We enjoyed hosting NAFDMA two weeks ago at some of Ontario's finest agritourism operations. (Some of our favourite farms were missing, but you can only go to so many.) You might think that we had visited all the farms, but actually, I only had the pleasure of visiting one beforehand, our client's Brooks Farms.
It would be pretty expensive to take my family to all of these farms over the summer! Kristen and I took a lot away from the trip, which inspired us to offer you, our clients, more. More to follow on that.
But in the meantime, this article is like the Coles Notes from each farm on the NAFDMA’s 2025 Agritourism Farm Tour in Ontario..
One of the biggest takeaways from the tour was that you got to know your ideal customer and play on that strength!
We highlight each farm's unique aspects and rank them on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 indicates that the site is primarily used for entertainment and 10 indicates that it is primarily used for agriculture. Please note that these values, 1 and 10, are not related to the quality; they are simply a way to indicate the farm's primary use.
Downey’s Adventure Farm
Ideal Customer: Families with kids aged 3-10, looking for entertainment.
Agriculture: none in the company, family runs PYO next door
Admission cost: $18 per person
Offerings: Farm market, 30+ play items, summer camp, animals, bakery, 5 food locations
Themepark-Farm Scale: 1
What they do well:
Great entrance crush area, all online ticketing makes for quick queues at the entrance.
4-6 item gift kiosk at exit
Some non-ticketed food access and a large crush area at the entrance.
Farm education signage
Great corn barn with entertainment for adults. They had signage, farm history, and antique equipment to decorate the barn.
Open space feeling with room to fill in
They don’t do what they don’t love, IE, events and school groups.
Back-of-house operations were very hidden and separate, using screens, fencing, and separate buildings.
The petting zoo layout had fencing and a queue-like path. The ”exit” gate/path forced you past the handwashing station.
What we would love to see in the future:
Our quick observations as guests, business owners, and architects:
No private label products
Showcase and add labels for the antique equipment in the corn barn
Pingles Farm Market
Ideal Customer: Families with kids, likely from Toronto, looking for a food/farm experience
Agriculture: enough for a PYO experience, raspberries, lavender, sunflowers, strawberries, flowers,
Admission cost:$12-15pp+produce you pick
Offerings: farm market, bakery, 5+ food locations, PYO, hay ride, small playground, animals
Themepark-Farm scale: 5
What they did well
They really know their customer and appeal to them, Instagrammers
They do have a farm feel
Excellent retailing flow and displays
Central kitchen prep with runners to the remote food locations. A food court with multiple outlets for themed offerings reduces lineups.
Instagram-worthy stops, with great colour and impact. Even the bunny cage was Instagrammable
One great design feature of note was that at their barn, you could walk out in the middle walls to see animals that might be hanging out outside. This was a great way to cover inside and out, depending on the mood of their animals.
What we would love to see in the future:
The bakery counter congests the retail flow and sales
Play yard is in development
Accessible and more chances to get food
Willowtree Farm
Ideal Customer: Foodie, no kids or very young kids
Agriculture: a wide variety to fill the farm market with produce
Admission cost: $0
Offerings: farm market, bakery, butcher cafe, small playground, animals
Themepark-Farm scale: 8
What they did well:
Food offerings were varied and looked delicious. You could do 75% of your groceries there
Appealed to the customer with small kids that they could play, and mom could sip a coffee with a friend for an hour.
They were working on upgrading their animal area with all the different kids in mind.
Show different barn styles, which they intend to give a bit of education on.
Retail layout was clear and beautiful. John Stanley consulted with them here and at Pingles. This was Kristen's favorite spot - Likely for the food offerings! I was distracted by a conversation about red tape and did not get a good look at the retail space.
Real farming. I was impressed with the variety of produce being grown.
Ideal Customer: families with kids 3-12
Agriculture: a wide variety to fill the farm market with produce, including maple syrup
Admission cost: $17.50pp
Offerings: farm market, bakery, playground, PYO, events, weddings
Themepark-Farm scale: 5
What they do well:
Entertainment, they bring a wide variety of live entertainment and themes to enhance a smaller play yard and a PYO experience.
The Wedding Event space is very appealing and has a wow factor. It gets booked very easily. The indoor/outdoor connection and patio is gorgeous. Key to the wedding success is a partnership with a wedding planner who manages a higher-demanding customer.
Main central kitchen with catering and prep in the event building. The commercial kitchen supports canning and preserves of not only their produce, but also the neighbours'.
They take advantage of all the property's qualities. From the ceremony space in the forest, to the reclaimed and milled wood from the bush. They know and love, and share their farm’s best features.
What we would love to see in the future:
The far market layout is not clear or smooth. The layout allows customers to miss products, and there is no hierarchy to what they “want” me to buy.
Snyder's Family Farm
Ideal Customer: teens and young adults
Agriculture: Christmas trees
Admission cost: $20-24 per person, +$14pp for private campfire area
Offerings: retail, corn maze, food outlets, scare experiences
Themepark-Farm scale: 1
What they did well
Their food system stood out. They have multiple food outlets, and each food location has a small back-of-house cooler and storage. Each evening, they prep and move food from the main kitchen to each food outlet. They don’t typically run out at each location, and there are no panic or extreme waits
They offer a great VIP experience. For $130 per person, you can rent a private (and very nice) campfire location. And with that, gain a fast pass (skip the line). That price tag is high, but when you have 3000+ people on site probably well worth it in their young adults’ group.
They had a larger capacity washroom that wasn’t a porta-potty.
What we would love to see in the future:
The overall site flow wasn’t clear. So, they may not move people through quickly, and visitors may miss things (not just attractions but also food or retail opportunities).
Move some retail sales throughout the site, as they know people love their branded merch.
Springridge Farm
Ideal Customer: ladies without kids, or moms with small kids 2-6, foodies, grandparents
Agriculture: pumpkins
Admission cost: $14pp weekends, $49 season pass
Offerings: farm market, bakery, lunch, play yard
Themepark-Farm scale: 8
What they did well:
I love that all the produce they make is local, and they make it! Their label means something!
Their retail space was wonderful. It was the only retail space (excluding Willowtree if I had had time), that I wanted to buy stuff. There were lots of gifts, but also a strong focus on food. I could have spent 2 hours in their store.
They take advantage of the views they have from their property, and they use that in their entertainment.
The season pass was great for their market, as even if they don’t make tons on the pass, they know mom or grandma will buy from the store or lunch while they are there.
Lunch for kids was happy meal-like. They pre-packaged a kid’s lunch in a sandbox with a shovel. So not only was their prep done ahead and they could serve faster, but kids got a bucket for their very large covered sandbox. And how many of you can’t keep buckets and shovels in the sandbox.
Mulch made a great ground cover for the play yard, cost-effective and looks great.
The branding across the farm was spot on. Matching colours, clean, polished. Even the antique tractors were being dusted when we arrived.
What we would love to see in the future:
Aside from needing a ski-lift conveyor to get to the outlook, overall, they did very well.
Chudleigh's Entertainment Farm
Ideal Customer: Foodie, adults,
Agriculture: apples
Admission cost: $14.50 per adult, $12.50 per child
Offerings: farm market, bakery, cafe, small playground, animals, cider,
Themepark-Farm scale: 5
What they did well:
The playground was designed for adults as well as kids. The young at heart
They took what they are famous for and make lots already, the apple blossom, and used it for the food menu. Mac & cheese with pulled meat in a blossom. It was quite good and simple.
They also knew their customer; there was a stage for live entertainment, which is for an older crowd. They focused on Apple education for the PYO apples, which tends to be geared towards adults, but good to have a small ag focus.
Lots of counters and queuing for food, which was a focus of the place.
Their new retail pavilion was impressive, with 24” diameter logs; it had an open pavilion feel. I expect they are attempting to get permission for private events, not retail as they are currently using.
The impact and crush space when you enter the park was well designed; easy to determine where you want to go first.
What we would love to see in the future:
The menu could be closer to the queue to help people know what they want before the cash register. A virtual ordering system could also help reduce their lines and improve customer experience.
Tour Summary
So that’s all, folks! We were inspired, and I hope you are, too. We were so inspired that we created a Farm Tour evaluation form. You can use the form next time you are at a farm or on a NAFDMA Farm Tour. It will help guide you through a comprehensive review of the farms you visit!
Our community of farmers are currently testing and perfecting the form.
Do you want early access to the form? Send our team a note (Support@veldarchitect.com) and they will send the PDF!