Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
- Ballerina Farm, famous for its online presence, opens a grocery store in Midway.
- The store offers farm products, organic goods and a bakery with fresh items.
- Owners aim to create a community space, celebrating local agriculture and small producers.
MIDWAY — From social media fame, the Ballerina Farm has garnered followers all over the world. Now, the Utah family business is expanding from its online presence to a small grocery store and bakery in Wasatch County.
Ballerina Farm, founded by Hannah and Daniel Neeleman, has achieved worldwide fame with 10 million Instagram followers. Hannah Neeleman's from-scratch cooking, her background as a Juilliard-trained ballerina, her love for raising her eight children and the family's idyllic rural lifestyle in Kamas have attracted considerable attention.
The two grew their business by selling agricultural products online and sharing their lives on social media. After seven years purely online, the Neelemans opened a farm stand in Kamas last month, where they sell their raw milk, and now are preparing to open a flagship grocery store.
"Midway has been a favorite little city of ours since our kids were little. We're always coming up here," Hannah Neeleman said. "When we found this little place, it felt like the perfect match. It felt like the perfect entryway to the brick-and-mortar world."
The store is a milestone for Ballerina Farm. The Neelemans said they have never liked grocery shopping and always preferred smaller stores where they could buy products straight from the farmer. This store is a way for them to celebrate local agriculturists and make fresh food more accessible.
"That's kind of what we wanted to do: a grocery store that you can get all your basic needs. We don't have a million types of olive oil, but we have one or two amazing ones," Daniel Neeleman said. "Maybe we don't have everything, but we're trying to have like 90% of what you would need on your day-to-day."
Located just behind the popular Cafe Galleria in Midway, the Ballerina Farm Store will sell almost all of the farm's products plus organic goods sourced from small farms around the world.
With flowers, soaps, meat products, produce, protein chocolate milk, whey lemonade, vinegar from a small vineyard in France and pasta from a small family wheat farm in Italy, the store has just about everything.
"All of these products have really been thought out and loved by us, so we're excited to offer that to the community," Hannah Neeleman said.
Alex Blosil manages all of the food products for Ballerina Farm and loves to find "heirloom, artisan, small producer farms" to collaborate with. He loves showcasing the stories of these small businesses who don't have a large platform themselves.
"We're a small business, so it's fun to find people who are super passionate, super gregarious individuals to highlight their products. It's a really fun assortment of things," he said. Blosil grew up loving to cook and trained in the culinary arts in France.
The Midway grocery store will also have a bakery attached that will sell croissants, pastries, fresh sourdough bread, daily focaccia, sandwiches, ice cream and more.
"I grew up in Midway, so getting to come back and bring my community something I love so much is very exciting," the store's head chef Catherine Clark said. She trained at the Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland, where she connected with the Neelemans.
Store employee Ginger Ramirez said the store's in-house menu is going to be "extraordinary."
"Ballerina Farm has a very big following, so for people to actually have a tangible place to come in and look at things and play with our little trinkets and stuff we're selling, I think people will just love that," she said.
Outside the store is a small gathering area that the owners hope will become a community gathering place for people. Although the family has reached a large audience through social media, Hannah Neeleman is excited to start anew in a small town.
"It's amazing to start small and local and get back to where it all started. This is really what makes us excited. It's fun to do small-scale and small-batch things, and hopefully the community appreciates it and enjoys it," she said.
Gracie's Farm in Wanship collaborates with Ballerina Farm on produce. Full-time farmer Jacee Andersen grew up in Midway and said it's been incredible for the farms to have a place to come together and share products with the community.
"Something like this is so special and lovely and unique to locals and the community here. It's really awesome for something like this to have a solid place in the central part of Midway," Andersen said.
McKenna Rees makes soap at her farm in Coalville and has been working as a vendor for Ballerina Farm for two years. Combining her goat milk recipe with Ballerina Farm's lard, she sells three custom soaps on the Ballerina Farm website and will have soap stocked at the store.
"I think people, for a while, were all about online, but I think it's kind of reverting back where they want to come and look at things and touch things and have a whole experience, and I think this location gives you that experience," Rees said.
The Ballerina Farm Store is planned to open in late May. The Neelemans hope the store can become a community space and a "real local place" where people return often to get fresh bread or dairy products.
Ballerina Farm has been a family endeavor, and all eight Neeleman kids were excitedly running around the store eating fresh bread and vegetables on Friday. Hannah Neeleman said it isn't just her store, but it's all of her family's store.
"It's been a family thing since day 1," she said.
