Wenninghoff Farm owners fight off rumors of closing

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Word of mouth and social media are fueling rumors that a long-time family-owned business in Omaha has shut down.

The owners of Wenninghoff’s Farm say those rumors have slowed business at their indoor farmers market. The rumors may have started because people misunderstood a business deal.

Wenninghoff’s Indoor Farmers Market is open and has been for decades. But the family is doing its own marketing customer-by-customer to fight off rumors that they’re retired and out of business.

“So this is our 66th year here,” Amy Wenninghoff said. “So glad you found us, now if you can do me a favor tell somebody we’re here.”

The rumors started after the sale of some property the Wenninghoffs didn’t even own.

“We had rented it for five years and so the owners sold it, so all the neighbors got something from the planning department about a meeting changing the zoning to put in houses and apartments.”

They say they had nothing to do with the sale of the land right across the street from their business, or the future development. But somehow word got around that the Wenninghoffs were done.

“Every week at church customers coming in ‘oh we heard you were closed.’ At church people are coming up to my husband and saying ‘oh what are you doing in your retirement,’ my own sister-in-law asked him ‘oh I heard you sold out what are you going to do?’”

Then social media kicked in. More people now reading the rumor, but you can see Wenninghoffs is open and stocked with produce.

“A lot of our customers are just faithful customers, they don’t follow our Facebook, they don’t follow us on social media, they know we’re open. They know we’re going to die here, we are never quitting.”

Luke Tonkinson lives close to the farm, he’s happy the rumors of Wenninghoffs closing are not true.

“That would be heartbreaking to see them if they were to shut down, but it sounds like they’re going to stick around, so that’s awesome news,” Tonkinson said.

Amy Wenninghoff says they will stick around, but there will come a day when they do retire. But when they do, the Wenninghoff name will remain on the big barn.

“We have a 28-year-old son who’s taking over, it’s not his yet. At some point when we do decide to end, maybe in five years, maybe in ten years, we will go as long as we can. The sucession is in place so somebody will be running the farm.”

“Wenninghoff will be here at least for the next 50 years.”

Amy says the family has hired someone to keep an eye on their website to make sure the information is correct.

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