For the Love of the Farm: Butler Family Hazelnuts

Stacia Crocker, Granddaughter of Bud and Liz Butler. Photo courtesy of Butler Farm.

Over fifty years ago, 25-year old Bud Butler bought his hazelnut farm on the Saanich Peninsula. There, he and wife Elizabeth Anna Butler raised 6 children and over 600 hazelnut trees. Over the years, Butler Hazelnut Farm has supplied numerous restaurants and bakeries around Victoria and Saanich, as well as producing a range of their own roasted, candied, and seasoned hazelnuts for the holiday season. Today, their daughter Adele Crocker manages most of the operations, also living on the farm with her own husband and kids––who are 5th generation Peninsula children––while working as a nurse part-time.

Truly a family business, the farm is tended year-round by family and friends, who sucker the bushes every three months to force them upwards into trees (rather than growing outward into bushes). For 8 weeks each autumn, everybody works 7-10 hours per day harvesting each hazelnut by hand.

The nuts can be bought in bulk, raw or dried, as well as prepared in a number of ways such as roasted, candy coated, beer nut seasoned, or citrus. The Butler clan also makes their own Hazelnut Butter and Belgian milk/dark chocolate hazelnut bark.

Butler family hazelnuts are sold exclusively at the farm, with the exception of the Touch of Saltspring Craft Fair, held at the Panorama Recreation Centre in early December.

Phone ahead if you’re planning to drop by (they don’t use email or have a website), and ask to speak to Adele or Elizabeth.

Butler Hazelnut Farm

6140 Central Saanich Rd, Saanichton BC

(250) 652-2371