Fifer Orchards Freshens Up the Festival

If you haven’t had their apple cider doughnuts, you haven’t lived.

Mike Fennemore checks the strawberry plants whose fruit will be sold near the Firefly campgrounds.

Mike Fennemore, 36

Fifer Orchards, Camden-Wyoming
fiferorchards.com

No matter how hard he tried, Mike Fennemore simply could not keep up with demand for his Fifer Orchards’ sinfully delicious apple cider doughnuts when they debuted at Firefly’s inaugural on-site farmers market in 2013. 

- Advertisement -

“The first day we probably took 50 or 60 dozen. Well, those didn’t last long. Then the next day we brought 80 or so dozen, then 100-plus dozen the third day.” It still wasn’t enough. “We’ll just have to ramp it up this summer,” Fennemore says. 

The well-loved, family-owned farm was a Firefly presence in Year One, when it supplied crates of peaches for the festival’s army of unpaid volunteers. The festival’s parent company, Red Frog Events, had Fifer on its radar for years, first as a potential site for a Warrior Dash race. A conflicting peach festival put a damper on those plans, but the relationship paid off. Last year Fifer set up shop near the festival campgrounds and sold strawberries, blueberries and a few other fruits, since the farm’s famous peaches hadn’t quite ripened. 

Early morning crowds devoured the fruit, but nothing built an immediate cult following quite like Fifer’s freshly made doughnuts, which campers nabbed by the dozen. 

This year Fennemore is considering pre-made fruit salads, plus a few extra boxes of doughnuts. “Maybe we’ll do mini-doughnuts, too,” he says.

Our Best of Delaware Elimination Ballot is open through February 22!

Holiday flash sale ... subscribe and save 50%

Limited time offer. New subscribers only.