By Vanessa Whiteside on March 3, 2025
Werner Creek Farm Offers Specialty Produce and Goods for More Than 15 Years
From Humble Beginnings to a Thriving Business: Winfield Farm Expands with a Commercial Kitchen and Permanent Downtown Storefront
Werner Creek Farm in Winfield looked different 15 years ago. The husband-and-wife team, Gage and Sarah Werner, operated a small specialty crop farm using a greenhouse, focusing primarily on tomatoes and a few other vegetable varieties.
Now they’ve incorporated high tunnels, and the farm grows abundant vegetable crops and fruit trees. The business expanded, adding a commercial kitchen and a permanent farm store in downtown Winfield.
Sowing the Seeds from Side Hustle to Full-Time Farming
Gage, who grew up outside of Winfield, spent years teaching high school biology and dabbling in gardening in his spare time. Sarah, a transplant from Western Kansas, grew up on her family’s farm producing traditional commodity crops. She became fond of farmers markets while attending college in Lawrence. Together, they combined their passions and launched Werner Creek Farm in 2008.
After selling out of a few baskets of vegetables at a farmers market, they realized there was potential to transition from backyard gardening to a business.
“It was my fault that we had a garden, and it was her fault that we went to a farmers market,” Gage jokes.
In 2012, the Werners added the first high tunnel to the farm, and other tunnels followed. These tunnels allowed them to grow a rotation of produce from seed, including eight to nine lettuce varieties, spinach, kale, carrots and tomatoes. The Werners use indeterminate tomato start plants because although they require more time to bear fruit, they yield a better-tasting crop and they produce tomatoes throughout the growing season.
“Since we like tomatoes, we know which varieties taste good, and those are the ones we’re going to grow,” Sarah says. “There are some varieties that are not so good, and we’re not going to mess with those because if it’s not something we don’t want to eat, then we’re not going to sell it.”
Their customers can purchase tomatoes and more from the Werners at the Walnut Valley Farmers Market and Ark City Farm and Art Market. One Walnut Valley Festival attendee was so impressed by the tomatoes for sale she emptied her suitcase of its contents and filled it with dozens of tomatoes.
Harvested apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries and blackberries are used to make jams and jellies, which have been a part of their product offerings for years.
“I started with jam,” Sarah says. “Jam is way easier, so I prefer making jam still to this day.”
Growing a Customer Base Over Time by Offering Quality Farm Goods
Like nurturing farm crops, the Werners know the key to a successful specialty crop businesses is nurturing what customers are seeking.
“Most people are accustomed to a large, round red tomato,” Gage says. “So you have to grow a percentage that needs to be like that.”
They have added more specialty crops to the sprawling 15-acre farm, including unique vegetables not always stocked by grocery stores. For example, they have sold harvested okra, rhubarb, edamame and kohlrabi at their farmers market booth. Sarah is known to print off recipes for customers to help familiarize them with how to cook obscure produce.
For Gage, the combination of offering unique, high-quality produce is paramount.
“We like to focus on things that there is a marked difference between what you can buy at a grocery store and what it tastes like,” he says.
A Well-Cultivated Business Takes Root and Expands Product Lines
The Werners knew they had a good thing going when customers regularly purchased their sought-after produce, salsa, jams and jellies. Naturally, the next step was to expand the business to include a brick-and-mortar business, where customers could purchase farm goods six days a week.
Werner Creek Farm Store is a 200-square-foot retail space with consistent traffic, a mix of regular customers and brewery visitors from nearby Ladybird Brewing Company seeking snack food like chips and salsa.
The Werners continue to add to the shop’s inventory as space allows, including baked goods. After securing a grant, they built a commercial kitchen at the farm allowing them to sell pecan and cinnamon rolls, bread, English muffins and fudge. Seasonal dried pasta complements jarred pasta sauce, a product that holds a special place in Sarah’s heart.
“Probably the one I’m most proud of is our roasted garlic pasta sauce because it took us probably six months to develop the recipe,” Sarah says. “We went through so many variations until we finally figured out a recipe that we really liked and people really like. We’re pretty proud of that one.”
The farm store's inventory evolves. Gage, who makes loose-leaf tea for the family to enjoy, now packages it for sale at the farm store.
“Everything we have, we grow, dry and blend,” Sarah says. “We think there is even more potential to expand that. Products are a biproduct of something we do at home, and then we test it with customers to see if it’s something they like, and they usually do.”
From Plantings to Paying It Forward
The Werners value supporting local farmers like themselves, and the farm store allows them to carry other makers’ products.
In addition to carrying Werner Creek Farms products, customers can expect a wide range of Kansas-made products, from gifts from Kansas Earth and Sky Candle Company to bath products by The Soap Box and cheese from Jason Wiebe Dairy. Sarah’s quilted keepsakes and branded merchandise are often purchased as gifts.
In the spirit of working with others, the Werners employ several high school-aged students to pick produce every summer. Like many family farms, it is an all-hands-on-deck operation. Their son assists with farm chores alongside Gage and their daughter helps with kitchen tasks. Sarah oversees the business operations.
Pondering the Potential for Growth
The Werners don’t anticipate the farm operation changing drastically over the next 10 years.
“I think we’re both in agreement that we don’t want to get big enough where we are wholesaling a lot,” Sarah says. “We still want to have our own markets where we direct sell or hire a team that direct sells for us.”
They recognize they’ve outgrown Werner Creek Farm Store’s space, although they love its downtown location.
“I’d like to see working with more local farmers, especially people who want to focus in on one thing,” Gage says. “There’s people who would like to grow food, but they don’t want to go sit at a market and sell it. If we had more of a place, then we could offer other farmers’ products. I see that in the future.”
For now, they are happy with the current farm operations while pondering the future.
“I do have a lot of contentment with how we run our business,” Sarah says. “We believe a lot in the philosophy of what we do, and that feels good to know what we’re growing and producing fits with what our beliefs and values are. We love where we live. This is kind of a sanctuary for us.”
Werner Creek Farm customers can find Sarah and Gage selling farm goods and chatting with customers at Walnut Valley Farmers Market from May to September on Saturdays from 8 to 11 a.m. On Tuesdays from May to September, they operate a vendor tent at the Ark City Farm and Art Market in Arkansas City from 5-7 p.m. The Werner Creek Farm Store, located at 104 W. 6th Street in Winfield, is open Monday to Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Thursday to Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Customers can order non-perishable items online and subscribe to their newsletter mailing list.
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