Happy Birthday, Maple Ridge Farms: A Brief History

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Tom's kitchen table--where it all began.



Maple Ridge Farms turns 34 this year!  For years, we've been your go-to for high-quality, gourmet food gifts, but do you know where it all started?

In 1979, Tom Riordan founded Maple Ridge Farms with a dream and a wooden box filled with cheese.  Working off his kitchen table and marketing door-to-door to local businesses, it wasn't long before $25,000 worth of that box of cheese was sold.  This was just the beginning.



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The office in the cold storage facility. Oh, how things have changed!



It didn't take long for Maple Ridge Farms to outgrow the kitchen table.  Within a year, operations were moved to a local cold storage facility, where the staff of two saw sales more than double.  The addition of a cutting board with cheese and sausage in 1981 certainly didn't hurt, but sales were limited by the nature of the small business.  How could Maple Ridge Farms expand from its local customers into a national market?  In 1982, we found our answer, turning to the promotional products industry.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Of course, the products we offered continued to expand.  Nuts and smoked meats were added in 1982.  When our signature English Butter Toffee joined the line in 1985, it saw the beginning of many addictions as recipients got their first taste of the sublime chocolates Maple Ridge Farms became known for.

Soon enough, Maple Ridge Farms' quality products and service began to receive attention.  It started with the awarding of the Supplier Star Award of Merit from Specialty Advertising Association International (now Promotional Products Association International) in 1986.  Since then, it or the Supplier Star Award has been won 15 times.  Maple Ridge Farms was also awarded the inaugural ASI Counselor Distributor Choice Award for the food and beverages category in 2001, an award that has been won 12 years in a row.

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The current Maple Ridge Farms building offers plenty of space for all those holiday orders.



By 1990, Maple Ridge Farms had left behind the cold storage and moved to a 20,000 square foot facility,   Eleven years later, a 25,000 square foot warehouse was built, but even that only sufficed for so long.  In 2008, Maple Ridge Farms moved to its current home, its 85,000 square feet providing plenty of room for future growth.

Naturally, new products continued to be added.  Gift baskets joined the line in 1994, and in 1995 Maple Ridge Farms became the first supplier to offer imprinted ribbon on gourmet gift towers and boxes.  Our collectible vehicles were added in 2001, leading to the creation of many collections when recipients fell in love with their unique designs and quality craftsmanship.  A new vehicle is added every year and the collection continues to be top sellers.

Today, Maple Ridge Farms employs approximately 25 people year-round.  During the busy season, that swells to nearly 350!  Many seasonal employees return each year, their years of cumulative experience smoothing the transition into the holidays and allowing us to provide you with the superior service you've come to expect.

Since the beginning, Maple Ridge Farms has strived to provide you with the exemplary products and service that our name has become synonymous with.  From our humble beginnings on Tom's kitchen table to our current distribution across the country, we have enjoyed the ride--and it's not over yet!

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