Case study · Grills Orchards
Grills Orchards
A heritage-inspired website with online ordering for Grills Orchards Country Market in Belleville, Ontario, a family orchard and farm store founded in 1916.
01 — Context
Orchard website design for a farm with a century of history
Grills Orchards is a working orchard and country market on Grills Road in Belleville, Ontario, just off Highway 401 between Belleville and Trenton. Founded in 1916 and run by the McPherson family since 1998, it grows more than fifteen varieties of apples and runs a year-round store stocked with local produce, baked goods, preserves and fresh cider, alongside seasonal attractions like pick-your-own apples and a corn maze.
The orchard wanted to grow its online presence. We took on the orchard website design and build, curated the content, and set up an e-commerce solution so customers could order ahead and pick up in store. The goal was a site that felt like the farm itself: warm, rooted and a place you want to spend an afternoon.
02 — Look and feel
Heritage style, not a museum
A farm founded in 1916 has a story worth telling, but the website still had to sell pies and corn maze tickets this weekend. We built a rustic, heritage-inspired look that stays light on its feet.
The homepage opens on a linen-textured background with an engraved, botanical-style illustration of an apple branch, and a headline set in an elegant serif with an italic accent: Cultivating your local experience. The same serif-plus-italic pairing runs through every heading on the site. Warm golden brown carries the type and the Country Market wordmark, with its apple-shaped O, while a dark wood-grain footer grounds each page.
Below the hero, the page gets practical: where the store is and what is in it, three seasonal reasons to visit, and a showcase of apple varieties with notes on flavour and best uses, from Golden Delicious to Honeycrisp and Idared.
03 — Online store
Order online, pick up in store
The country market is the heart of the business, so the store got its own page with the headline Order online & pick-up in store, today! Products sit in a clean four-column grid with square photos, serif names and price ranges: sweet and sparkling cider, fudge, honey, maple syrup, jams and jellies, apples by the bag, pies, butter tarts, date squares, apple crisp, scones and fresh bread.
Framing online orders around pickup fits how a farm market sells. It lets regulars reserve a pie before the weekend rush and brings them through the door, where they find the in-store extras highlighted at the bottom of the page.
The Experience page gives the attractions room to breathe with alternating photo and text blocks: pick your own apples, the corn maze, and school trips and community events with a Book Now button for group visits. Behind it all is an e-commerce website we built as part of our website development work.
04 — Outcome
The farm stand, open online
Grills Orchards now has one place that tells its story, shows what is in season, takes orders and books group visits, all in a look that feels true to a century-old orchard. The content we curated, from apple variety notes to the farm's history, gives visitors reasons to plan a trip rather than just check the hours.
It is a good example of storytelling through web design for a food and agriculture business. For another food brand project, see our Artisan Kettle sell sheets.
What we delivered
- 01Website designHomepage, store, experience, story, events and contact pages in a heritage style.
- 02E-commerceOnline ordering for in-store pickup across the country market's products.
- 03Website developmentResponsive build of the full site.
- 04Content curationStory, seasonal attraction and apple variety content.
