The Morrisons diversify to bring on the next generations 

by Mel Luymes

On a Friday or Saturday this summer, the Morrison farm east of Lucknow looks less like a farm and more like a neighbourhood party. And that is exactly what the family was hoping for.

Long tables at Grassroots Woodfired Pizza fill with neighbours, families and visitors, many of whom arrived as strangers but will leave knowing the people sitting around them. Wood-fired pizzas come out of the oven, drinks and ice cream sandwiches are served, and outside there are lawn games to play and farm animals to see.

But this pizza party has been more than a decade in the making. It started with a mud pizza oven that Roger Morrison made, perched on a four-foot stump. Roger and Vicky Morrison ran a market garden and on their weekly pickup days, they hosted a small local market for their customers and fired up the pizza oven.

That was about 20 years – and more than a hundred thousand pizzas – ago. It helped the Morrison family find a new way to diversify and bring the next generation onto the farm.

There are a few Morrisons farming in the area, straddling Highway 86 in Huron and Bruce counties. The family’s roots stretch back to the original Crown deed in 1855, and Roger and Vicky’s son, Blair, and his wife, Courtney, are now the fifth generation on the land. They farm together as a family, and Emily Morrison has continued Morrison Berries.

Roger and Vicky moved back to Roger’s home farm 40 years ago. Roger raised beef cattle and grew conventional crops as well, and when the first pizza oven fell in, he built a bigger one, this time on a snowmobile trailer. They took their pizzas to a few events and breweries.

As for Blair, he went west and did a stint out West. But he found himself missing a tether to land and community, so he came home. It wasn’t long after that he met Courtney, who had worked at Firmly Rooted Farm in the area. Originally from Waterloo, she too had been called to the land and found her way into agriculture.

When Blair and Courtney joined the farm, they ramped up the pizza business and diversified the operation to make it viable for both families. Vicky – a culinary nutritionist – remained the chef and menu creator, Roger stayed the “fire master,” and the slow-fermented sourdough pizza recipes have remained largely unchanged. But Blair and Courtney worked to open the old driveshed to host more Friday pizza nights and brought in local musicians and breweries.

People started to flock to the farm on Friday nights. The pasture out front became a parking lot, and the venture was a huge success with the local community and cottagers alike.

They have grown from there. At peak times, they have 22 people on staff. They have a garden that produces ingredients for their farm feature pizzas and a quaint area for some farm animals. They started making frozen pizzas for local supermarkets and retailers, added a farm stay space (which is booked through Airbnb every day in the summer months), built a small farm store that is open year-round, and host workshops, venue rentals and events. They love being able to bridge the rural-urban divide and host all different types of people at the farm.

The red tape of diversification
As they diversified, the Morrisons kept running up against red tape. They have gone through three frustrating zoning changes within the commercial-agricultural framework, a process they describe as “extraordinarily expensive.”

They are quick to add that both Huron-Kinloss Township and Bruce County have been helpful throughout the journey. The challenge is the complexity and cost of fitting a farm that does many different things into planning and regulatory categories.
With the most recent zoning application, they decided to think as far ahead as possible. Rather than returning for yet another change in a few years, they included virtually anything they or their children might want to do on the property in the future – a retail market, brewery, community space and other possibilities.

Insurance is another cost they can’t skimp on. Inviting thousands of people onto a working farm creates risk, and they aren't willing to jeopardize the farm because someone gets hurt.

Since the Growing Agritourism Act was introduced (see page 25), they have added a sign along their driveway to advise visitors and customers that they are entering a working farm and assuming some of that risk.

The physical layout reflects their attention to customer safety as well. The farmhouse and working barns sit on one side of the lane, while the pizzeria, farm stand and farm stay spaces are being concentrated on the other. Visitors can experience the farm without being in the way of the agricultural operation.

2026 renovation
On the final evening of the 2025 pizza season, the team served 450 pizzas in four hours. The next morning, they got to work and tore the drive shed down. After a few years under their belt, they knew the kind of space they would need to take the business to the next level.

They reused as much of the material as they could, and the result looks much like the original rustic driveshed. But inside, the space functions much better, with a heated, all-season area that can seat 30 people and a separate covered area to the side that can seat 130 people at locally built harvest tables.

One thing was not local, however. They ordered a custom wood-fired oven from Italy, designed to look like the original oven Roger built. It has tripled their pizza-making capabilities. 

They continue to take their mobile pizza trailer to cater some local events – it was booked every weekend this summer, including Music in the Fields and the tractor pull in Lucknow. They continue to source the ingredients for their pizzas as locally as possible, with meats from the Green’s Meat Market in Wingham and vegetables from Pfennings Organic Farm near New Hamburg. They also sell local products at their on-farm store, which they describe as an expansion of their own pantry.

They opened their doors both Friday and Saturday from June to the end of September in 2026, featuring local musicians every Saturday and serving local beers and cocktails. They hosted Wellness Wednesdays (Vicky is a yoga teacher too!), became a local pickup location for Starseed Acres on Tuesdays, and are considering ideas for Christmas trees and pumpkins, adding more ways for visitors to experience the farm throughout the year.

But the family is also conscious that they can’t do everything. Raising three young boys on the farm, Blair and Courtney have a lot on their plate. The Morrisons all feel blessed to be able to work together, be creative and share their happy place with others. But they also want to make sure they don’t get so busy that they stop enjoying what they are doing.

They aim to focus on their strengths: creating a welcoming experience and serving good pizza in a beautiful place. While it hasn’t always been easy, the Morrisons’ creativity and determination have demonstrated that diversification and agritourism can make room for more than new businesses on a farm – they can make room for the next generation, and a whole lot of neighbours too! See more at grassrootswoodfiredpizza.com ◊