Meet the Saelee family behind Lee's Berries Farm
Tuk Tuk Box's Hill Tribe snack box community highlight features Lee's Berries, a local berry farm located in Sacramento, CA. Not only do they sell delicious berries during the berry season, but Lee's Berries sells seasonal Southeast Asian fruits and vegetables for their local community.
Follow their farm on:
What inspired you to become a farm owner?
We’ve been running a strawberry business for over 10 years now and have had the Florin Perkins location for over 5 years. We went in the business since it was one of the few jobs that we could do with limited English. When we arrived in the US in 1990, there were already other Mien families that were going into agriculture and starting strawberry farms in Fresno and Stockton. We saw that they were fairly successful and eventually started our own.
Why did you want to highlight the food you are creating?
We wanted to highlight that we sell a variety of different types of strawberries!
Often times people would come to our stand and say, “Wow those strawberries are huge!” but what they don’t know is that they are usually a different variety of strawberries from the ones everyone is used to seeing in supermarkets. We sell Chandler strawberries, Albion, and Seascape strawberries depending on the season (spring, mid-summer, late summer). Each variety has slight differences in size, sweetness, tartness, etc.
We also wanted to highlight that we sell many other produces besides strawberries depending on the season, many of which you won’t be able to find at regular supermarkets such as fresh blueberries, blackberries, apricots, peach, heirloom tomatoes, watermelon, cantaloupe, lemon cucumbers, garlic, bitter melon, herbs, and the list goes on! Majority of which is grown at our own farm and if it wasn’t grown by us, it’s from other local farms.
What is your favorite dish? Is there a story behind it?
I love all the noodle dishes, kasoy, kapoon, kao piak! Kasoy is a complex dish but majority of the ingredients can be found at your local Asian supermarket. Every family makes the dish slightly different, but you can now find easy to follow recipes on YouTube and blogs!
What does courage mean to you?
Continuing forward even though it’s hard.
Where can we expect to see you in the next few years?
We will be continuing to provide a wide variety of different produce at our stand. We appreciate the support. Don't forget to support your local businesses!
Thank you so much the Saelee Family for sharing their stories with us! Tuk Tuk box is proud to exclusively feature Southeast Asian ingredients and include refugee, migrant, and generational stories in every box.
If you, or someone you know want to share their story with us send us an email hello@tuktukbox.com. Stay tuned for future stories and the newest products by subscribing to our email list serv.
