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 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 Principal Investigator and group facilitator is Hilary Corsun of Dog Wood Farm and our Technical Advisor is Steve Hadcock of Cornell Cooperative Extension. Participating farmers in 2016 included Hilary Corsun and Sara Querbes of Dog Wood Farm and Rock City Mushrooms, Claudia Kenny and Willy Denner of Little Seed Gardens, Jen and Jon Ronsani of Lineage Farm, Faith Gilbert and Nickhi Carangelo of Letterbox Farm, Maggie Cheney and Angela DeFelice of Rock Steady Farm and Flowers, and Dan McManus and Tess Parker of Common Hands Farm. Seven other farms served as additional suppliers throughout the course of the season but were not active participants in the development of the network. Molly Johnston-Heck had to step back in 2016; Sara Querbes stepped in to take on greater responsibilities, assisting with administrative work and other functions.

Objectives/Performance Targets

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

In 2015, our group met for several working sessions and drafted numerous documents that laid a foundation for our work in 2016. These documents included Farmer Participation Criteria, Farmer Participation Agreements, Product Standards, and a Product Pricing and Packing Chart.

We sought an extension for our grant to continue through 2016 in order to gain an additional season of experience working as a network, further considering and modifying the model, and implementing our various draft documents. Hilary Corsun, Principal Investigator, communicated regularly with participating farmers and the core group met in October 2016 to debrief the season and consider next steps.

Hilary Corsun will be discussing the goals and challenges associated with joint marketing and sales as part of a young farmers workshop sponsored by Cornell Cooperative Extension in February 2017. Through project information posted on the SARE website, we were also contacted by another group interested in pursuing a similar joint distribution model. Hilary Corsun will be following up with that group in January 2017. A final overview and analysis of the project and related documents will be submitted in our final report and distributed via various farming groups as well as posted in a For Farmers section of the Good Food Farmers Network website (www.GoodFoodFarmers.com). 

Accomplishments/Milestones

In 2016, after a winter review of the previous season, we chose to modify our offerings and ordering system in an effort to make Good Food Farmers Network more flexible for customers, and to focus our efforts on two sites, instead of four, to better test, and be able to adjust, the new system. We ended 2016 with 55 members, half the membership from 2015, yet maintained our gross sales of $60,000 worth of farm products and paid out over $45,000 to participating farms. Our year-end customer reviews of the season were very positive with nearly all respondents indicating that they intend to join in 2017 and would encourage others to join as well.

The changes we made in 2016 were based on our 2015 experience as well as a visit to a similar organization in Berlin, Vermont. In February 2016, Hilary Corsun and Sara Querbes visited Farmers To You, met with founder/director Greg Georgaklis, and experienced the operation firsthand, including workflow, packing, loading, etc. On the mid-winter day when we visited, Farmers To You was preparing to deliver approximately seven hundred pre-packed, customized orders to families in the Boston, MA area. It was a very helpful and informative visit.

In 2016, we added the ability for customers to fully customize their orders each week and expanded the product offering to include more value added foods. We also implemented a $45 weekly order minimum and all bags were pre-packed at the farm in reusable bags prior to delivery.

Each week, we set a default bag valued at $45 based on product availability from network farms. Approximately 50% of customers chose to customize their bag by logging onto the website and modifying the contents of their bag. The remaining 50% of customers chose not to customize, with many remarking that they were satisfied with the mix of default items we chose to include. The default bag typically included five or six types of vegetables, herbs, or fruit, one dozen eggs, and one additional value added item such as cheese, fermented foods, flowers, organic nuts, etc. Grassfed and pasture raised meats were also available. All items were sourced from local farms and food enterprises and were certified organic or utilized organic practices but are not certified. Approximately two-thirds of farmer payouts were made to small-scale, beginning farmers. A differentiating and challenging component of our effort is our emphasis on supporting small-scale farms whose product availability tends to vary from week to week and whose costs of production tend to be higher.

We also implemented a Home Delivery option with approximately 20% of customers utilizing the service each week. In addition, at one of our sites, we delivered the bags to a commercial fridge where members could pickup their bag at anytime. At our other site, we reduced the pickup window to a single hour in the middle of the day from the two and half hours it had been previously. We were successful in our effort to streamline the weekly delivery process though we will continue to modify this process to realize further efficiencies and improve customer experience. 

The flexible and streamlined online ordering platform was very well received by customers. In addition, all participating farms felt that the network provided good prices and a meaningful outlet that was notably farmer-friendly. Overhead costs such as insurance, reusable bags, time to pack bags, etc. were, however, too high for the scale of the operation, even after the group raised the average network margin to thirty percent. Some products did not meet the margin and the question remains – was the price too low, the production costs more than the market can bear, or are certain “loss leaders” acceptable? We will be tackling these questions, among others, this winter.

As we look to 2017, with a well received ordering platform now in place, the question of marketing is our primary focus. Eighty weekly customers, which requires approximately one hundred active customers in the system, maximizes current van capacity for a single delivery day and is the bare minimum necessary for the model to function sustainably. Additional growth will be achieved by adding additional delivery days or using a larger van. The group will be utilizing various strategies including referral programs, presentations, social media, etc. for reaching the target numbers this winter. Those targets will need to be met by April for the project to be financially viable. The upcoming final report will outline and provide analysis for all findings of the work thus far and will include the documents created and implemented to date.

One of the challenges that we continue to face is lack of a robust, cost effective, and integrated technology that can handle customer sales and online experience, order fulfillment, and farmer payout processes. Many of these functions remain manual which is inefficient and increases the risk of human error. In addition, the ordering platform itself, while much improved still lacks the level of quality, functionality, and professionalism that we seek in the long run. We continue to explore technology options as new platforms become available.

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