WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-The 'Cutting' edge

Ferrisburgh, Vermont - April 8, 2011

The steam's rising from the sugarhouse at Dakin Farm. "We make products that are from the past," Sam Cutting III said.

Cutting bought a sleepy roadside stand in Ferrisburgh just over 50 years ago; it's now a landmark on Route 7. The retired fighter pilot boils sap here, as he's done for decades. Syrup is just one of dozens of his products.

"And we're trying to bring them up-to-date," he said.

The business has seen incredible growth under Cutting's son-- another Sam-- whose strategy is simply to do what works for Vermont, even if his business decisions wouldn't fly in any board room anyplace else.

"Vermont doesn't try to be like the rest of the country," Sam Cutting IV said. "We hang onto tradition, even if it costs us more to do it that way."

He points to the way his staff takes far longer to produce hand-glazed hams than industry competitors. It can certainly be done more efficiently and with cheaper ingredients to maximize profits. But going slow means Dakin can ask for a premium price.

"There's expansive meat plants in this country that have very low-priced labor. They have huge volume and automation. And we're just the opposite of that," said the younger Cutting. "But I think you can tell the difference in the quality of the product."

So the fan of the old-fashioned found a kindred spirit in the Howrigan Farm in Fairfield, where sugarers still gather sap using a horse-drawn sleigh and buckets, not some sophisticated maple pipeline. But it works. The Howrigans provide most of the syrup Dakin packages and sells around the nation.

And this is where you start realizing Dakin Farm is actually a far more modern operation than it lets on.

"The internet provides growth opportunity for us even in recession," Cutting IV said.

The younger Cutting was on the cutting edge; selling products online before many Vermonters even had the internet-- since the mid-1990s. Now, a fancy e-commerce headquarters houses large computer servers and a 24-hour call center where aggressive web marketing and mail-order efforts drove the company to its first ever $1 million month in online sales this past December.

"It has been the fastest growing part of the business, and is the biggest part of the business," Cutting IV said.

Dakin Farm promises to keep a foot in the past while eyeing future marketing trends to find new customers far beyond its small beginnings.

"We're all over the country and then some," noted the elder Cutting.

This family business spreads the label "Made in Vermont."

"It's one of the strongest brands in the country, if not the strongest brand," the younger Cutting said.

The company says Easter sales are only a small fraction of what Christmas brings, but they hope focusing on the internet will help them grow that.

Jack Thurston - WCAX News