May 2024 Newsletter 1

On April 16, Edinboro Market staff and Stephanie Thauer of Raintree Farms and the Edinboro Pay-what-You-Can farmstand visited the Byler’s Relish House production facility in Saegertown to learn how they produce roughly half a million jars of pickled products per year. Employing just 12 people, they ship to 49 of 50 states in the U.S.! Byler’s is a family owned and operated business that began in 2001 in Kentucky before moving to PA in 2005. In 2021, Andrew, Stephen, and Ephraim Byler bought the business from their father, Urie. They opened a new production facility just outside of Saegertown in August 2022 where they make their small-batch pickled products and relishes as well as ‘co-packing’ products for other companies. (They make their jams and jellies in a facility in Ohio.) Co-packing is producing their products under another business’s ‘private’ label, or scaling up production for a small food entrepreneur by using that person’s original recipe and labeling to produce large quantities of their product in Byler’s facility.

The Byler philosophy focuses on small batch production using the freshest ingredients available. They source their ingredients as locally as possible– for example, in a typical season they source about 150,000 pounds of peppers from about 5-6 farms across Western PA and Ohio. They strive for a clean label, avoiding artificial preservatives and ingredients in their products. All products are low-sodium recipes, and include less than 30 mg of sodium per jar.

Typical production starts with fresh produce being washed, de-stemmed, and cut by hand. Then all of the ingredients for whatever product they are making are combined in a 250 gallon kettle and prepared according to the appropriate recipe. On average, this process yields about 120 cases a day (roughly 1,440 jars), but sometimes more depending on the product.

For example, they can make about 350 cases of pickled garlic in one day, which is about 4,200 jars!

From the kettle, each jar is hand-packed with product, filled with pickling solution and then sealed and water-bathed in another machine. Once that process is complete and the jars are cooled, they are ready for labeling, packing, and distribution! While listening to Andrew explain the process, we heard a symphony of pops from the racks where the latest batch was cooling, a sure sign that the jars were sealed tight. Thank you so much to the Byler team for showing us around your production facility, answering our questions, and creating such delicious food!

Byler’s Relish House Product Tasting

We are excited to welcome Byler’s Relish House to the Edinboro Market tomorrow for a sampling of several of their products from 11-3, Saturday, May 11th! If you haven’t tried Byler’s products, you’ve been missing out! Their pickles and jellies are bursting with flavor.

Seedling Sale: May 18 & 25

Stephanie Thauer of Raintree Farms/Conscious Food Project is partnering with Stephanie Ciner of Wild Field Urban Farm to offer our customers approximately 120 heirloom, non-GMO plants, including several varieties of heirloom and cherry tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, and ground cherries. Seedlings will arrive in the mornings of the 18th and 25th. All seedlings are $5 each. Sorry, we’re not able to offer preorders or hold plants.