Smells are what I remember most about visiting Woodford Feed as a kid: the molasses richness of feed for Grandpa’s horse; the fragrance of leather halters and work gloves; the clean rubber, plastic and steel scent of hardware.
In one corner of the Versailles store, papery onion sets and seed packets waited out the winter. In the center aisle, a dusty display of Case knives piqued my 10-year-old interest. When it came time to leave with a feed sack or a new pair of muck boots, I already wanted to come back again.
As I recollect it, the store sounds like it could be the childhood memory of someone much older than I am. But somehow, despite the odds, Woodford Feed is very much alive in the present. Family-owned and-operated since 1940 and billing itself as “your most complete farm store,” Woodford Feed Co. Inc. is a competitively priced resource for farmers, gardeners, hobbyists and homeowners.
Today, the store is run by Bob Mac Cleveland, whose father, Robert Cleveland, was one of two original partners. In a time when many other independently owned farm stores have closed their doors, the continued success of Woodford Feed is a testament to relationships and expertise. The folks at the store know their products; they know their community; and if you visit more than once or twice, they’ll know you.
What are the conditions under which local knowledge and entrepreneurship can thrive?
In The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings, Kentucky author Wendell Berry reflects on the number and diversity of small businesses that served his hometown of New Castle during the 1940s. Advertising itself as a destination for goods and services, the town placed an ad in the Henry County Local on Sept. 27, 1946, promoting “55 stores, shops, trades, and services,” including a seed store, two dealers who sold both coal and livestock feed, four grocery stores, two blacksmith shops and many more.
Berry’s point is this: “Virtually all of [the town’s] varied and thriving economic life in 1946 rested upon the farms and farm households that surrounded it.”
Across the Commonwealth, a changing economy shifted the foundations that once supported 55 independently owned businesses in New Castle. Today, the town’s website advertises six businesses, none of them farm-related.
Versailles has not been exempted from economic change, but Woodford Feed continues to thrive, thanks to a combination of luck, persistence, adaptability and attention to detail.
Originally housed downtown in the space now occupied by The American Legion, the store primarily served tobacco farmers. In 1948, partners Robert Cleveland and Robert McConnell moved the store to its current location, which was part of McConnell’s family farm at the time.
They couldn’t have known it then, but the move placed them at what would become one of the region’s busiest intersections—the Versailles bypass and Lexington Road.
“A lot of customers told them it was sure to fail because they were too far off the road,” Bob Mac Cleveland recalled with a laugh. “In hindsight, that wasn’t anywhere close to being correct.”
The store has been part of Cleveland’s life for as long as he can remember. When he was a child, his mother sometimes dropped him off there for his father to babysit. In seventh grade, he began working on Saturdays, and he worked in the store through high school and college. He began working there full time in 1978, after majoring in agricultural economics at the University of Kentucky.
“There’s been a lot of changes,” Cleveland said. “The biggest change was the demise of the tobacco program and the decrease in tobacco acres and everything. Tobacco actually made this store. It made it profitable and made it grow.”
Another change for the store has been a shift in grass seed production. During the 1950s and ’60s, grass seed was a major staple, both harvested and sold in Kentucky. Today, Cleveland said, Kentucky’s signature bluegrass is produced almost entirely in the West. A third change—this one in a positive direction—has been demand from the equine industry.
On the whole, the agricultural environment remains challenging for family farms, no matter their size. Cleveland said that, in most cases, family farms derive income from at least one off-the-farm job, due to both the slim profits of farming and the high costs of health insurance.
For Cleveland, this reality has required a strategic approach to products and services.
“The biggest thing is diversity,” he said. “We don’t rely on one thing. In the winter, it’s a peak period for feed that starts in the fall and runs through the first of May. As feed is declining, seed and fertilizer are increasing. Then in summer, when those decline, we are back to hay and straw and shavings for show horse people. Then start back into fall with seed and fertilizer and some building supplies. It’s diversity that has allowed us to stay in business. We couldn’t make it for what we do just selling one or two products.”
It’s not just diversity that has kept Woodford Feed’s doors open. Customers also point to the wealth of knowledge, the quality of service, and the family atmosphere.
In my own family, two great-great-uncles, B.R. Hippe and Raymond Hippe, were tobacco farmers who relied on Woodford Feed for many years. B.R.’s daughter, Vivian Hippe, still shops there, not only for the products, but also for the staff’s expertise.
“They used to tell me, ‘Call Bob Mac, and he’ll have it ready for you when you go in there to pick it up,’ ” recalled Vivian, who became her father’s delivery service the day she got her driver’s license. Today, she lives on the family farm with her husband, Paul Gonnelli, and she still relies on the know-how at Woodford Feed. They don’t just have the fertilizer she needs; they’re also familiar with the 18-acre hayfield she wants it on.
“It’s the personal one-on-one,” Hippe says. “They didn’t just know my daddy. They knew his brothers, his parents, his background, his kids. Paul, being a real newcomer, loves Woodford Feed. As soon as he walked in there and they knew who he was, they treated him just like they treat all of us. Coming from a big city, he hadn’t been treated like that before.”
Hippe attributes the store’s ongoing success to the way its people prioritize relationships.
“They’ve made it because of reputation, supply and demand, and how they’ve handled themselves and treated the farmers,” she said.
Gonnelli also appreciates the local nature of Woodford Feed and the accumulated knowledge the staff offers. He said the store usually offers the best price—and that even if they didn’t he’d “rather pay more for their wisdom.”
“They know what you need and can answer your questions,” he said. “They’re all farmers.”
Part of the genius of Woodford Feed, however, is that the store doesn’t cater just to farmers; there is something for just about everyone. Its five big products are feed, seed, fertilizer and agricultural chemicals, animal-care supplies and hardware. The store also carries a wide range of other items such as shovels, brooms, rakes, plants and supplies for homeowners.
“The next generation has grown up shopping at the big stores that are self-service, and our biggest challenge is to get them to stop here and see what we have and ask us questions and see what we can do for them,” Cleveland said. “Instead of going to a superstore to buy plants and weed killer, it’s just trying to get them to stop in town, local, and see what we can offer.”
One of the few positives of the COVID-19 pandemic, Cleveland said, has been renewed attention to local sources.
“It has made a lot of people who had never really thought about where their food comes from stop and think about that, and the advantage of dealing with someone on a local level,” he said.
As important as diversification and competitive prices are, Cleveland said relationships and expertise have an even greater pull.
Looking to the future, Cleveland has high hopes for the store. As a second-generation owner, he’s excited that his son is getting involved in the store.
“I’m 65, but I hope that with his involvement, the store will continue after my time is past,” he said.
Whatever the next 80 years may hold for Woodford Feed, its reputation for personable service and expertise is assured for customers like Hippe.
“My earliest memory of Woodford Feed is the tin buckets of seed and the rawhide bones in the big wooden barrel,” she said. “And there was always someone hollering in the back, ‘Bob Mac, B.R. is in here waiting for you!’ ”