Features

FEATURE: Horseradish Hotspot

Insights on the Chippewa Valley's Little-Known Creamy Cash Crop

Eric Rasmussen, photos by Hannah Hebl |

The Chippewa Valley’s national reputation is based on a few excellent products we are able to grow around here. We have Leinenkugel’s beer, for one, which enjoys quite a bit of exposure outside of our little corner of Western Wisconsin. Eau Claire incubated the first Menards before releasing it onto the rest of the country. And, of course, we are currently building some status for our current harvest of sensitive, mostly bearded, indie rockin’ gentlemen.

    Absent from the list of commodities we are known for is a piece of actual vegetable produce that, considering its history and local cultivation, really should warrant its own heading on the Valley’s Wikipedia page. The farm fields surrounding the Valley’s cities are one of only four areas in the entire country that grow this particular plant. Eau Claire is home to the world’s largest single grower and producer of this foodstuff. The plant is just about the perfect mix of traditional, kitschy, local, and spicy. Still, most locals are surprised to learn that we are a major national player in the … wait for it … horseradish industry.

    First, a little history. Horseradish is one of those supposedly magical plants that has been used as food and medicine for pretty much ever. It is probably native to Eastern Europe/Western Asia, and a whole gamut of learned ancient peoples wrote about using horseradish – Greeks, Egyptians, Atlantians, etc. Germany and Scandinavia inherited a love of the root, and this part of America inherited a lot of Germans and Scandinavians. A popular theory of the origin of the name “horseradish” even comes from the German word for the plant – meerrettich – which translated to “mare radish,” which became horseradish. One particular local European immigrant, Ellis Huntsinger, founded Huntsinger Farms and by 1929 was selling jars of horseradish for 10 cents apiece out of his wagon, firmly rooting Eau Claire’s place in the national horseradish scene (for more on Mr. Huntsinger, please see the Horseradish, I Say! sidebar).

    Huntsinger Farms still exists, just south of Eau Claire on Highway 37. Part of this farm is a natural spring on a hill, Silver Spring, and this notable natural feature lent its name to the company that facilitates all of our little-known horseradish glory, Silver Spring Foods.
Ken Traaseth, Vice President of Agricultural Operations at Silver Springs has worked at

Huntsinger Farms since he was a little kid, and he explains that while the farms used to be a little more dynamic in their output, growing melons, corn, soybeans, and potatoes, they now primarily focus on horseradish and its necessary rotation crops, including corn and soybeans. The company also operates a processing and bottling plant on Eau Claire’s west side. And even if the operations of this company are not common knowledge to most in this community, their products are a fixture of restaurant tables and brat stand counters throughout the area: those squat little bottles of Sliver Spring mustard in all the delectable flavors, including their best seller, Beer and Brat Mustard, according to company president Mike Walsh.



    Again, Silver Springs is the largest grower and producer of horseradish in the world, and their company is an impressive one, earning them the Chippewa Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Business of the Year award for 2010. It all starts in the fields, where 9,000 acres around Eau Claire and Mondovi and a plot up in northern Minnesota, are farmed for horseradish. Once the roots are plucked from the ground, they are processed at the Huntsinger Farm site, where employees (many of whom have also been working for the company for decades) sort out the delectable roots from the underdeveloped “sets,” or offshoots, some of which are kept to grow more horseradish. The roots are then washed and stored, always at very cool temperatures, because, according to Walsh, as soon as the plant heats up, it starts to lose its spiciness. The warehouses at Huntsinger Farms are frigid, dark, and hold mountains, literally tons, of horseradish.

The process then picks up over on the west side of town at the Silver Springs plant. This place is also enormous, and it qualifies as a real, honest-to-goodness factory, like you see on TV (in fact, Silver Springs has been featured on shows like Discovery Channel’s How It’s Made). Ingredients, including the ground-up horseradish that was just trucked over from the farm, are mixed in huge stainless steel vats, piped throughout the factory, and squirted into bottles traveling down a line faster than you can see. Huge pallets of mustards and sauces are stacked dozens of feet in the air, while forklifts flit about, retrieving the necessary condiments.

In addition to creating its own label products (Silver Spring and Bookbinder are the two house brands), Silver Spring is building a national reputation as a producer for other company’s products, according to Pat Lehman, VP of Manufacturing Operations. For example, Silver Spring makes quite a few of Kikkoman’s products. And just maybe at some point in your life you’ve enjoyed a scrumptious bowl (or Frisbee, or whatever) of Ramen noodles. There is a good chance that little foil chicken-esque sodium bomb packet of flavoring was made right here in Eau Claire.

As Lehman explained, Silver Spring’s outstanding quality and cleanliness record, coupled with its willingness to produce small runs of a product (like, say, bottles of one particular restaurant’s special sauce for you to purchase), have allowed the company to actually grow during this most recent economic downturn. Not only is business on the homestead looking good, Silver Springs recently purchased the Kelschner brand out of Philadelphia, allowing them to break into the competitive east coast cocktail sauce market.


Just to recap … The Chippewa Valley is one of only four areas in the country growing this crop (and some would say the roots from Wisconsin and Minnesota are much hotter and tastier than those from Illinois or California), it has traditional and Midwestern cultural appeal, and we are home to the single largest grower/producer. So why again are there no horseradish plants on our city crests? Why doesn’t our collective breath constantly smell of what should be a source of local agricultural pride? Well, there are certain biological traits of the plant that are not very sexy.

For one, it is a root, and a fairly ugly one. Plus, as company president Mike Walsh explains, it is essentially a weed; Walsh states that they frequently get phone calls from gardeners who have tried growing some of their own, looking for advice on how to kill it. Second, it is a traditional food that has not yet achieved a retro appeal, somewhere between sauerkraut and lutefisk on the old world food scale. According to Walsh, the brunt of their straight horseradish sales (creamy or ground) occur around the holidays for the prime rib Christmas dinner. And finally, Silver Spring itself has not done a ton of marketing around the area – their advertising has always been relatively low-key, and they have not participated in the self-promotion like we see from Leinenkugels, for example.

Fortunately for the Chippewa Valley, Silver Springs, and lovers of the nose-wrenching zing of a good bite of horseradish, all of this is about to change. According to Walsh, they are putting more intentional energy into their PR – “We’re making a very conscious effort to be more visible, to be a good citizen in the community.” The Chamber of Commerce award was a great start, and Silver Springs already is becoming more involved with area schools and beyond.

As for the limited traditional appeal of the food, progress is being made there, too. Silver Spring’s website features tons of recipes for everything from potato salad to meatballs, all featuring horseradish. Plus, horseradish is piggybacking its way to trendiness on other products. Most people do not realize that wasabi is actually just horseradish. According to Lehman, actual wasabi is a very temperamental crop that is grown on only a few dozen acres in Japan. All of the wasabi you have ever enjoyed is simply American horseradish with a little wasabi powder. And while there’s nothing to be done about the attractiveness of the plant, a little marketing can go a long way.

So, the Chippewa Valley’s relationship with horseradish is really at a turning point. The conditions are ripe for a spicy zing of pride for this plant – it’s local, it has the history, it has the support of an outstanding local business, and the current foodie trend certainly values unique and creative ingredients (Silver Springs even produces organic horseradish). The Chippewa Valley no doubt has much to be proud of it already, but in between the river history and the jazz music, there is definitely room to slather on some horseradish and wait for that wonderfully spicy nasal twinge.