like Ground Up Grain who supplies all of the grain for our bakery. All of the grains that are milled at Ground-Up Grain are grown in the Northeast and provide a unique flavor only found in our corner of the world. Their whole grain flours provide our baked goods with a real taste of place. Ground-Up Grain works with a select group of New England grain growers who sweat all the details from their multi-year crop rotations, to the microbes that contribute to the health of the soil, to the flavor and versatility that each variety offers. By sourcing regionally grown stone-milled flour, we are able to support other New England farmers and strengthen our community through food.
Our new projects and initiatives spring organically from the expertise and interests of the passionate crew of gardeners, bakers, farmhands, and cheese makers that make up our team here at The Grey Barn. We strive to be a fun and inclusive workplace where the team informs everything we do.
Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?
Brand loyalty is a crucial aspect of any successful business. I have found over the years that spending time around our busy farmstand allows me to have one-to-one customer chats. I really enjoy gardening and so keeping up with the area just outside our shop gives me a chance to chat to customers as they come and go. A smile and a thank you for stopping by really goes a long way. I also believe in email. Not super hyped up that sells, sells, sells but instead an email that is calm. Sometimes these include little farm stories or interviews with our employees. I think it is important for our customers to know us and not just know our brand.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In May of 2013, the farm had its first and greatest major setback. We left a dishwasher running, there was a electrical fault and we had no idea what that would mean. In the middle of the night, we woke up to smoke and fire. By the early morning, as the sun came up we saw that our creamery had burned down. We didn’t know if this was the end. We took a deep breath and thought about why we had started farming in the first place: We wanted to produce good, organic food, and ultimately, we knew that this wasn’t going to stop us.
We had to rebuild. Reset. Rethink. We sent our entire heard of cattle to a friend’s farm in Vermont and it was a year before the cows came home and the milk began to flow. But once the farm was back in gear, our cheese was better than ever before. We knew we were getting somewhere. In 2016, Prufrock was awarded a first place at The American Cheese Society Annual Awards. It felt good. Really good. It’s been over ten years since that happened and each day I am grateful to my husband who just kept things going. I was ready to stop and to give up but he helped me persevere and look where we are today! A thriving business with wonderful customers and an even better crew to work with than I could have ever imagined!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thegreybarnandfarm.com
- Instagram: @thegreybarnchilmark
- Facebook: @thegreybarnchilmark
Image Credits
All photos by Molly Glasgow