QUALITY FIRST
Dating back to 1910, we've worked to build and maintain a reputation of quality and authenticity.
Nestled on 200 acres in Northwestern New Jersey, we are a four season farm working to meet your produce, garden and agritourism needs.
OUR HERITAGE
Our family's Sussex County agricultural heritage dates back to 1910, when Jacob Tanis Sr. first settled in Sussex County, NJ.
Twenty years earlier, the Dutch immigrant had settled in Paterson, NJ with his family. Tanis Sr. began selling extra milk from the family's dairy cow. As he came of age, the farmer began looking for land of his own.
Tanis Sr. built a herd of 2,000 purebred Guernsey cattle and increased his farm to over 3,400 acres in Northwest New Jersey. Ideal Guernsey Cattle was known for its reputation of excellence and its standard for quality, along with being one of the world’s largest dairy herds.
His son, also named Jacob, scaled back the dairy operation in the 1960s, after 50 years of successful milk production, transitioning to the prize-winning herd of Aberdeen Angus still being raised on the farm today.
In July of 1984, the third generation of Ideal Farms, Jan Tanis Jorritsma and her husband, Ben Jorritsma, opened their first produce stand at Ross Corner. What gave them the idea? A successful year of selling Christmas trees off Jan’s parent’s lawn!
The business outgrew its first location just a few short years later and Ideal Farm and Garden Center moved to Route 15 in Lafayette where it remains and thrives today.
The current location was once part of Jan's grandfather's Guernsey herd operation, in fact our farm store is located in the old bull barn.
Though some things change, Jacob Jr. and his daughter, Jan, kept to the standard passed on by his father and instilled the same in his children. The standard? Simply put...Quality First.