ELWOOD, Ind. - His love for raising hogs while growing up in Indiana has blossomed into raising blue ribbon tomatoes for a major commercial brand. Galen Birky is this year’s winner of the E.A. Reichart Quality Achievement Award, the highest honor presented by Elwood-based Red Gold, Inc.

The award recognizes Birky as Red Gold’s Tomato Grower of the Year based, in part, on the volume and quality of his 2020 crop. He was also deemed one of six master growers by Red Gold, the largest privately owned tomato processor in the nation, from 42 contracted growers in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

Birky said he knew his 40-ton-per-acre crop was excellent but his selection came as a total surprise. “I was extremely happy.  Extremely happy and very honored,” he said.

Red Gold brand products like ketchup and varieties of canned tomatoes are offered in all 50 states and in more than 55 other countries.

Birky Farms raises about 200 acres of tomatoes in the northwest part of the state near Wanatah, LaCrosse and Kouts.

Last year, production at Birky Farms equaled close to 13 million cans of whole, diced, stewed and other specialty tomato products, Red Gold officials said.

The other 1,800 acres at Birky Farms are used for producing commercial corn, soybeans and seed corn.

Birky, 49, said there’s nothing in his bag of tricks for raising high quality tomatoes aside from the usual hard work, paying attention to detail and staying on top of the crop until harvest. He also crosses his fingers for cooperation from Mother Nature, the most important factor in all of farming. “There are no secrets. It’s a lot of luck,” Birky said.

Birky said he started growing tomatoes in 2001 to expand the farm and diversify the operation after given the opportunity to become a contract supplier for Red Gold. Under the Red Gold schedule, his plots are planted one week apart from each other starting in early May.

That allows harvesting when finished in one field to begin at another site where tomatoes are now ripe for picking.

Birky said a majority of his tomatoes are delivered in semi-trucks to a Red Gold plant about a three-hour drive to the south in Orestes.

Despite his relatively late start at raising tomatoes, Birky’s green thumb is not a coincidence given his bloodlines in farming date back to his ancestors in Germany. His house in Morgan Township is on a farm started by his grandfather, Lee Birky, and what’s now the home farm is on land his father, John, began acquiring to produce food in the 1960’s. His father still helps out on the farm.

Birky said he knew agriculture was in his veins practically since he was born. 

He especially liked taking care of the hogs his father raised until his focus changed strictly to row crops in the 1980s. Birky also loved running the machinery.

“When I was a kid my punishment was I couldn’t go outside and drive the tractor or work in the hog barn. I had to stay inside,” he said.

Roger Gunning, director of agriculture for Red Gold, said the E.A. Reichart Quality Achievement Award is also for professionalism, conservation and leadership in the industry.

He said Birky’s acts of leadership include representing Red Gold in Washington, D.C., traveling with company officials to California to further their understanding of the industry and being at the forefront in using new color sorting technology in his tomato harvester.

Birky has two sons and a daughter in their early 20’s.

He’s not sure about their career paths yet but his children will have the farm to fall back on if agriculture is the direction they take. “We have plans in place to make that happen,” he said. “We’ll see what their dreams are and go from there.”

E.A. Reichert was once in charge of the company, which remains in the family.

His wife, Fran, and her father, Grover Hutcherson, started the firm in 1942 by purchasing and rebuilding an old cannery building that had been destroyed by three separate fires and a tornado in Orestes.

The first canned tomatoes rolling out of the plant were for the troops here and abroad in response to the government’s request for citizens to help during World War II. “God has blessed us very much over the years and he gets credit for the crop that we had,” Birky said.