Farm History
The Juten family farm, established in 1904, began when Sven Juten homesteaded 44 acres along Eagle Lake in northeast Minnesota. He passed the land to his son, Axel, who started raising cattle, hogs, and growing potatoes to sell locally. In 1925, Axel expanded the operation by adding a dairy herd. In 1943, Axel shifted to working at a commission company and began hauling food waste for Jeno Paulucci, which he fed to the hogs, marking the start of a successful hog and cattle business.
In 1970, Axel’s sons, Don and Fran, took over the farm and incorporated it as Cedar Drive Stock Farm. They continued growing the operation by feeding hogs pizza crusts from Jeno’s Pizza. By 1982, when Jeno’s moved out of Duluth, the Jutens ended their hog operation but maintained a diverse agricultural business, including timber, gravel, and livestock. In 2009, Don’s sons, Jay and Gary, took control of the farm.
Today
The current farm has 1,430 acres, 165 beef cows and 140 calves. The family harvests 350 acres of hay for the livestock. The Jutens continue to develop watering systems and improved fencing for continued growth of their herd.
In 2020, an acre of land was set aside to grow hops. This operation was headed up by Chris Juten and Adam Campbell. With lots of family help during harvest, in 2021, the farm partnered with Castle Danger to create a fresh hop IPA called, Full Circle IPA. Tim Juten regularly hauls away the brewery’s spent grain which we give our cows, thus the name “Full Circle IPA” was derived.
In 2022, Duluth Farming Company LLC was formed to be the marketing division of the farm. It was created in a partnership between Chris, Naomi, Ali, and Nick Juten. The idea was to shift the farming model from being strictly a cow/calf operation, to taking it a step further and feeding out our cattle to sell direct to consumers. The name was chosen as a way to grow our farm and market our beef, honey and others products in the future.
Though we have only named a few family members here, the entire family has helped the farm in one way or another over the years. Through generations of time and hard work, our family has remained close and connected, and ultimately, is the foundation and reason the farm has remained in existence over the last 120 years.