MAKING A CONNECTION
Proposed grain hub would fill void between farms, craft breweries
Rachel Czub is combining her grass-roots love for farming, and high finance career, to create a new agribusiness that could be a major catalyst for New York’s already thriving craft beverage industry.
Plans call for a grain hub, which would purchase, process and store barley and similar crops from farms, and sell them to the breweries that need such goods to make beer and ale.
Czub recently applied for a Regional Economic Development Council grant to help fund the project’s $1.5 million first phase. When fully built out, after several years, the Old West Road site would also have its own brewery, a restaurant and event space, and employ up to 50 people.
“We’re really trying to meet the growth on both sides of the market, farmers growing grain, and the demand for craft beverage products,” said Czub, 30, a Schaghticoke native.
After graduating from Hoosick Falls High School, Czub studied applied economics and management at Cornell University before going to work for Bank of America in Houston, followed by Societe Generale, a French multinational banking and financial services company.
At the latter, she specialized in handling business start-up loans.
Czub’s inspiration comes from her father, Jim, and uncle, Robert, who run West Wind Ag, her family’s crop farm in Schaghticoke.
“After doing all these really intense financial jobs, I didn’t feel like what I was doing was really giving back,” she said. “I really felt passionate about going home and giving back to the community that have really helped me be the person that I am. Agriculture is a tough business, but it’s one of the most rewarding things when you can pull it off.”
“Some years my dad and my uncle don’t pull it off, but year after year they try harder than anyone I’ve ever met,” Czub said. “I moved back to be a part of that and help other young farmers find a path back to their roots. It can be a wildly rewarding industry to be in. We just need to find a clear path for young people to make a good living in ag. We hope through craft beverage and the grain hub, it’s just one way that people on the crop side of farming can do that.”
Last October, Czub’s family bought a 350-acre former Moreau dairy farm where she hopes to build the grain hub.
She’s obtained considerable help from Shelby Schneider, Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership’s director of business retention and expansion, who previously worked for Shmaltz Brewing Company in Clifton Park. The Prosperity Partnership is Saratoga County’s official economic development agency.
“Rachel is really filling multiple needs,” Schneider said.
“She’s engaging the agriculture industry to start growing product, which before was far too risky for them to get involved with and sell directly to the end user. She’s also engaging people to get back into farming.”
In addition, by creating a center for high-quality grain, Czub would help brewers develop the kind of beverage products they need to compete.
“With brewing and distilling, the quality of the grain creates the flavor profile of the beers,” Schneider said. “So a brewer will create a recipe based on the type of ingredients available. They’re always looking for the highest quality product.”
Under state law, New York brewers must also using an increasingly higher percentage of New York-grown grains during the next years. So the hub would provide a connection between farms and breweries, and allow farmers to focus on growing grain instead of having to deal with individual buyers.
Regional Economic Development Council awards are expected to be announced late this fall.
If funding is approved, Czub said she hopes to break ground in March and have the facility at least partially up and running next year.