Development of Good Food Farmers Network: A replicable model of farmer-owned joint marketing and sales

Development of Good Food Farmers Network: A replicable model of farmer-owned joint marketing and sales

Summary

We are a core group of beginning and experienced farmers that are working to develop a replicable model for joint marketing and sales that expands markets and increases overall income for sustainable farm operations, particularly targeting smaller-scale operations and beginning farmers anchored by more established operations. The goal of our model is to be more profitable and accessible than traditional wholesale outlets and less time consuming for participating farmers than selling direct. Our core group includes Principal Investigator (and group facilitator) Hilary Corsun of Dog Wood Farm, Technical Advisor Steve Hadcock of Cornell Cooperative Extension, Molly Johnston-Heck formerly of Common Market Farm Share in Pennsylvania, Jen Ronsani of Lineage Farm, and Claudia Kenny of Little Seed Gardens. The core group met for four 3-hour working sessions over the summer and fall and will be gathering three more times this winter. The farmers in the group with support from Molly Johnston-Heck also interacted weekly to work through logistics, fulfill orders, etc.

Objectives/Performance Targets

We sought support from SARE to develop our model and to document and distribute information pertaining to our ownership and profit-sharing structure, operations (ordering, fulfillment, payouts, etc.), farmer agreements and product quality standards, and membership criteria, expectations and commitments.

Our core group met in April, June, July and September to develop the model and documentation. In our first two meetings, we drafted our Farmer Participation Criteria and Product Standards. We continued to tweak these documents as the season progressed. In our third meeting, we focused on formalizing a template for Farmer Participation Agreements as well as had an in depth conversation about pricing which resulted in a Product Chart which included acceptable packaging options for approximately 30 produce items with pricing information for each. Our fourth meeting began the conversation about legal structure. We reviewed various options included forming a cooperative, becoming a third-party certified B-Corp, or registering as a New York State For Benefit Corporation.

As principal investigator, Hilary Corsun presented the work of the group at the 2015 Cornell Agribusiness Strategic Marketing Conference, “Developing your Brand and Marketing Strategies to Increase Sales” in November at the FDR Presidential Library in Hyde Park, NY. Further outreach will include electronic distribution of our materials via our website and numerous agricultural email lists and electronic bulletins.

With the growing season behind us, the core group will be meeting three times in January and February to approve the various documents, finalize our legal structure and governance, and develop our plans for the 2016 season. During this time, we will be meeting with other practitioners and legal professionals, gathering feedback from customer-members via phone, and conducting in-person debrief conversations with each 2015 farmer participant. The documents we create will be included in our Final Report with a link to the website where we will be publicizing the documents and other information electronically.

Accomplishments/Milestones

Our work in 2015 built off our pilot project conducted during 2014. In 2014, we created the shared “Good Food Farmers Network” brand and www.GoodFoodFarmers.com with 6 participating farms, a single distribution site, and sixty customers. During 2015, we expanded to include 12 participating farms – seven farms for weekly or bi-weekly commitments (vegetables, dairy, beef, chicken, mushrooms, flowers) and five farms for limited time specific crops (strawberries, apples, pears, additional beef, and specialty produce for our Thanksgiving distribution).

We maintained our original distribution site and added three more sites – a restaurant, a church, and a medical college. We found each site had benefits and drawbacks. Our experiences at each are informing how we evolve our model. We ended 2015 with 115 members. We delivered more than $60,000 worth of farm products with over $50,000 paid out to the participating farms.

We also successfully launched an updated website and online ordering platform (CSAware) which was met with positive reviews from the membership. We set up two bank accounts – Exchange and Operating – whereby all sales went into the Exchange account, payments were made to farmers, and the remaining balance was shifted to the Operating account to cover expenses such as vehicle use, fuel, advertising, etc. We implemented Quickbooks to facilitate creation of weekly Purchase Orders for each farm and to track expenses.

We continue to search for a way to streamline the customer sales, order fulfillment, and farmer payout process; thus far, we have not found a cost-effective technology to link these functions. As we look to the year ahead, we are primarily focused on our marketing – our product mix, support materials, and management of our sites. We were surprised to find that for many people, five vegetables a week (our smallest share) was still too many. We are exploring the option of including prepared foods and meal boxes as weekly share options. As we work to reach a new, expanded circle of customers, we also found that providing more support materials was essential – recipes, vegetable charts, reminders of new products, and more. Another surprise was that while we emphasized farmer-customer connection by having a farmer present at every two-hour drop, we are not sure that is the best way to proceed compared to other means of distribution such as pre-boxed shares or home delivery. These are the primary marketing questions we will address in our planning sessions as we look to 2016.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

Collaborators: