Evaluating the Viability of Farm Meal Kits for Small-Scale Farms

Commodities

Practices

In our twelve years of experience farming, we see the following challenges in small-scale agriculture and value-added production:

1. Decreased small-scale farm sales: The current marketplace for vegetable sales is becoming increasingly competitive through innovative options offered by larger grocery chains and corporations, such as HelloFresh, which don’t typically use local produce. This has led to decreased CSA shareholders and local farmers' total market revenue. Additionally, small-scale farms have difficulty competing with the ease of grocery delivery options because of time, labor, and access to equipment. 
2. Difficult to make a living in small-scale farming: Farms often lack the efficiency needed to generate sustainable revenue and provide fair wages to employees. Further, small-scale farms cannot offer full-time employment due to a lack of work during the winter. 
3. Small-scale farms have excess produce resulting in food waste: Food waste is a common problem for farmers because it is challenging to distribute produce seconds and surplus produce during peak season.
4. 4. Customers lack time to prepare meals using fresh produce: While our current customers value fresh produce, they frequently cite in year-end surveys that they need more time and knowledge to prepare meals from scratch.

Our innovative wintertime meal kit model will lead to the following solutions:

1. Meal kits for small-scale farms will offer greater convenience to its customers, expanding the market reach of small-scale farms: For this project, we will pilot an 11-week winter meal kit plan from February to April, with our farm producing a total of 50 meal kits per week. Meal kits will include fresh produce, a recipe card, and portioned ingredients to prepare the meal. We will pilot ten different meal kit recipes, track sales data for each kit, and conduct customer surveys. The pilot will help determine which kit will lead to greater sales, creating a model prioritizing customer ease and meal preferences. 
2. The meal kit model will make small-scale farms more profitable & sustainable: We expect this model to increase profitability by reducing food waste and increasing revenue in the winter season. The model will use fresh winter crops, storage crops, and crops dehydrated or preserved from peak season. We will measure the hours required to harvest the produce needed for the meal kits, time spent washing and storing the produce, the cost of packaging, how long it takes to assemble and deliver boxes. Data collected will make clear how profitable and sustainable meal kit boxes can be for a small-scale farm to determine if other farms should replicate the meal kit model. 
3. Meal kits will provide customers with food knowledge and convenience: A meal kit would include multiple vegetables grown in different seasons, some being fresh produce from winter high tunnel production and some being preserved from the summer. For example, a kit might include sun-dried cherry tomatoes, stored potatoes, and tunnel-grown arugula. Meal kits will also include step-by-step instructions on how to prepare everything in the kit along with the portioned ingredients required for the recipe. Additionally, each kit will help customers gain knowledge about how to prepare seasonal fresh produce. Further, customers will be able to purchase products from small-scale farms without the season-long commitment of a CSA or weekly visits to their farmers market, especially in the winter season when it is difficult to access local produce.
4. Farmers will gain knowledge about how to enter value-added production: This project will help small-scale farms learn how to enter the value-added marketplace. Our Cafe Coordinator will lead product development and will work with our health department to ensure the model is fully food-safe compliant. We will also test commercial vegetable processing equipment appropriate for small-scale production. As we gain knowledge, we will conduct multiple farmer workshops and field days and put information on our website so that growers can learn what it would take to enter value-added production through their own commercial kitchen or an incubator kitchen. 

This project will lead to the following objectives:

1. It will determine the profit margin of meal kits for a small-scale farm
2. It will measure the amount of excess produce that are utilized in the kits
3. It will evaluate the demand for meal kits and which particular recipe is the most popular
4. It will survey customers to determine if the kits lead to increased food preparation knowledge
5. It will increase farmers' knowledge of value-added production as we share findings with other farmers, food producers, and educators through field days, regional farm groups, presentations at small farm conferences, and social media posts