You’d be hard-pressed to find a more interesting 94-year-old gentleman than Merlin Hoiness, founder of the first lefse factory in Minnesota and quite possibly North America. Within the first few minutes of my visit, I knew I would get an earful. What I didn’t expect was the magnitude of his innovation and resourcefulness.

From an early age, Merlin learned the meaning of hard work. By the age of 10, he spent his Saturdays delivering groceries in his little red wagon to folks in his hometown of Harmony, Minnesota, for a whopping 25 cents a day. He also shared responsibilities with his 10 siblings at the family-owned creamery, making butter for 20 years before he purchased the local grocery store where he had worked as a boy, and another in Rushford.

During the holidays there was always high demand for Norwegian lefse, and Merlin bought all the homemade lefse he could find from the Scandinavian women in the area to sell in his two stores. Knowing this was not a long-term solution in light of the regulatory food sale requirements, Merlin hired one of the ladies full-time during the busy season to help him and his wife, Zola, make lefse in the back of the store. When that was still not enough to meet the demands of the two communities and the growing appetite in other locations, he moved to a larger facility and employed 18 full-time lefse makers. 

At age 65, Merlin turned over the grocery stores to his son, Jim, and began focusing on his booming lefse business. He distributed and demonstrated the product in 169 stores throughout the Midwest, and eventually expanded the business through a mail-order campaign. The bulk of his sales were made during the holidays, however, so he pushed the product heavily at stores, fairs and festivals during the summer months, devising many non-traditional ways of serving lefse—most of which are contained in his book, "91 Ways to Serve Lefse."

After some time, a Rushford partnership purchased the Harmony lefse business, but moved it to Rushford when the City offered to provide a building with minimal owner investment. The business later reverted back to the Hoinesses, and Jim operated it until 1997, when it was purchased by the current owners, Mark Johnson and his brother-in-law, Scott James.

Family Owned & Operated

It was successfully managed by Mark’s mother until her death, and has since been operated by Mark, Scott, and other family members who have taken the business into the 21st Century, with product distribution throughout the world...all for the love of LEFSE!

Stay tuned next month for the story of the development of the automated lefse rolling machine, invented in SE Minnesota and used exclusively at Norsland Lefse in Rushford!