Farmer Fred is hanging up his tractor keys.
There will be no more apple picking at the Hill Creek Farms in Gloucester County following this season, its owner, Fred Sorbello, announced. Sorbello, a third generation farmer, is retiring, and the farm will no longer be operated as a public attraction after this year.
The final U-pick season, which is open now through November, will be run by farmer Mario Caltabiano and his MC Farms staff. Hill Creek is open from Friday to Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Visitors will have their choice of apples, pears and sunflowers.
Hill Creek clarified in an August Facebook post that the farm was not being sold, and would not be developed for other use.
MC Farms will open its own farm nearby in 2026, and the two businesses will be separate. The new MC Farms location will welcome visitors and have attractions including food trucks, bounce houses and other family friendly offerings. It is unclear if that will include apple picking.
Hill Creek will offer hayrides and barrel train rides during its final apple picking season, but its market and wine garden will be closed.
The over-60 acre Hill Creek Farms in Mullica Hill, N.J. has welcomed visitors for apple and pear picking, a market, hay rides and other attractions since 2008. But in a farewell letter on the Hill Creek website, Sorbello said that local regulations had made operations untenable.
“The farm … has become so demanding during those 9-10 weekends of the Apple Harvest, it’s time to call it a career. That plus all the bureaucracy of running a fun farm market where everything you do is so damn regulated. Yes, we may have pushed it too far, but the one agency who truly has made me say ‘no more’ is the Board of Health,” Sorbello said in his letter.
According to Gloucester County Health Department spokesperson Annmarie Ruiz, Hill Creek and the Health Department have been at odds since the county determined in 2021 that Hill Creek was operating a bathroom and septic tank beyond permitted use, including allowing the public to use a bathroom near food service that was only approved for employee use.
Ruiz said that there had been numerous conversations between the parties and that violations had been issued to Hill Creek, as regulated by the state’s Department of Health. But the farm continued to operate without significant change, and the Health Department could have shut down the farm’s food service last fall, according to Ruiz.
“We stated that the facility is not permitted to reopen for 2025 season unless they upgrade their septic accordingly or remove the kitchen operation,” she said.
Hill Creek Farms and Sorbello did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Sorbello’s three children will continue to operate an international food distribution business that he and his father once ran. It is unclear if Farmer Fred will be involved with the food distribution, or if he is retiring from the food industry for good. But Sorbello wrote that farming was the venture that had mattered most to him.
“Of all my business successes, nothing measured up to farming,” Sorbello said.
“I refuse to deal with the Gloucester County Board of Heath here forward. And sadly, potentially another New Jersey farm lost. (the so-called Garden State). Thank you all again, it was fun while it lasted,” he said.