From farm to table, Farm Fusion presents the opportunity to cook using fresh ingredients while making friends.

Farm Fusion, located in Fort Collins, hosts anywhere from two to four events per week, ranging from a sourdough workshop to sushi making, depending on the time of the year. This business is run out of a barn and is managed completely by Dawn Broeder. 

“In 2016, I opened the food truck, and then I started building (Farm Fusion),” Dawn Broeder said. “I sold my food truck, and then just a month ago, I quit my corporate chef job, and so now I’m doing Farm Fusion full time.”

Dawn Broeder’s job combines the love of her two favorite things: farming and food. Next to her farm is a lake, and twice a year she offers a class called Fishy Fishy in which Dawn Broeder and her husband, Wade Broeder, catch fish and teach participants how to filet them. 

She also offers a field-to-fork class once a year in which participants bring in game they caught and cook it. Whatever is available, Dawn Broeder uses.

“That’s going to be everything about pumpkins and squash and everything in the garden,” Dawn Broeder said. “I have a lot of classes where I take people out to the garden, we pick what’s fresh and then I come up with a menu as we go.”

Dawn Broeder plans on obtaining a liquor license to try pairings to make the classes even more developed.

“Like a whiskey pairing, a wine pairing, a beer pairing — so I’m going to start doing some courses that involve different types of pairs,” Dawn Broeder said.

Each class can have a maximum of 12 participants, with the sweet spot being eight. When there are eight, each participant can have their own space while also getting attention and support from Dawn Broeder, and by the end of the night, all the learning chefs sit down and enjoy their meal together.

Community is a big part of Farm Fusion. Dawn Broeder can teach new people and work alongside her family. 

“I get to watch my dad with him while he’s ranching, and my brother-in-law is farming, and we can have two boys that live on the property as well,” Dawn Broeder said.

Although Dawn Broeder is the only one who teaches her classes and who runs the business, her husband helps behind the scenes in the gardens. 

“He does the gardening for me, even though he has a full-time job, and tonight, when my dishwasher can’t come, he does the dishwashing for me, so he’s incredible,” Dawn Broeder said.

Despite having a full-time job as a Walgreens store manager, Wade Broeder is there to help his wife. Besides gardening and dishwashing, he also helps her with collaboration and imagining where the business will go from here. 

“We were talking about what we want it to look like in the next five years,” Wade Broeder said. “I know that she probably wants to expand to where she’s hiring a staff or a team for herself.”

Dawn Broeder plans on continuing to teach the more advanced and difficult courses but is beginning the process of hiring help to teach the intermediate ones. 

Since 2016, Dawn has taken her business from a small food truck to cooking classes where people can laugh, cook and learn. She has built this business on her own, continuing to develop it.

“Dawn is a very charismatic person, and she draws people in; it’s just fun to see her grow,” Wade Broeder said. “She’s (a) very, very good chef, and I’ve seen her even get better, and she is very tenacious about figuring the best way to make something.”

While Dawn Broeder loves to connect with people in person while she teaches, Wade Broeder finds the gardening side more intriguing, the intricate process more rewarding.

“Gardening is kind of fun because it’s like an endless learning experience,” Wade Broeder said. “Each different plant is a little bit different.” 

At the beginning of the growing season, Wade Broeder woke up at 5 a.m. and stayed working in the garden until sunset, but as the season went on, the plants became more established, needing less care. 

While this will be the first year that Farm Fusion grows a full garden during the winter, the harsh conditions will not stop the company, as the Broeders plan on putting compost over the garden and incorporating a no-till strategy.

Dawn Broeder has been on this ranch since a child and has been involving the public through her courses, and she hopes Farm Fusion will continue to grow, just like the plants she tends to.

“This is the ranch I grew up on, so this is my dad’s ranch,” Dawn Broeder said. “We’ve got 1,000 acres here, and I’ve always wanted to kind of get full circle and come back here.”  

Reach Sophie Webb at life@collegian.com or on Twitter @sophgwebb.