bouchard family farm

The Bouchard Family Farm started as a potato farm in 1871 and still remains one of the five potato farms left in the Fort Kent area. In the early 1980's potato farming had endured some extremely hard times. It was during one of these tough years when Claire, the eldest of the 5 daughters, had returned from a trip to Louisiana with a French Acadian doughnut mix called beignets. As the family sat around enjoying the doughnuts one of them asked why no one has ever made a mix for ployes. The seed was planted and soon after, the family started working on the perfect recipe for ployes. Ployes are a French Acadian buckwheat flour pancake or crepe. The family business quickly converted their kitchen and two-car garage into a mixing and packaging facility, and in 1997, they built a 10,000 square foot building to house the whole operation.

The Bouchard Family Farm was the first original French Acadian buckwheat pancake mix farm in Northern Maine. Today, the Bouchards are in their 6th generation of family farming and credit the ployes industry to saving their business during difficult times.