Rick & Marsha Gelowitz are the original owners who purchased the quarter section of farmland that makes up Solstice Berry Farm back in 1994.  Initially they started out growing hay for the export market and raising lamb.   Solstice Berry Farm was actually created a few years later in 2003 when they switched a part of their big hayfield into growing saskatoon berries.  It started by planting 5 acres that year, and then every successive year, they planted a few more acres until they reached 40 acres of saskatoons.  That’s over 40,000 bushes!

In 2007 the U-pick was opened to the public for the first time.  Over the years, as the business and berry harvest volumes increased, they modified an old cattle barn and turned it into a berry cleaning facility.  A couple years later they had a new on-farm store built and moved in.  A few years after that they bought an office trailer and converted it into a commercial kitchen to produce a variety of value-added products.  In their final years, they had grown the business to the point where they became a CFIA inspected facility and were marketing their frozen berries to most of the major grocery chains in Calgary and Alberta.

The decision to retire was not an easy one, but it was one they happily made as they determined it was the right time to “pass on the torch” to the next generation.