How a 9-year-old girl from Hampton Falls turned her backyard orchard into Them Apples

HAMPTON FALLS — Lillia James is not your average fourth-grader.

The 9-year-old is turning apples into gold with her apple-based delicacies, such as apple sauce, apple butter and apple pie, from the orchard in her father's backyard in Hampton Falls.

Them Apples is a company she started with the help of her dad, Brad James, and his girlfriend Krystin Morris. Her products can be found at Hampton’s Ginger & Clove Café, and they are selling like hotcakes among the Seacoast customers who can’t get enough of them.

The story behind Them Apples

The success story of Them Apples began about three years ago when Brad James moved into his Hampton Falls home with Morris, who likes to bake.

Located on land formerly owned by Applecrest Farm Orchards, dozens of apple trees surround the home, he said, and through an agreement, Applecrest maintains the trees and harvests most of the fruit for the farm’s use.

But there are still “tons” of apples left, Brad James said. One day he, Lillia, and Morris began thinking it would be nice to do something special with “them apples.”

“We started baking our favorite recipes,” Lillia said.

Using Morris’ family recipes, the three winners of their bake-off were the apple sauce, apple butter, and an apple pie made with the honeycrisp and McIntosh varieties.

All the fruit comes from four apple trees along Brad James’ driveway.

At first, Brad James said the bounty from Lillia’s baking efforts were shared with friends and family through word of mouth and posts on his Facebook page and social media.

Then they met Cassy Vasquez, who owns Ginger & Clove in Hampton with her sister Angelica Spinelli. It's a favorite breakfast spot of the James family. She offered to sell the apple sauce and apple butter at her place, giving them their first retail outlet.

“Sales are pretty good there,” Brad James said, “but not as good as for the apple pies.”

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Them Apples is a full-fledged business

With the success growing, Brad James incorporated the home-grown business with the state as Them Apples LLC. Lillia is the executive chef and also the vice president of sales, giving her room to grow with the company, her dad says.

Lillia runs the kitchen like a pro, her father said. She organizes the tasks, peels, cuts, and seasons the apples, and then puts together and bakes the pies in large batches. Once the pies are cooled, they are packed and frozen in James’ stand-alone freezer, which can fit about 30 pies at a time. The pies are available on a first-come-first-served basis.

The pies are flying out the door, he said, many to repeat customers, a sign of the good product line.

All this might seem like hard work for a 9-year-old, but not for this Marston School fourth-grader.

“I like it because it’s fun,” Lillia said. “I like baking the best, especially the pies.”

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She does more than Them Apples

For about three years now, in addition to Them Apples, Lillia has been using her skills on behalf of the Girl Scouts. It started when she was 7, and first joined as a Daisy Scout and was faced with selling her first boxes of Girl Scout cookies.

“There was COVID then,” Lillia said. “And we couldn’t go around from house to house.”

That’s when her mom, Monica James, suggested using social media to let people know that the much-loved annual cookie treat was still available.

“The first year, I wrote the scripts,” said Monica James, who lives in Hampton and with her former spouse shares custody of Lillia.

Seven years old at the time, Lillia took the scripts and made 30-second videos for each of the eight different types of Girl Scout cookies, telling onlookers of the difference and deliciousness of each kind.

“She sold 1,200 boxes of cookies,” Monica James said. “Now, Lillia writes all the scripts herself, makes the videos, and tells me when to post them.”

The child both parents describe as “a little shy in person,” becomes a marketing ace when she stands before the camera, they say. And her spirit doesn’t stop with her personal efforts with pies and cookies.

Lillia is also a member of the Little Warriors Division 10 cheerleading squad. The team took second place last Saturday in Concord at the New Hampshire State Cheering Championship, qualifying for the regional competition on Nov. 19, to be held at the University of New Hampshire.

In the future, Lillia dreams of dividing her time between teaching and being an author. Her message to others her age is one of encouragement: “You can do anything you put your mind to.”

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This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Them Apples: Hampton Falls NH 9-year-old's baking business success