DiTomaso Farms: Bringing the heat to Pueblo for over a century
DiTomaso Farms, located at 37137 US-50 BUS, has roasted and sold chile at Downtown Pueblo’s Chile and Frijoles Festival since the festival’s inception in 1994; however COVID-19 has limited the downtown festival to a much smaller event.
“It is probably one of our main income sources throughout the year,” said Kasey Hund, manager of the family-owned DiTomaso Farms. “We sell about 2,000 bushels of chile that weekend and every year, it just keeps getting busier; but this year, we’re not sure what it will look like.”
With this year’s Chile and Frijoles Festival limited to chile roasters and farm stands, DiTomaso Farms will be hosting craft vendors and food trucks on the grounds of its farm for a socially-distanced event running simultaneously to the downtown festival on September 26 and 27.
“We’ll be at the Chile Festival too, but we are going to have our own little thing here with vendors and food trucks,” Hund said.
The sizable DiTomaso farm and fruit stand is surrounded by plenty of parking space. Shoppers traveling west along U.S. Highway 50 are greeted by a giant statue of a smiling red chili pepper wearing sunglasses, whereas shoppers traveling east may notice the large straw-colored barn with “Thomas Produce Co. and Farms” across the side.
“We have to just distance them six feet apart and have everybody wear a mask; follow all those guidelines,” Hund said. “Since it is open air, they are not as strict; but I do ask people to still follow guidelines. (Downtown) they don’t have enough room, but we have quite a bit of room for the people that are wanting to come.”
DiTomaso Farms is home to the oldest fruit stand in Colorado. Hund’s great-great-grandfather Giuseppe DiTomaso came to Pueblo from Civitanova del Sannio, Italy in 1914. The family has been farming in the area ever since, Hund said. The name of the farm was initially Americanized to Thomas Produce, but changed back to DiTomaso in the 1970s.
At its farm location, DiTomaso Farms sells a wide range of homegrown fruits, vegetables, and other food products. The farm also ships products to Pueblo grocery stores and Denver fruit stands.
While tomatoes, corn, and cantaloupes may be popular sells, DiTomaso Farms’ main cash crop is Pueblo Chile.
“Over the years, we have a lot more people from out of town that come for Pueblo Chile,” said Kasey Hund, manager of DiTomaso Farms. “I feel like as the years go on, we just keep getting busier and busier.”
The recent success of Pueblo Chile sales may be attributed to advertising campaigns by the Pueblo Chile Growers Association, of which Hund is a board member.
“(Pueblo-area farmers) started the Pueblo Chile Growers Association and we are starting to advertise more,” Hund said. “We advertise in other newspapers. We do billboards in Denver… I think since we started that association, our name has gotten out there more.”
Hund has been working full-time at DiTomaso Farms since she was 18.
“Before that I still worked here, but I was just doing school too,” Hund said. “I do everything that everybody else does. I work the counter. I roast the chile. I am not really a boss. I kind of just do everything. Everybody we have hired is family so it’s a little easier.”
DiTomaso Farms will be open seven days a week from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m until October 31.