Welcome to Pure Homegrown
…not just a name, but a guarantee of the quality of our farm-raised products. Beef, lamb, pork, poultry – all of the highest quality with your satisfaction and enjoyment at the heart of our family farm business.
How do we do that, you ask? High, consistent standards in raising our livestock. A commitment to animal well-being. Working the land with a focus on stewardship and sustainability. Pure Homegrown reflects how we feel about our products. We are proud of our work and our product – pure and homegrown on the family farm.
What does that mean? When you see our Pure Homegrown name or logo, it is our guarantee that the meat products we produce are raised on the Wand Family Farm in the most natural and humane ways possible. This in turn ensures that you, our customer, will have a fantastic and healthy eating experience all while knowing that animals raised on our farm were raised with the greatest care possible. We strongly believe that the way we produce our meats will in turn be a better, more nutritious product, while being sustainable.
Pure Homegrown is brought to you by The Wand Family Farm, located in Powassan, Ontario; part of a little clay belt just right for agriculture in the Almaguin Highlands of central northern Ontario. We are Markus and Jennifer Wand, and Klaus and Ursula Wand.
Klaus and Ursula brought their farming expertise and experience to Powassan from Germany in 1975. Klaus studied agricultural engineering and had worked for the ministry of agriculture, and Ursula came from a rural farming background. Wanting to expand their horizons, they bought a dairy farm to raise their four children, and proceeded to build a herd of purebred cows with an emphasis on increasing production, thrifty and well-managed cattle, and rotational grazing without supplemental crop production. The family sold the dairy herd in 1996 and converted to beef cattle, with the addition of sheep in fall of 2003.
After graduating from the University of Guelph with an honours degree in agriculture with a focus on animal science, Markus returned to Powassan to farm in 2004. Over the next several years, both the beef herd of Simmental and Red Angus cattle, as well as the sheep flock, were expanded. In order to continue the success of the rotational grazing begun years earlier, a neighbouring farm was bought. Over the years, with improved cattle and sheep handling facilities, and a successful breeding program, the family farm business has expanded and we’re excited to look forward to the coming years as the farm continues to grow.
Markus and Jennifer met in 2012 and were married in 2014. Jen has worked 12 years as a dental hygienist in her hometown of Parry Sound. After the wedding and Alaskan honeymoon, Jennifer started residing on the farm full-time and enjoying farm life! In July 2017, they welcomed their first son, Bronson, to the world and to the farm! Bronson loves all things on the farm from the livestock to the tractors, and is sure to be a big help, once he is old enough. As the farm grows, so does the Wand family and it makes them truly proud to have a family farm business that children can grow up on and be a part of.