City of Pittsfield

🌾 Business Spotlight: The Witty Farmer 🐄
📍 110 W. Adams Street, Pittsfield, IL 62363
🌱 Farm-to-table store · Right on the square

Feature week of September 21, 2026

This week we’re highlighting The Witty Farmer, a new farm-to-table store opening on the square in downtown Pittsfield. Owned by Jenny Sauer-Schmidgall and her husband Mark Schmidgall, the business brings Sauer Farms’ multi-generation cattle and crop operation, plus a network of neighboring small producers, into an easy self-serve store so Pike County families can eat the food grown around them.

👩‍🌾 MEET THE OWNERS

Jenny Sauer-Schmidgall is a lifelong farmer from Winchester who has been farming full-time for a decade. After the 2023 loss of her father, Hunter Sauer, she stepped fully into operator and manager of Sauer Farms.

Jenny is also the face of The Witty Farmer brand: a farmer and small-business owner who started by selling “witty wearables” to other farmers and grew it into a regional local-food company. Her line is simple and true to the farm.

🐄 THE FARM BEHIND THE STORE

Sauer Farms has raised Black Angus cattle for 65 years. The herd is pasture-raised, grass- and grain-finished, and raised without vaccines, hormones, or steroids. The family has also partnered with Jenny’s good friend, Paul “Peanut” Coleman, to offer Wangus beef, a Wagyu × Black Angus cross finished on Sauer Farms. All beef is processed locally at Jones’s Meat & Locker in Jacksonville, a relationship that goes back decades.

Jenny and Mark also grow corn, soybeans, pumpkins, cut flowers, berries, and sweet corn. The cattle are famously spoiled with bakery leftovers, and, as Jenny puts it, the occasional song and dance.

🛒 WHAT THEY OFFER

The Pittsfield store uses the same self-serve, self-checkout model that made Grab ’N’ Grow Greenhouse a success in Riggston in 2022. It is designed as a Pike County producer hub: a place to pick up real food from real farms, without the big-box middleman.

Shoppers can expect:

· Black Angus beef from Sauer Farms, pasture-raised and locally processed

· Wangus beef (Wagyu crossed with Black Angus)

· Pork from Spencer’s Pork, 3rd- and 4th-generation farmers who raise pigs outdoors on dirt, and other pork producers

· Pasture-raised chicken from Hamilton Homestead & other local producers

· Butter, cheese, and milk (milk from Rolling Lawns)

· Local honey

· Homemade breads from Loree Herring of For Goodness Baked (Winchester), no preservatives — “warm them up, they will melt in your mouth” & The Dome coffee shop

· Handmade caramels, turtles, and treats from The Caramel King (Mark Schmidgall)

· Healthy juices from Pressed Juicery

· Produce, plants, jams, and goods from additional local growers

❤️ WHAT MAKES THEM SPECIAL

The Witty Farmer exists because rural communities grow the food and too often cannot buy it locally. Jenny’s goal is straightforward: put nutrient-dense, naturally raised food back on Pike County tables, and give small farmers a storefront so they can keep farming.

That model already changed lives. Pork producer James Spencer was close to quitting before the stores opened. Selling through The Witty Farmer made it worth his time again, and he now raises more hogs than ever. The stores also hire locally, including young people from 4-H, and reinvest in community groups such as the American Legion, Winchester FFA, and the Winchester shop class. Each store donates a portion of their cash sales to a local group.

In 2026, The Witty Farmer received Illinois Department of Agriculture Local Food Infrastructure Grant support for its Riggston, Pittsfield, and Carrollton operations. Those dollars helped purchase appliances for the Pittsfield store as we work toward a hoped-for late September or early October opening.

🕐 HOURS OF OPERATION

We are hopeful for a late September or early October opening, as finishing work inside the store allows. That is our aim, not a promised date.

📞 CONTACT & LOCATION

· Address: 110 W. Adams Street, Pittsfield, IL 62363 (on the square)

· Website: www.thewittyfarmer.com

· Email: thewittyfarmer@gmail.com

· Facebook (farm): facebook.com/thewittyfarmer

· Facebook (Pittsfield): facebook.com/people/The-Witty-Farmer-Store-Pittsfield/61590920394254/

🤝 HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THEM

· Stop in on the square when they open and shop local first

· Follow along on Facebook for opening-day hours, progress photos, and weekly products

· Tell Pike County farmers and makers, especially produce and jam producers with a commercial kitchen, that the store is looking for more local goods

· Share this spotlight and invite a neighbor to come with you

· Choose food raised by families who live here

🌾 The Witty Farmer — eat local. eat fresh. right on the square.

A locally owned, women-led farm business bringing Sauer Farms and Pike County producers to downtown Pittsfield.

🚨🎸 TOMORROW IS THE NIGHT! 🎸🚨

We’ve been talking about it. We’ve been planning it. We’ve been counting down.

And now…

Music with a Mission is TOMORROW! 🙌

Here’s everything you need to know:

📅 Sunday, September 13th
📍 Lake Pittsfield
🚪 Gates open at 5:00 PM
🎵 Music begins at 5:30 PM

🎤 Gabe Howard
🎸 The Filthy Heathens
🔥 Them Dirty Roses

🌮 Taqueria Los Agaves
🍋 All Puckered UP
🧋 Cloud 9 Fizz

🎟️ Tickets are $25 at the Gate
Tickets can also be purchased on Eventbrite.com https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3rd-annual-music-with-a-mission-tickets-1995023612329

And remember—the money raised is helping us work toward a golf cart path connecting the City of Pittsfield to Lake Pittsfield and building an amphitheater. ❤️

So grab your friends. Grab your family. Bring your lawn chairs and your appetite.

Tomorrow night, we’ll see you at the lake!

🎸 Music with a Mission — September 13th.

If you haven’t gotten your ticket yet…

TODAY IS THE DAY. 🎟️