Sarah Frey
CEO, Founding Farmer of Frey Farms and Author, Appointed to Serve as an Advisor to Chair of the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture
Price range
- $35,000 - $50,000
Expert
- Adversity
- Attitude
- Business
- Business Growth
- Empowerment
- Entrepreneurism
- Female Speakers
- Inspirational
- Leadership
- Motivation
- Wellness
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About
Sarah Frey is the founder and CEO of Frey Farms, an Agribusinessheadquartered in South Florida. Sarah oversees the Frey family’s diverse operations, including land acquisition, regenerative agriculture initiatives, raw ingredient manufacturing, and a fully integrated beverage business. Spanning seven states, Frey Farms is a leading U.S. grower, shipper, and marketer of fresh fruits and vegetables and is best known as America’s largest producer of fresh watermelons and pumpkins.As a teenager, Sarah fearlessly expanded her mother’s summer produce delivery route from 12 independent grocery stores to over 150, a feat that saved her family’s struggling small farm. She defied rural poverty, running her full-time business while attending high school and college. At age 19, Sarah’s negotiation with Wal-Mart, securing fresh produce contracts, was a turning point that led to expansive growth into national retail. Her business negotiation strategies became the subject of a Harvard Business case study.Sarah’s four older brothers returned to the farm and joined her in growing the business. Today, the Frey Family proudly feeds America 200 million servings of fresh produce annually. Distributed across the U.S. from over 200 cold-chain distribution centers and 35,000 retail grocery and foodservice locations. Her entrepreneurial ventures led to the development and production of Tsamma, America’s first bottled,nationally distributed watermelon juice. Penguin Random House publishedSarah’s best-selling book, The Growing Season: How I Built a New Life and Saved an American Farm. Sarah also serves as co-executive producer of the optioned film rights to The Growing Season. In 2024, Sarah was on the short list to be considered for President Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture.Frey serves on the board of FMI, The Food Industry Association, whichadvocates for the retail grocery industry to advance a safer, healthier, and more efficient consumer food supply chain. Frey has held industry appointments by both Democratic and Republican administrations. She has been highlighted as one of the most influential women in agriculture, serving in bipartisan Ag Advisory roles for multiple members of the US Congress. Frey is the largest employer of H2A. A highly skilled and persuasive communicator, Sarah has provided congressional testimony on key issues affecting the US food supply including Ag worker and guest worker reform.Frey is an appointed Advisor of the NCAC, U.S. Representative, and HouseCommittee on Agriculture Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson’s National Agriculture Advisory Council. Sarah provides the Committee with fruit and vegetable commodity-specific expertise to inform agriculture policy and strategy on the upcoming Farm Bill.Sarah passionately advocates for better health initiatives, nutrition policies, and economic opportunities for underserved rural communities. Frey Farms proudly partners with Feeding America® and is actively working to improve the lives of those in rural poverty. They provide financial support, professional college advisory assistance, and internships to students interested in pursuing higher education in business and agriculture, demonstrating their commitment to the future of these communities.Sarah attributes her American success story to humble beginnings, hard work, and strong family bonds.
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Video Clips
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Topics
How to See Past Life’s Imperfections and Find the Good Even in Dark Times
Motivation & Inspiration:
Sarah believes that inspiration comes from all around us; people, places, and things in our daily lives that give us dreams, direction, determination, and the drive to create and accomplish not only for ourselves but also for those we love.
Leadership & Success:
Sarah says education is about learning from those who have gone before us, whether it is in the classroom, in the marketplace, or in the field. Watching, listening, and learning from the successes and failures of others schools us how to avoid the same mistakes while achieving success on our own that we might one day share with others. This too is a crop that also begins by getting dirty and planting seeds in fertile ground.
How To Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities On The Road To Success
Sarah Frey, “America’s Pumpkin Queen,” will draw on her career building one of the country’s best-known agricultural brands to share stories, strategies, and tactics for entrepreneurial success. Offering advice on everything from hiring and deal-making to leadership and operation, Frey’s career arc will inform and inspire entrepreneurs in business by showing the key decisions and ideas that have enabled her company’s growth.
One of the most successful and inspiring entrepreneurs in the produce space, Frey is also the founder of beverage lines Tsamma and Sarah’s Homegrown — both of which center on upcycling “ugly fruit” that can’t be sold in retail stores. Frey will reflect on her own experience in the beverage business, and the challenges and learning moments that she’s absorbed from that ongoing brand-building enterprise.
Few entrepreneurs can truly track their businesses from the ground up; Sarah Frey’s talk to attendees will show what it takes to survive each stage of growth, lighting that path for the audience.
Sarah teaches that a great entrepreneur is someone who makes something out of nothing. It’s been said that “obstacles are just opportunities in disguise”. It’s all about what you do with what you have …and what you don’t have. You can starve to death crying over a handful of seeds or you can put them in the ground and go to work. Until you do, you will remain hungry and poor. But, being hungry and poor is not bad — it’s good because that is your motivation to hoe the row until there’s food on your table and money in the bank.
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Testimonials
3 people have recommended this speaker
“Our sales meeting went well, and Sara was well-received. Her story is what we were looking for to bookend our sales meeting messages. Our prep time with her and Lisa and the format we used worked well.”
“The Growing Season is a remarkable story about perseverance and innovation. Sarah Frey explains how she started her fresh produce business.”
“It would have been so easy for Frey to sand off the rough edges, to buff this story into something shiny and sparkly. She refused - and I admire her for that.”