A four-generation legacy: Silver Spring Foods celebrates 97 years the largest grower of horseradish

Published Matthew Baughman Leader-Telegram Sep 3, 2026 
EAU CLAIRE — For 97 years, the work done at Huntsinger Farms has been a family business.

“My great-grandfather, Ellis Huntsinger, started Huntsinger Farms and Silver Spring Foods in 1929,” said Silver Spring Foods President Eric Rygg.

“I’m a fourth-generation horseradish farmer, but Ellis — in the late twenties — was a door-to-door lightning rod salesman. And apparently there’s not a lot of repeat customers in that field.”

As the story goes, Rygg said Huntsinger turned to horseradish farming leading into the Great Depression. At that time, the farm also grew sweet corn, melon and strawberries.

Rygg said he does not believe his distant relatives set out to become the world’s largest grower and processor of horseradish, but that is certainly what the business has become.

“It really flourished,” he said. “This is the right soil. It’s the right climate.”

Based in Eau Claire, Silver Spring Foods is widely known as the world’s largest grower and producer of horseradish, sometimes referred to as the number one brand in the US. On average, the company processes between 7 million to 9 million pounds of horseradish each year.

Including the production of condiments, like mustards and specialty sauces, an estimated total of 100 million pounds of product are processed each year.

Huntsinger Farms hosted Wisconsin Farm Technology Days in July 2021, drawing at least 52,000 people to Eau Clare County over the three-day event, state tourism numbers showed.

Throughout the year, Rygg said their family’s business can be broken down into two primary operations: crop harvesting on Huntsinger Farms and food manufacturing at Silver Spring Foods.

Their manufacturing side started out fairly small, with Rygg describing it as essentially grinding horseradish in their own backyard. While food manufacturing efforts grew and expanded, production continued on site at the farm in Eau Claire until 2005. All the production was then moved to their 177,000-square-foot facility along Alpine Road in 2006.

“I remember walking through with the other two owners, my older brother, Ryan, and my mom, Nancy, going through that building in 2006, saying, ‘How are we ever going to fill this building?’ It looked so big, it looked like an empty airplane hangar. And now when you walk through, it is totally busting out of the seams: Production equipment and batching equipment capabilities, and really trying to not only be able to efficiently produce products that can support the supermarkets in the US, but we also do quite a bit of private label manufacturing.”

Although plenty of other Wisconsin fields are used now, Ellis Huntsinger’s farm in Eau Claire continues to be home to where many of their crops are grown.

Rygg said you cannot grow horseradish in the same field year after year without having problems, though. Their business operates on a five-to-seven-year crop rotation for horseradish, sharing with corn, soybeans, oats and alfalfa.

“These are all lessons we’ve learned, land that we’ve acquired over the last 97 years and knowledge and experience,” Rygg said.

“We still go out there and plant horseradish by hand, just pretty much the same way it’s been done for 60 years. On the harvesting side, we’ve been able to automate that a little bit more and get a little bigger equipment. Four rows at a time instead of one or two with fewer people on the harvester.”

As a locally-based business, Silver Spring Foods believes it is important that they try to weave their brand into the fabric of the community.

“What’s kind of neat about our history is we have started small and local first, out of the door, literally in Eau Claire. And then as we have had success, we’ve been able to grow,” he said.

Rygg recalled hearing a famous quote, which said something along the lines of ‘it only took me 30 years to become an overnight success.’ Over 97 years, their business has worked to adapt their operations to accommodate bigger customers while also automating production to be able to efficiently tackle distribution.

“So maybe it took us a little longer,” he said. “But as we have grown, and as the market has shifted, with different market opportunities [like] supermarkets coming on board. Instead of a farmer’s market or door-to-door model, you can then start to sell into distributors and get into supermarkets and be able to expand.

“Walmart carries our Silver Spring horseradish in 4,800 stores in the US. That’s a lot of production. And it is difficult for a small operator oftentimes to be able to meet the needs of these bigger customers. We’ve been able to invest in the safety, the production, the capacity to handle these bigger customers at this point, so I think it’s been an evolution.”

As Silver Spring Foods looks to the future, they are focused on trying to improve operation and put themselves in a good position to grow. As a family business, they can also think long-term with their investments.

Rygg said he focuses on four pillars when talking about what is important: creating a thriving workplace, solving problems for customers, getting back to the community and “making the world a tastier place.”

“So I think if we do those four things well, and we’ve continued to focus on those, we’re going to continue to be around for the next 100 years,” he said.