Baking is a lifelong passion and source of pride for Allison Freiborg of Sacred Heart, Minnesota. Not only does she use locally sourced beet sugar in the cakes and cookies she makes in her cottage bakery, Farm House Fresh, but she also grows sugar beets with her husband Phil on their third generation family farm.
“I grew up in Faribault, Minnesota, and did not come from an agricultural background. I still remember when Phil and I were dating and he would drive me around the fields,” said Freiborg. “When I told him I had never even heard of a sugar beet, he quickly pulled over. He walked out in the field, pulled up a beet and cut off a piece for me to taste.”
Freiborg now shares the sweet taste of real sugar with Farm House Fresh customers through custom cakes and cookies, the bakery’s most popular items.
“I use buttercream frosting versus royal icing, which is used by most custom cookie decorators,” she said. “Sugar is extremely important in baking and gives buttercream frosting the smooth texture my customers love.”
Some of Freiborg’s earliest memories are of her family’s annual tradition of making Christmas cookies at her grandmother’s house, which sparked her love of baking.
“I would help decorate the cookies. Each year I would learn more and more, until I was eventually able to roll and cut the cookies myself. That was a big day for me,” she recalled. “Grandma taught me her sour cream cutout recipe, and how to make spritz and oatmeal raisin cookies. She not only taught me how to bake, but also how to sew and so much more.”
As Freiborg grew up, so did her dream of someday owning her own baking business.
“All through middle school, high school and college, any time I had business-based project, I based it on my dream business called ‘AlliCakes Bakery.’ I was given the nickname ‘AlliCakes’ in high school when I was starting to bake as a more serious hobby,” she said. “I started taking orders for friends’ graduations, parties for teachers, and more. My original focus was on cupcakes and cakepops. Cakepops were just becoming popular when I graduated from high school, and I made over 400 cakepops for my graduation party.”
After attending Ridgewater College in Willmar, Minn., for Marketing and Sales Management, Freiborg planned to enroll at San Diego Culinary Institute.
“Life happened, however, and culinary school was out of the budget at that time. I moved back to Faribault, bought a house and baked out of my kitchen as a side job,” she said. “I was working a full-time desk job in marketing and was miserable because I am not built to sit behind a desk.”
Freiborg began looking at buildings in Faribault’s downtown area where she could potentially open a bakery. The town’s longstanding bakery had closed a few years earlier and Freiborg was interested in purchasing the building. 
“I did not buy the building because life happened again, but in the best way,” she said. “I met Phil. He was living on the family farm, and we began dating long distance. As our relationship got more serious, we decided I should move back to the area. I moved to Raymond, Minn., and began working as a preschool teaching assistant. I fell in love with teaching and began taking classes to pursue a degree in Early Childhood Education. I worked in education until our first son was born in 2018.”
The Freiborgs’ youngest son was one month old when she launched Farm House Fresh in April of 2023.
“I have been growing this home business ever since, along with helping on the farm,” she said. “We are the third generation of Freiborg Farms, where we grow corn, soybeans and sugar beets. Phil’s grandpa was one of the founding grower/members of the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative (SMBSC) and sugar beets are the ‘root’ of our operation.”
For Freiborg, the most rewarding aspect of operating both a sugar beet farm and a bakery is the sense of community.
“Everyone helps each other. Also, in my area, there are a lot of bakers, and we all support one another,” she said. “If we get an inquiry for something we don’t necessarily do, we refer customers to each other.”
When Freiborg is not filling orders, she enjoys baking with her three children: sons Cash, 6, and Case, 1, and daughter Sadie Mae, 4.
“Baking is such a great activity for kids and families. Not only is it a great way to spend quality time together, but you can teach so many things during baking, such as math, reading, confidence building and creativity,” she said.
Like baking, farming is also a family tradition for the Freiborgs.
“It’s not just a job, it’s a way of life. I love that the harvest is a family event, and we all play our part,” Freiborg said. “The kids and I enjoy delivering meals to the field, and this year Phil taught me how to drive truck and grain cart. Our kids all love the farm life and can’t wait to work this land with us someday, so we are constantly trying to improve the farm for their future.”
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