Meet Tony & Sharon Pferschy

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Tony & Sharon Pferschy a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, so we’re so thrilled to have Tony & Sharon with us today – welcome and maybe we can jump right into it with a question about one of your qualities that we most admire. How did you develop your work ethic? Where do you think you get it from?

Though Tony and Sharon make a great team at Garlic Breath Farm, and both have an immense amount of work ethic, those seeds were planted in two very different arenas.
With Tony, he grew up poor and got a first class ticket to see what life would give him unless he wanted to work hard to have more. At the age of 17, he became a dad and the following year entered the US Navy in order to create a better life for his family. The Navy also contributed to helping Tony build a strong work ethic, and to realize the importance of being able to depend on yourself, even while in a team environment. The Navy taught Tony had to ‘push through the suck’.
Sharon, on the other hand, grew up middle class, but also got to enjoy the greater things in life. Her dad worked for United Airlines so she spent much of her childhood flying around the country and seeing sites that most people could only wish to experience as adults. They lived in a modest home, and her mother was a cleaning lady for many wealthy business owners in the local area. In the summers when school was out, Sharon and her brother would sit patiently in the living rooms of the wealthy people’s homes while their mom cleaned them from top to bottom. It was Sharon’s first taste of what upper class looked like, and helped her realize what she wanted to aim for as an adult.
Both Tony and Sharon started Garlic Breath Farm in 2015, maintaining full time jobs, farming in the evening and selling their goods at Farmers Markets on the weekends. In 2019, Tony quit his full time job with the government to farm full time. Almost 10 years later, they are still going strong thanks to a strong work ethic.
There’s absolutely nothing glamorous about farming, however, it can afford you to live a financially strong, wholesome and beautiful life if you approach it intentionally.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

At Garlic Breath Farm we focus on growing certified organic garlic that is high in allicin. Allicin is the anti-bacterial, anti-microbial and anti-cancer properties in garlic. In 2015 we purchased a less than 3-acre microfarm in order to have a home that we could keep our pet pig, Kevin Bacon. Almost 10 years later we are both thriving as well as helping to coach other farm start ups so they too can make over 6-figures, if that is their goal.
Sharon has worked with countless farmers, as well as folks thinking about leaving their careers to farm full time, to help them identity if the reality of what they will need to do is in alignment with the rest of their lives. In addition, Sharon has spoken at the Illinois Specialty Crop Conference, teaching other farmers specializing in micro farms, how to get their sales to the six-figure threshold.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

The three qualities that were most important to our journey were work ethic, optimism…and more work ethic!
For folks starting out, we always like to advise that they start a farm in a location that already has most the infrastructure….unlike us who had to design, build and engineer just about everything! Though we built beautiful structures and everything was necessary and needed, it was time that could have been better spent more effectively launching the business and making a profit sooner.

Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?

We’ve never really had any external forces inspiring us, though we do have an incredible customer base that inspired us to do more. Tony is usually the one who pushes us to move past our challenges and to overcome the really hard stuff. However, in the few moments when he wants to throw his hands up because Mother Nature is being relentless, I (Sharon) am always there to catch him, and encourage him to keep moving, try again, etc.
The thing that has also helped us become successful is by maintaining a growth mindset. Rather than being overwhelmed by what we don’t know, we would instead approach our inadequacies with a curious spirit and a zest to learn. This has been powerful for us and has helped to make the journey much more enjoyable!

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Sharon Pferschy

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