Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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So Phil hired Terence Welch, who had experience as a partner in an or-
ganic foods wholesale business, to develop his marketing strategy. Although
Terence is active inmultiple aspects of the farm, his knowledge of the organic
food market systems has really propelled the farm in recent years. Trying to
avoid the price vulnerability found in the wholesale organic markets, they
“talked about setting up a local delivery system. We started delivering di-
rectly to stores in the Bay area and Santa Cruz.” But this required a financial
commitment, too. “In order to get set up, we had to invest in a small cooler
on the ranch. We put in a seven hundred square foot cooler. Since then we
have added a couple smaller coolers to give different temperature rooms for
the different products.”They also do some packaging on the farm. “We have
a packing facility for our peppers. A small packing line. It is a packing line
that I bought used from someone ten years ago, and they probably used it for
twenty or thirty years. We have modified it a little, but for our size it works
pretty well. We also have a very nice onion grader. It is a field onion grader
where you pull it through a field. It makes our onion packing very efficient.”
They also have two refrigerated trucks, an 18-footer and a 22-footer. “During
the busy season we are delivering three days a week and we are doing our
own sales. Terence was doing it on his own, and since we have gotten busier
we have hired another person to help with sales. From essentially two or
three years ago, we have gone from something like 95 percent of what we
sold was going into the wholesale market to what is projected this year 40
percent wholesale.”
The remaining 60 percent of Phil's total sales are a complex assortment
of clients. There are smaller retail stores. (They are small health-food stores
that didn't always get good service in the wholesale distribution system.
They are happy Phil's farm can “work with them directly and give them
good service.”) Also, a retail distribution center that supplies a large natural
foods grocery store chain. And a restaurant and a caterer (they are near the
grocery stores, so it is “easy to drop off, it isn't much more time”). Plus a
couple of processing companies (his red peppers are ingredients in organic
soups, for example). And also three farmers' markets. Phil's wife is a high
school science teacher, “so she has summers off. Her involvement with the
farm has been mainly with the farmers' markets. Eight years ago, she started
doing some farmers' markets in the summer.” Now the farm sells at these
farmers' markets year-round, and this forms an important 5 percentorso
of total farm sales.
He describes some of the current trends in organic production,withmore
agribusiness interests and larger farms going organic. “There are some or-
ganic farms with several thousand acres. I know one conventional operation
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