Of farmland preservation, frozen foods and family dynasties

RELEASE: Nov. 14, 2008 – Volume XL, No. 46

In South Jersey, the name Seabrook brings to mind large-scale farming and our state’s nickname as the “Garden State.” The story of the Seabrook empire - from small family farm to giant agri-business once featured on the cover of Life magazine, from bitter loss of family ownership to recent buy-back – is worthy of a John Steinbeck novel. And it’s also synonymous with another New Jersey “first,” the invention of frozen vegetables.

How’s this for a dynasty? Seabrook is a family, a town, a well-known frozen food brand and an enormous farming operation that supplied vegetables for processing and freezing. For much of the 20th century, those parts were inseparable.

The Seabrook name was in the news this past week, in the best possible way. The State Agriculture Development Committee announced the largest acquisition in the 25-year history of New Jersey’s Farmland Preservation Program: nearly 1,900 acres in Mannington Township, Salem County, owned by 91-year-old Jack Seabrook and his family.

Once known as the “Spinach King” after one of the family’s best-selling products, Jack Seabrook is the youngest child of frozen vegetable pioneer C.F. Seabrook, who turned his own father’s humble farm in Cumberland County into the world’s largest farming and freezing operation. According to an article in The New Yorker by Jack’s son, John Seabrook, “C.F. was often referred to in the press as ‘the Henry Ford of agriculture.’”

In the 1950s, Jack was president of Seabrook Farms. He and his brothers brought produce grown on more than 50,000 South Jersey acres to a freezing plant in Deerfield that itself covered 23 acres! In a picture story that appeared in 1955, Life called Seabrook Farms "the biggest vegetable factory on earth." An advertisement during the company’s heyday proclaimed: “We grow our own, so we know it’s good … and we freeze it, right on the spot!”

As early as 1940, Jack Seabrook began purchasing land in Mannington. In 1959, amid a family battle for control, the frozen food company was sold. Jack moved his family to Mannington to be closer to Philadelphia, where he built a second career in international business and pursued his passion for horses and antique carriages.

I was fortunate to have visited Seabrook Farms seven years ago, during talks with Jack Seabrook about preservation. The farm’s splendid buildings and barns were filled with an extraordinary array of antique carriages and magnificent white horses.

Jack Seabrook continued to own the Mannington Township farm through his company, Salem Farms Corporation. Development pressure in the area increased and in 2006, a large developer put the land under purchase contract and proposed to build up to 3,000 homes. But the timing wasn’t good.

The real estate market crashed, the contract was allowed to expire, and the state had an unprecedented opportunity to save a piece of New Jersey’s agricultural and open space heritage.

Under the agreement announced on Nov. 12, the state will purchase development rights on 1,770 acres of Jack Seabrook’s farmland, which will be permanently deed restricted for agricultural use. Another 120 acres of land will be purchased by the state Green Acres Program and added to the Salem River Wildlife Recreation Area, where it will help protect migratory and resident bird populations and endangered species.

Fortunately, state funding was available for the Seabrook purchase. Unfortunately, future opportunities like this one may be lost, since the Garden State Preservation Trust is now depleted. No new funding mechanisms are on the horizon for land and easement purchases. The same legislators who so proudly trumpeted the Seabrook preservation must focus their attention on finding a long-term, stable funding source to continue this critical work of land preservation!

The Seabrook Farms story, compellingly told by John Seabrook in the 1995 article in The New Yorker, can be found at http://www.booknoise.net/johnseabrook/stories/self/spinach/index.html. Also check out the Seabrook Farms website at http://www.seabrookfarms.com to view historic photos of C.F. Seabrook, the Life magazine photo spread and more.

And I hope you’ll contact me at info@njconservation.org, or visit NJCF’s website at www.njconservation.org, for more information about conserving New Jersey’s precious land and natural resources.

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