🔒As family businesses seek new revenue streams, Bishop’s Orchards expands prepared-food, catering segments

For many long-established family businesses, longevity increasingly depends on finding new revenue streams that complement — and sometimes reshape — the core operation. In Guilford, Bishop’s Orchards — a multigenerational family business that operates a retail farm market, bakery, winery and seasonal pick-your-own offerings — is betting that prepared foods and catering can help it remain competitive as consumer buying habits shift and large retailers expand online food delivery. Bishop’s Orchards recently entered a five-year licensing agreement with Brendan Bloom, owner of Guilford-based catering and prepared-foods company La Cuisine. Bloom and his chef, Uli Weil, became Bishop’s employees, while Bloom retains ownership of La Cuisine, according to Sarah Bishop DellaVentura, co-CEO of Bishop’s Orchards. Bishop’s pays a licensing fee for the La Cuisine name, along with access to recipes, customer data, equipment and operational expertise. La Cuisine has deep local roots of its own. Ben and Patty Bloom founded the business in 1981 as a gourmet food store and café. Brendan Bloom later took over the company, purchasing it from his parents in 2015. Under his leadership, the business expanded its catering operations and launched La Cuisine Café and Market. The café closed in 2020 during the pandemic, but the catering business continued operating. Bloom said the partnership grew out of years of conversations with DellaVentura about combining the strengths of their respective family-connected businesses. The two first met through the University of New Haven’s Center for Family Business. “When the opportunity presented itself late last year to bring La Cuisine under the Bishop’s umbrella I knew that the time had finally come to combine our collective passion for food, farming and special events together as one,” Bloom said.

Expanding operations

For Bishop’s Orchards, the agreement is as much about defending its market position as pursuing growth. The 300-acre operation, which generates roughly $15 million in annual revenue, had already been producing prepared foods in a roughly 2,000-square-foot kitchen inside its 30,000-square-foot farm market. DellaVentura said partnering with La Cuisine provides culinary expertise, recipes and branding that can turn that segment into a more meaningful revenue source. The goal, she said, is to expand a business line that can help offset growing competition from retailers, food companies and restaurants that increasingly rely on online ordering and delivery. “There are so many ways that people can get their food these days,” she said. “Our farm market itself is surrounded by four major, big-box grocery stores.” Prepared foods, she said, build on existing operations while addressing limits inherent in traditional farm-market sales. “This allowed us to expand on the prepared-food line that we were already offering, but to put a name behind it for that extra market drive,” she said.

DellaVentura said the La Cuisine partnership could add roughly $2 million in annual revenue within two years while also expanding Bishop’s Orchards’ event-catering business. Over time, the prepared-foods segment could grow into an $8 million operation, potentially requiring a larger kitchen, additional staff and new production shifts. “I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibilities,” she said. Despite the broader industry shift toward delivery, Bishop’s Orchards will not offer online food delivery. Instead, the company wants to draw customers to its farm market. DellaVentura and her sister, Carrie Bishop Healy, represent the sixth generation of family leadership at Bishop’s Orchards, having assumed control in early 2025. Their brother, Ryan Bishop, serves as assistant farm manager. The business was founded in 1871 by Walter Goodrich Bishop.

Insuring against downturns

Diversification strategies similar to Bishop’s Orchards’ approach are common among multigenerational agricultural businesses, industry experts say. Lyman Orchards, a Middlefield-based business family-owned since 1741, has steadily expanded beyond farming into golf, baked goods, hard cider and restaurant operations as a way to balance risk across business lines, said John Lyman, executive vice president and an eighth-generation family member. Diversification also helps maintain engagement among the company’s more than 200 shareholders, he said. “We are a weather-dependent business, so some of that is a challenge, in the sense that golf and the farm all are affected by the same negative or positive weather events,” he said. “We continue to look for ways that we can mitigate some of the risks that are inherent with our businesses.” Over decades, Lyman Orchards layered in new operations, opening its first golf course in 1969, expanding its bakery business in the 1970s, launching hard cider production in 2018 and adding a restaurant — the 1741 Pub & Grill — in 2020. Lyman said the company has no immediate plans for additional diversification but continues to evaluate opportunities.

Family-owned businesses often diversify to stabilize earnings, strengthen cash flow and protect the company across generations, said Roanna Campbell, a managing director at CPA and consulting firm UHY’s Farmington office. Campbell said she is seeing more family-owned firms expand their business models through technology, particularly e-commerce platforms that allow companies to reach customers beyond their traditional markets. Broader economic pressures — including tariffs, supply-chain disruptions and shifting consumer behavior — are also forcing many family businesses to rethink revenue strategies, she said. Diversification is no longer optional for many firms. “It’s a must,” she said.