MEMBER FEATURE
Adding Value One Customer at a Time
Value-added agriculture shines at Reckamp Farms
By Joann Pipkin
The Reckamps market produce, all natural pork, honey, jams
and jellies out of an on-farm store in their garage. They also sell
through local farmers markets. Marylin Reckamp (opposite page)
was a proponent of the farm developing a value-added enterprise,
much like that of what she experienced in her native Scotland.
6
HEARTBEAT | FALL 2015
The mid-summer day was anything but typical.
Torrential rain pounded the pavement amid the hustle
and bustle of the busy four-lane. At last, a glimpse of
sunshine peers through the clouds as the journey leads
us through east central Missouri’s winding countryside.
In the rolling hillsides north of the mighty Missouri,
corn and soybeans soak up the rays. Lavish estates billow
with horses and white board fences while quaint earlycentury German settlements remind of simpler times.
In these shadows of big-city St. Louis, Reckamp
Farms is a haven for value-added agriculture. A stone’s
throw off Highway OO south of Wright City, this
family-owned and operated business thrives on its
German heritage as it beams customer satisfaction, first
and foremost.
FROM HUMBLE BEGINNINGS
In the early 1900s, Gene Reckamp’s family truckfarmed on 20 acres in Florissant.
“We raised a lot of stuff on 20 acres,” Gene recalls
of his father’s modest acreage that grew fall vegetables,
which were sold out of the back of the pick-up.
“We worked the ground with horses,” he says
noting, the rich, black soil raised “good Irish potatoes.”
Gene was drafted in 1952 and tells of the staunch
discipline and work ethic his younger years taught him.
While away, his father would write him every week, and
at his father’s request Gene agreed to farm with him on
a place near Wright City after he got out of the service.
About a year after Gene’s return from the Marines,
cancer settled in his father’s back. With his passing,
Gene’s stepmother inherited the farm, leaving him to
work in construction.
Gene and wife Marilyn settled in High Point near
Cave Springs for about 14 years with their six children.
They finally gathered enough money to purchase the
family farm at Wright City and moved back there in
1975.
“When mom and dad got married, they were
raising hatching eggs,” Dave says. “When corporations