The Kreg and Lee-Anne Alde family. Photo courtesy Broken Tine Orchard Facebook.

By Erika Rolling

Agriculture

Alde Family being honoured as County of Grande Prairie’s Farm Family of the Year at Ag-Show Friday

Mar 7, 2025 | 12:00 PM

A local fourth-generation farm will be honoured Friday evening with a banquet at the Peace Country Classic Agri-Show at Evergreen Park.

Kreg Alde of Broken Tine Orchard says getting the County of Grande Prairie’s 2025 Farm Family of the Year, isn’t just an award for him, but also for his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

“It really means a lot for the legacy of Alde Farms, being here since 1927.”

“They’re a big part of the operation, without my mom and dad there would be no Broken Tine Orchard or Alde Farms carrying on. Any succession is key to having that family support and being able to carry on that legacy.”

Kreg and his wife Lee-Anne run the Alde Farm operations now, but it all started nearly 100 years ago with his great-grandparents, William and Alice Alde, with a livestock and wheat operation out near Elmworth.

The farm was handed down to Hugh and Ilene Alde, preserving and maintaining the farm. Kreg’s parents, Wayne and Colleen, grew the operations to include hogs, acquired more farmland, expanded crop production, and made great farming practices.

Since Kreg and Lee-Anne took over, alongside their two children, they’ve added more to the farm’s legacy through 20,000 haskap berries plants and facilities to produce wine, mead, and their coveted frozen ice cream treat; Fricey’s Prairie Fruit Pops.

Kreg says although he and his family have made sizeable differences in the operations, his dad Wayne has seen the most change over the years.

“We always joke that my dad had the longest resume of any farmer I know. He’s gone from clearing land, picking rocks and roots, cleaning and packing grain into the old seed drills by hand, then into hogs, more crop production, and then us obviously bringing in the berries.”

Wayne still actively helps out on the farm, Kreg says, but he notes it’s also been a big change for himself.

“To go from conventional farming, to now a farm-direct marketing approach, and being more involved in the food world, your customer is sometimes right beside you. So it’s been a really unique approach and learning curve.”

Fricey’s Prairie Fruit Pops were born out of desperation, says Kreg.

The idea came from wanting a food product that was family-friendly and made locally with Alberta-grown ingredients. Their berries were already, and still are, being used in Foothills Creamery Prairie Berry Ice Cream, as well as McKay’s Ice Cream and Village Ice Cream based in southern Alberta.

The chilled sweet treats most recently won the Fields to Forks 2024 Top Dairy Product in Alberta. Their wines have also won multiple awards over the years.

Kreg says the honour of being the County of Grande Prairie’s Farm Family is a big one, and means a lot for the generations before him as well. He hopes the farm continues on to be a fifth-generation operation and continues the legacy that’s been passed on for nearly a century.