John and Sukey Jamison say goodbye to the business they have run on their farm in Unity for 35 years.
The couple are discontinuing their highly regarded Jamison Farm line of grass-fed lamb products, a decision partially sparked by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We were thinking about retiring before March,” said John Jamison, 73. “When the pandemic broke out, 60% of our business was taken away.” The high-end restaurants the farm has catered for across the country have had to stop eating indoors under restrictions to keep the virus from spreading.
Aside from their own three-week shutdown, the Jamisons went through the remainder of 2020 with the mail order business that started their business.
Now that the busy Christmas sales season is over, Sukey Jamison said, “We thought this might be a good time” to shut down.
The couple will sell the remaining items.
“We have one more product that we’re going to make into sausages, and I make my soups and my stews,” said Sukey Jamison.
When these sell out, John Jamison said, “We’ll still be raising sheep.”
Your flock of 150 ewes should produce at least 200 lambs in May.
“We don’t yet know what we’ll do with these lambs next fall,” he said.
This is comparable to the boom years in which the Jamisons had to sell up to 5,000 lambs to top chefs and loyal retail customers.
The Jamisons plan to continue operating their USDA certified meat factory near Bradenville to now process meat for others instead of their own lambs.
“The facility was an integral part of our business,” said Sukey Jamison. “That made it so special because we all did our own processing. That made us different and made it easier for us to sell our products to restaurants. “
When the Jamisons began developing their flock, there was no local market for selling lamb to restaurants. Then, in 1988, the lamb they were preparing for dinner at Pittsburgh’s LeMont caught the attention and commission of influential Washington, DC Chef Jean-Louis Palladin.
The Jamisons developed relationships with other leading chefs such as Daniel Boulud and Frank Stitt. They also made friends with cooking show icon Julia Child.
“We would send her lamb and she would send us her autographed cookbooks,” said John Jamison.
The couple wrote their own book of recipes and memories, “Coyotes in the Pasture and Wolves at the Door” (Word Association Publishers).
Over the years, said John Jamison, what he had enjoyed most was “dealing with the chefs and also with many of the mail order customers we had”.
Once the remaining orders are fulfilled, the Jamisons have time to think about other activities.
Sukey Jamison will be able to pay more attention to the vegetable garden she grows each year on the couple’s 210-acre farm.
“This is a beautiful farm,” said John Jamison. “Why should we ever want to move? It’s very quiet up here. “
Jeff Himler is a contributor to Tribune Review. You can contact Jeff at 724-836-6622, jhimler@triblive.com, or on Twitter.
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