The Growers

Alex and Jessica Kalitzki own and operate Goodness Acres, located in Ankeny Iowa. They both share a passion for food, flavor, and fitness, and started their food company to provide clean, fresh, delicious, and healthy food options for their community. Established in 2019, they started small back-yard garden and began selling produce at their local farmer’s market. Jessica uses her knowledge as a Certified Nutritionist paired with her culinary expertise to develop explosive flavor into all of their carefully crafted foods

“One of our favorite things about our market garden is the interactions we have with our community and getting to see all the fantastic people that come to the Farmer’s Market. We often hear how much people appreciate knowing where their food comes from, and seeing that we care as much as they do about the quality of the food that nourishes them and their families.”

HOw it started

From scratch…

In 2018, Alex and Jessica built four raised beds and started a garden in pursuit of mastering the art of growing. Four garden beds quickly became twelve when they decided to start sharing their harvests with their community.

“It all begins with the desire to know where our food comes from. Unfortunately we believe our food system is broken - We should not be confused by the ingredients in our foods. When we can’t pronounce them, it’s time to pitch them. Your body is made up of the food that you eat and the quality of that food matters. This feeling - the ability to grow, produce, and share better food with our friends, family, and community is what spurred us to dig up our backyard and try our hand at creating more nutritious, local food. Our family puts a strong emphasis on health and wellness, and we believe that all centers around a good, wholesome, and nutritious diet. We hope to continue to spread the message of healthy eating and the importance of quality nutrition!”

HOW IT’S GOING

  • DREAM IT

    We started with 4 raised beds we dug into the ground when the snow was still falling at the beginning of 2018. Lots of trial and error but we fell in love with the growing process and the joy of filling your dinner plate with food sourced from our own backyard. We quickly realized we could turn our small garden into a health food machine that would turn out nutrient dense, sustainable, delicious food to share with our community.

  • Build it.

    With everything we learned we took our product to the Uptown Ankeny Farmer’s Market in 2019. Having never been to the market as customers, we had no idea what to expect as vendors. We instantly knew that this was where we were supposed to be to get the word out about our “micro farm”. We met great people and gained loyal customers! It was a fantastic year with amazing feedback on the quality and flavor of our greens and vegetables. It’s easy to tell the difference when your vegetables are grown organically and harvested fresh and go directly to your table.

  • Grow it.

    We knew we needed to expand and were excited to move to a new, beautiful home with the perfect backyard with enough space to continue growing our business. Reestablishing a whole new garden from the ground up was well worth all the work as we already knew we wanted to continue to bring good food to our community.

  • SHARE it.

    We stand behind our table very proudly at the market every Saturday and we hope you will come up to see us. We love displaying our farm with pictures and letting people know we are literally 3 miles down the road. We value good food and believe it is important now more than ever to establish local food sources. We also value health and want people to armor themselves with clean eating and healthy, smart lifestyle choices. Food is medicine!

“When diet is wrong,medicine is of no use. when diet is correct, medicine is of no need.”

— Ayurvedic Proverb