Today we’d like to introduce you to Allison Freiborg
Hi Allison, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I started baking at a very young age, professionally I have been baking for 15 years.
My first memories of baking are from annual Christmas cookie baking at my grandma’s house. When I was really young I would help with the decorating of the cookies and each year I would learn more and more, until eventually I was able to roll and cut out the cookies myself. This was a pretty big day for me, my mom took pictures and everything! My grandma taught me her sour cream cutout recipe, how to make spritz and oatmeal raisin. Not only did she teach me about baking but how to sew and so much more!
My favorite thing to bake has definitely changed many times over the years. Originally it was cupcakes and cake pops, then cakes, then I went to bread and scones when I first started Farm House Fresh in April of 2023 and now I think I would have to say its custom cookies and cakes.
From there I was always watching Cake Boss and fell in love with the idea of one day opening my own bakery. All through middle school, high school and college anytime I had a business based project, I based it on my dream business of AlliCakes Bakery. AlliCakes was a nickname I was given in highschool when I was starting to bake as a more serious hobby/business. I started taking orders for friends graduations, parties for teachers and more. My original focus was on cupcakes and cakepops. Cakepops were just starting to become a thing when I graduated and for my graduation party, I made 400+ cakepops!
I went to college in Willmar, MN at Ridgewater College for Marketing and Sales Management, from there I had planned to go to San Diego Culinary Institute. However, life happened and culinary school was just out of the budget for me at the time. I moved back to Faribault, bought a house and began baking as a side job out of my house. I was working a desk job in marketing as a full time job and was miserable. I was not built to sit behind a desk.
I began to look at buildings in my downtown to potentially open a bakery. The long standing bakery in town and closed just a few years prior and so I thought it was my chance!
But then again, life happened, this time in the best way. I met my now husband and we began dating long distance. He was living on the farm here in Sacred Heart and as our relationship got more serious we decided I should move back to the area. I moved to Raymond, MN and began working at a job I had had in college as a preschool teaching assistant. At this time I was not baking at all. I worked my way up to Preschool program coordinator and actually received that promotion the morning after my husband proposed! I was falling in love with teaching and actually began taking classes to pursue a degree in Early Childhood Education. I worked in education until our first son was born in 2018.
I became a stay-at-home-mom and our daughter was born in 2020. That is when life got hectic! Our daughter was born 2 weeks before the COVID shutdown and having a newborn and an 18 month old was really trying for me. The opportunity arose to take a position as a preschool director and I took it. I worked there for 2 1/2 years until we were again blessed with another baby boy.
Our youngest was only 1 month old when I launched my cottage bakery, Farm House Fresh. I have been working at growing this business ever since, along with helping on the farm.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I am a completely self-taught baker, so there have definitely been a lot of learning moments. A lot of failures that led me to continue to learn and grow.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Farm House Fresh is a Cottage Bakery based out of our home on my husbands family farm. I am located in rural Minnesota in a small farming community.
I decided to start this business almost 2 years ago as a way to exercise my creative side and make a little extra cash. To say I have achieved what I set out to do is an understatement. I am completely overwhelmed by the support I have received from my community and am so happy I get to do what I love each day; while also having the flexibility to stay home with my 3 kids.
One thing that I believe sets me apart is the fact that I do my very best to grow and source as many ingredients locally as I can. Our farm, Freiborg Farms, is a crop farm that grows corn, soy beans and sugar beets. Like most people, I had no clue what sugar beets were when I married my husband. But in fact, 55-60% of U.S. sugar comes from sugar beets, and to be a grower makes me very proud. All of the sugar I use in my products, is 100% beet sugar. I get my white sugar from Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative, which in just the next town over. Not sure you can get much more local than that! Especially since our family grows the beets used to make it. And I get my brown sugar and powdered sugar from Pioneer sugar out of michigan. On top of locally sourced sugar, I keep a large garden and use strawberries, carrots, rhubarb, chives, garlic, apples and more that I grow here on the farm. As well as farm fresh eggs from our chickens!
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think anytime you enter into something new you are taking a risk at some level. When starting this business I had a one month old along with a 4 and 5 year old, that alone was a huge risk! I wrestled with the questions, will I have enough time to put into my business as I want? (I have always had a very entrepreneurial mindset) Will I accidentally take on more than I can handle? Will anyone even buy from me? Will all this work be for nothing?
Thankfully so far, things have gone in my favor. There have been times when kids have been sick or my husband has had to work longer than expected which as made meeting deadlines hard. But I just keep pushing through to make sure all of my commitments are filled.
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