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New Business Venture
Pharm CBD partners buy Bray’s Roadside Market in Bedford, Ky.
They built their hemp processor inside the building
By Helen E. McKinney
Contributing Writer
BEDFORD, Ky. (August 2019) – More than a century after Bray’s Roadside Market officially opened its doors in Bedford, Ky., a new legacy is about to begin. Known for its fresh fruit, homemade ice cream and friendly service, Bray’s, located at 2580 Hwy. 42, has been sold and will become Pharm Roadside Market at Bray’s.
A grand opening is planned for Aug. 11. The market will be open from 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11 a.m., inflatables for kids and refreshments. The public is invited.
In 1907, Joseph S. Bray (1887-1958) “Daddy Joe” married Carrie Terrell (1888-1985) and bought a farm two miles down Bray’s Ridge in Trimble County, Ky. Their union produced eight children. Two of them, Terrell and J.C., would continue the family businesses began by their parents.
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Photo by Don Ward
Pharm Roadside Market at Bray’s owners are pictured with former owner Jamae Bray (center). They are (from left) John Ogburn, Jonathan Turner, Evan Ogburn, Michael Yates and Chris Yates. |
About 1932, during the Great Depression, the original Bray Orchards Roadside Farmers Market was born, said Jamae Pyles, the third generation to run the business. Salvage materials were used to construct a building by the roadside costing approximately $600, a large amount of money for that time.
The original building is still standing, she said, and is the ice cream shop. It had a storefront with living quarters in the back for the Bray family.
She remembers growing up in the business. “I had a brother and cousins who grew up working on the farm.” She worked in the market and picked peaches with her older cousins.
The Brays had several peach trees on their farm, and Pyles said her grandfather “took the excess fruit and started selling it.” Their market earned a reputation for the sweet, juicy peaches.
But peaches weren’t new to the area. Pyles said the world’s largest peach orchard was once located in the Ohio River Valley between Jefferson County, Ind., and Trimble County, Ky. “Peaches have always been grown in this area, on both sides of the river. Trimble Co. has good soil for growing fruits and vegetables. It puts a good flavor into the peaches we grow.”
In 1857 Argus Dean planted 1,000 peach trees on his farm in Indiana near Marble Hill.
That crop multiplied into 125,000 trees, and his farm extended three miles along the banks of the Ohio River and across the river to Trimble County, where Bray’s Orchard was established.
In 1970 after graduating from the University of Kentucky, Pyles and her husband, Carlos, returned to her roots to continue the family business. Before they took over, her parents “were the ones that primarily ran the market for many years,” she said.
Currently, 25 to 30 different varieties of peaches are grown each year, in addition to many other fruits and vegetables, she said. Offered for sale are jams, jellies, honey, herbs, perennials, annual flowers, hanging baskets, hardy mums, trees and shrubs.
In more recent years, homemade ice cream became a favorite of all who stopped at the market. Pyles’ husband, who has since died, attended a short course on ice cream making at Penn State University.
Pyles sold Bray Orchard in June to Pharm CBD (Production Hemp Agriculture Research Management LLC.). The sale consisted of the market and several additional buildings and barns on 17.6 acres. She said she had been negotiating with them for about a year.
Pharm CBD is owned and operated by local farmer Jonathan Turner and four other local entrepreneurs – Evan and John Ogburn, and Michael and Chris Yates. Pharm CBD’s goal is to grow hemp and sell its CBD products at the market as well as build a pharmaceutical quality operation to process hemp buds into high quality CBD isolate and full spectrum oil.
“The market will stay the same as it was and sell produce. The market is pretty big,” said Turner. The main building has been partitioned off with the market on one side, with the other side dedicated to formulating the CBD oil.
CBD-based therapeutic products that will be offered for sale include body balms infused with CBD and Pure River Salve infused with CBD. The latter product is designed for certain areas of the body and can ease muscle pain.
These oils will be available through sublingual (under the tongue) tinctures, one of the most popular ways to ingest CBD. Research has suggested that CBD has the potential for treating a wide variety of conditions, most notably pain relief. It contains properties that make it useful in the treatment of acute pain (muscle pulls) and chronic conditions such as arthritis.
Oils will be available in 300 ml. to 3,000 ml. They will be THC-free and full spectrum, said Turner.
This is the first year he has grown hemp. “I’ve got 40 acres in the ground and am still planting.” Pharm CBD plans to create a new cash crop in Trimble County, teach other farmers how to grow the hemp for CBD, and be the buyer of the harvested crop to use as the raw material for their Pharm-CBD brand of products.
“CBD is known to be a miracle oil. That’s the main reason we’re doing this,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of his business partners, “Trimble County is our hometown. That’s our main focus. We want to try to bring infrastructure and money in the form of a cash crop back into the county.”
Pyles will stay on “four days a week and has agreed to help get us going,” said Turner.
Pyles said it was a deal that “worked out good for all of us. I’m going to work part-time for a few years to help them out.”
Her decision to sell was based on the fact that she had no children to carry on the business and “I’m getting older and needed to slow down a bit.”
Pyles said the thing she liked best about running the market was that she “enjoyed growing produce – good, fresh quality produce. And the people themselves. Our customers are amazing.”
The Pharm-CBD owners plan to stay open year-round and in time may possibly add a coffee shop offering breakfast sandwiches, according to John Ogburn. “We want to tap into the LG&E crowd going to and coming from work.” He said business has been good in the first two weeks since opening. The company sells its CBD oils in many retail locations throughout the region and in other states.
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