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00:00:01
A Booming Berry Business - Angelica of Hayton Farms Berries
155 Plays4 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast, we're delighted to welcome back Angelica Hayton of Hayton Farms Berries. As a fifth-generation family Farmer, she has built out her business selling direct and developed a strong Farm brand across the Western Washington region. Listen as Angelica shares her experience, struggles, and success with selling direct from the last year.
Show Notes:
https://www.haytonfarmsberries.com/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Farm Success Levers
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the weekly listen for farm selling direct. We'll talk about the four levers for farm success, which are quality, brand, price, and convenience. We'll hear from outside industry experts and producers like you to delight your customers, save time, and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast. I'm Rory, your host.
Guest Introduction: Angelica Hayden
00:00:30
Speaker
We've got a great conversation for you today with one of our farm advisors, Angelica Hayden of Hayden Farms Berries. Welcome, Angelica. It's great to have you back for another interview after about a year.
History of Hayden Farms
00:00:40
Speaker
Before we get too far into things, could you maybe tell us a little bit about your farm and its history in Western Washington?
00:00:45
Speaker
Yeah, my name is Angelica with Aiten Farms Berries. I'm the fifth generation in my family farm. My dad is also still farming. We're located in the Skagit Valley on Fur Island, which is near Mount Vernon in Conway. I grew up on my parents farm. I always knew that's what I wanted to do. I specialize in growing different types of organic berries. So our main ones are the organic berries and transitional berries certified transitional by the USDA.
00:01:15
Speaker
It means that it's being grown organically for over 12 months but under 36 months. So for us, if we're selling something at a farmer's market as certified transitional, it just means it's like a project for us that we've had in for over a year.
00:01:32
Speaker
inspected by the WSCA and it's on its way to being certified organic. And then a lot of our older projects are already certified organic. We have a lot of different varieties of strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry.
Farming Activities and COVID Adaptations
00:01:47
Speaker
And we plant a lot of different varieties of every type of berry to try and extend our season so we can start berries mid to end of May. And then depending on the weather, we can
00:01:58
Speaker
harvest and sell fresh fruit, sometimes even to like half a weed. That's our main business, like our core business. We also raise beef, lamb and chickens for eggs, which we've raised those things for a while, but more like for personal use or just selling
00:02:17
Speaker
custom to clients that would want to buy a quarter of an hour. This past winter, due to like last year's markets not being that great because of COVID, last year was the first year we tried doing year-round markets and doing mainly just U-District and Ballard. So one Saturday market, one Sunday market. So we made it all year round, which was fun. We had a good time. It went well considering it was a COVID year, weird time to start winter markets.
00:02:45
Speaker
But it went really well, but that spring of 2020, when we started thinking we were going to want to do year round markets, we got more chickens. And so now we have like 130 chickens, which doesn't produce.
00:03:01
Speaker
that many eggs but it was it's enough to like just to go to one Saturday one Sunday market give us like another variety to add to our table and very popular people like the egg so it does help bring people to the table we it was our first year
00:03:16
Speaker
freezing berries. I bought like a shipping container freezer like five years ago. This idea of wanting to do your own markets for a really long time, but never actually doing it. And so then once again, with COVID last year and sales and shopper counts being down at farmer's markets, it was kind of the little push they needed.
00:03:36
Speaker
to get this freezer hooked up and working and try the year-round market. I could tell it wasn't going to be the best sales year. And so having an income just stop when fresh berries did as it had in the past, I was like, oh yeah, okay, we need to get something else going for the year-round market.
00:03:55
Speaker
It all worked out really well this year. We've been freezing like as the season went along. We have frozen raspberry strawberries, blueberries, blackberries. So when the fresh berries start and we continue at the markets, we'll have a little bit more variety, which will help.
Marketing and Consumer Education
00:04:12
Speaker
And we're also going to have some lamb this fall and winter. And so.
00:04:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's been fun to not just disappear at the farmer's markets for half the year. It's kind of nice that we can kind of maintain a present. People won't just forget about us. I mean, that's a lot of different products. It's great to hear how you guys are diversifying that and in doing so extending the season in which you can bring in revenue. I'm kind of curious. I think organic is a term that a lot of shoppers and buyers are pretty familiar with at this point, but you also mentioned like transitional
00:04:43
Speaker
berries or grass fed beef and lamb, your eggs are free range. Could you maybe talk about how you kind of go about explaining or marketing to buyers the benefits of those practices that you guys are doing because they definitely separate your products from stuff you can find at the store. But I think sometimes there's a disconnect between buyers and the farmer in terms of buyers realizing what the benefit of that in their food is. So how have you guys kind of gone about messaging that to customers?
00:05:08
Speaker
I'd say a lot of people at the farmers market definitely know what organic is and they want that. A lot of people
00:05:17
Speaker
think that if you're certified organic, they'll say, oh, you're organic, no spray. And I'm like, well, we still spray, but just different sprays than someone that's growing conventionally. There are a lot of approved sprays and fertilizers that you can use and people do with certified organic operations. But people, I think, especially with berries are, do really want certified organic or transitional. They're
00:05:45
Speaker
known for being on like the dirty dozen or produce that you should seek out organics. So people are always really happy when they see that. I'd say when we first started having certified transitional products, people were really confused by what that meant. But I feel like for the years, more and more people kind of know what it is. But like I said, for people that don't know what it is, it just means it's being grown organic. It's been over 12 months
00:06:12
Speaker
but under 36 months because it takes in Washington three years to get it. And then as far as our other products go, our cows are all out on a large pasture at my house where I live. We make our own hay so then in the winter we'll supplement with hay and the like round bales like haylage they're like wrapped in
00:06:32
Speaker
a plastic in it for months. And so yeah, the cows that we raise are very happy, have a very good life. And yeah, and then our sheep are out in the same pasture as out there. And also just get the hay that we make ourselves. And our chickens have a really big pasture to roam around in. And yeah, I think
00:06:56
Speaker
People at the farmer's markets, yeah, it's important to them to know where their food's coming from. As far as the animals and the chickens and the eggs, same thing. They want to know that it's coming from a farm that's treating the animals good and care about the environment.
Post-COVID Recovery and Sales Strategies
00:07:13
Speaker
So it's been about a year since you were on the podcast. Could you maybe talk about how the last year has been for your farm and maybe some of the challenges that you guys have faced, but also how you've dealt with those and maybe some areas of growth?
00:07:25
Speaker
Yeah. So in the last year, I mean, farmers markets this season have definitely gone a lot better for us than last year in 2020. You know, it seemed like a lot of people had been vaccinated and the shopper counts were way up at the farmer's market. Sales were way up even before July 1st, but it seemed like it was good timing for, uh, kind of even our busier part of our season starting. I felt like everyone was so excited to get out and about and either the farmer's markets are such a safe place, especially because they're outside.
00:07:55
Speaker
versus being like an indoor grocery store. Yeah, I mean things have been way better than last summer and just overall even comparing it to 2019. Sales seems like shopper count and everything did better. You know last year I was scrambling in the spring to have an online presence and do
00:08:13
Speaker
pre-orders and deliveries and luckily down the barn to the door and was trying to get it set up over the next few weeks during my busy season and kind of trying to learn it and figure it all out which I did and it was great last year when we really needed it but it was really fun to start this year having everything already set up and in place. There's definitely things like new things I still want to learn but it was
00:08:40
Speaker
Because yeah, awesome. Just having the online store already set up. People were less scared to like leave their house and come to the markets. People loved being able to pre-order because maybe we don't have a lot of a certain product, a certain berry. And people loved that they could pre-order. And even if they're not going to get to the market right when it opens, they know we're going to set it aside. Before I was hooked up with you guys at Barnadore, the logistics of that were just impossible for me.
00:09:09
Speaker
Same thing with the delivery route, which yes, I started a little bit later in the season last year and it was a huge hit and I loved it. Customers really liked being able to do the subscriptions. We do a mixed very high flat, high description. So we got that going. It was fun to have that all set up right away. We do like two delivery days a week, Tuesday and Friday, which are nice because they're slower market days for us. And so.
00:09:35
Speaker
It consistently, like all seasons have been full. Like a lot of times on Tuesdays and Fridays, I actually have to send two trucks because there's so many stops and it's been really great. And I would say all the restaurants that are doing more like larger orders and cafes, bakeries, everyone really likes the site and it's easy to use for them too. I was kind of worried that long-term customers that were used to just like texting me or emailing me
00:10:02
Speaker
And then I'd invoice them. I was trying to get everyone streamlined onto using Barnadore because then I don't have to worry about organizing if I've received payment on things and making up an invoice for someone. It's just like automatic and it keeps everything organized, but everyone loves it. And it was like, it was very easy to use for all these different like small businesses, cafes, restaurants, and homeowners.
00:10:26
Speaker
It definitely just streamlined everything for me. I think now I have everyone using it, which is so nice not to have to be worried about, Oh, did I forget about a text message order or someone that found me an Instagram and wanted to put on an order. Anytime someone like reaches out to me, I can just be like, Oh,
00:10:43
Speaker
Here's the link to the store. Like we deliver Tuesday, Friday. And so that has helped me just stay more organized and it takes a lot of things off of my plate. It's like a huge elite and yeah, it was fun to just start the season with that all in place. Definitely recommend it.
00:10:59
Speaker
So you talked about how many farmers markets you guys attended. It's just about 50, I believe. Is that correct? Yeah. Could you maybe talk about how you guys have been able to leverage being at that many farmers markets, not only just as a revenue source when you're making sales of those markets, but also as kind of a marketing opportunity.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yeah. I started when I was a team with my sisters before I could even drive. It used to be like U District and Pike Place and Ballard. And there was like a few markets. And then they just started popping up everywhere. And I was just just like, okay, I'm just going to keep applying. And I'd add every year, I'd kind of add five or 10 till we got to where we are now. But once they let it happen all in one year, I think that's why it's
00:11:41
Speaker
I mean, it seems kind of crazy right now, because even when I'm only doing one on Saturday and one on Sunday, it still seems like a hustle in the morning to get out to the market on time. But like, when we're in our really busy season, I have a lot of help and need
00:11:57
Speaker
kind of built up to this over time gradually. But it is kind of crazy. We definitely kind of try and keep our display the same everywhere we go with the same table cloths and the same sign and the same setup so people can recognize us, know who we are. I would say people definitely think of us when they think of like berries in Western Washington, especially if they go to the farmer's market. And yeah, it's been fun to have a better online presence. So it's been good.
00:12:26
Speaker
I mean, there's no way you could attend every farmer's market. You guys are pretty dang close though, but it's definitely nice to have the online presence too to direct people, especially if their schedule doesn't line up with one of the times that you're at a farmer's market.
Innovative Products and Market Demand
00:12:39
Speaker
So something that you guys talked about last time you were on the podcast and I've been really eager to talk to you about is the pink lemonade blueberries. I think that was your first season that you were actually going to be selling them.
00:12:49
Speaker
But something you guys have done that's really cool with those is I feel like you've kind of leveraged this scarcity around them is that you don't grow a ton. And so when, when you guys do have them, it's kind of a big deal and customers are really craving for them. So could you maybe talk about your messaging around that product and how you've been able to kind of drive your overall revenue by promoting this one kind of scarce product? Last year was our first year picking like a very small amount and.
00:13:16
Speaker
I would just put like a post on Instagram and it seemed like people were really excited about it because they had never seen it or never tasted it. And the color is pretty wild. I figured out last year, like, wow, people really like this way more than all these other posts I'm doing. And then this year the yield was a little bit better. So when we picked it, a lot of people have been asking about it.
00:13:40
Speaker
since last year. And so I made sure to do a lot of posts about it. And we didn't really have enough to send them just out to all the market. So I mainly just made it a thing like, okay, we're going to have one this weekend, Thursday through Sunday, they're only going to get the farm stand. And it was crazy. People were driving up from Seattle, like an hour and more, so they would show up with the stand and be like, we're here for the pink. And it was crazy. It was really fun. I mean, blueberries take a while to
00:14:08
Speaker
get up and running, but it's definitely something that I want to have more of. It seems like a novelty that people are really excited about.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome to hear. Great to hear that people are willing to travel just to get them. But I think in terms of as a strategy, I think it's really cool, but I think it translates to other things too. For example, bacon could be that product for a pork farmer or maybe, you know, if you're doing beef, they come to buy the steak, but maybe while they're at your farm stand, they also pick up some ground beef and other things too. And so it's kind of a cool way to leverage one product that might be a little harder to get to
00:14:42
Speaker
at least bring the audience in and hopefully sell them a few other things. What would be some of your advice to farmers just beginning to sell direct as well as maybe making that transition to selling direct online? Selling direct is definitely the best. I hate being in control of the price. I hate not making control of the orders happening when I need them to happen and I hate waiting for payments.
00:15:10
Speaker
And what's great about the direct marketing at a farmer's market and online is, you know, based on a lot of different factors. I like it that you're in control and having to look at the farmer's market, direct marketing, same thing. It's really nice, you know, with the barn to door platform, you can, it's so easy to go in, change your
00:15:32
Speaker
volume, like how many you have and your price. So you can easily like set a bulk buy on there too. If you want to like drop the price and try and get people to buy more, it's nice being in control. You know, even just in Sierra, I had a lot of one of my summer variety blackberries and I was going to try and wholesale it. The store was like, I already have like a big bulk buy with another farmer. She couldn't really take.
00:15:56
Speaker
you know, the volume that much. So I just at farmer's market, push some one on sale offered if you buy two, you get a good deal. And it worked out. And it just seems like, at least for me, and it's just nice, like being in control and being able to sell it yourself and change the pricing if you need to. And I feel like just for me going ahead, I realized that I want to keep my
00:16:22
Speaker
different projects of the different berries at a size where I can sell it all myself at the market and online and to get away from even the possibility of needing the whole sale.
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah. The flexibility really is that sounds like that's been huge for you and being able to price things at what you want, move when you want. That's great to hear. Last year, when we had talked, you had also just kind of started up your delivery program.
Expanding Services and Online Integration
00:16:47
Speaker
So I was kind of curious, how has that been evolving over the past year and making it easier for customers to order from you?
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, the delivery program, it's gone really well. I feel like I have a lot of the same customers from last year. I recognized a lot of the names as customers that came back. And also I've noticed this year when a five week would end, like a lot of customers then re-upped and continued with another five week. I would say that last year, you know, it was our first year and it did really well. But yeah, some days were like smaller. It was something new, like.
00:17:20
Speaker
not everyone knows right away it's even something that you offer and I feel like you know even just one year later our delivery routes I added two trucks per day most of the time instead of one truck it seems just very consistent but I would say for like next year something I can prove on is to try and promote it a little bit more because I feel like
00:17:45
Speaker
that that was going well, I didn't promote it as much as I could have. And maybe then instead of doing two days a week, maybe we'll do three days a week and include some more zip codes. So yeah, it's nice that to be able to be in control of that, it's easy to add on another day or add more zip codes. It's nice. Another program that you were just starting and you, and you've mentioned it here a few times, but was the frozen berries. You were kind of starting to look into that last year when, when you were last on the podcast, could you maybe talk about how you kind of were able to.
00:18:15
Speaker
flush that program out because that is a pretty big step. There's a lot of infrastructure changes, I'm sure. And so maybe how you kind of went about putting that together at your farm. Yeah, man, I'd been wanting to do frozen berries for a long time because I have been wanting to try selling at a couple markets year round. And then probably like five years ago on Craigslist, I found a shipping container. It was like a 20 foot shipping container that
00:18:40
Speaker
was a freezer that a local company was selling. It was in really good shape. They were selling it at a really good price. So I was like, gosh, we gotta go get that. We went and got it. Then season got going and got busy. I never got it hooked up and it just sat there and like a couple of years went by and I was like,
00:18:58
Speaker
Oh man, I had ordered custom print freezer bags, had those in stocks, was still like dragging my feet on this whole thing. And last year with COVID and Tails not doing that good, it definitely made me be like, okay, time to get the freezer hooked up. I called our electrician, had him come out, have our, and the refrigeration guy come out. And so luckily like I had the freezer and I had the bags.
00:19:24
Speaker
So I just got it connected and we started freezing mainly blueberries because I was like, that's the easy, I felt like that was the easiest thing to freeze and really popular for smoothies and things like that. It worked really well. You know, it was new for us. We had to figure out like, how are we going to keep these frozen all day and transport them? And there was like new stuff to figure out, but nothing was too hard and it worked.
00:19:48
Speaker
really well. The thing we just immediately realized were we had only froze like a little bit of raspberries because it was at the end of the season. We ran out really quickly and a lot of people were asked about strawberries, raspberries, tea berries, things like that. And so this year, yeah, we definitely ended last season being like, well, we need more frozen berry variety. So
00:20:10
Speaker
We've definitely been on point just freezing every type of barrier we can. We don't bring them to markets right now because we still have fresh and our trucks are kind of small and they're pretty full with the fresh stuff. So we're going to wait till things slow down and we don't have as many fresh berries. And then we'll start bringing the frozen stuff to market. And it's a great way to extend the season. People really liked it. Now at farmer's markets, people will be like, do you still have the frozen blueberries? And we're like, well, we have fresh ones.
00:20:41
Speaker
Definitely still a lot, the frozen stuff. So I think it'll be like fun to bring it back and have more variety. And a great way to, like you said, extend your season, extend the period of time where you can be bringing in revenue and also have people interacting with your brands so that they're used to seeing you there winter, summer, spring, fall. That's really awesome.
00:20:58
Speaker
As a customer, but also as a farm advisor to Barn to Door, could you maybe share a little bit about what your experience has been so far and maybe kind of from your own perspective, how Barn to Door has changed and evolved over the past year in terms of the product, but also the support and for farmers and everything that is kind of going on. Yeah, definitely. Last year, things were so crazy. And last year when markets were getting going, like we just didn't even know if
00:21:26
Speaker
the markets were going to open. All the market managers were telling us like, well, you guys need to have a way for customers to pre-order. And I had no idea how to do that. And so I talked to another farmer at the market that I've known for a really long time and they had recently got connected with Farm to the Door and they were really happy with the website and the store and the customer store and serve it.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, I was like kind of nervous, like, Oh my God, now that I do this, is this going to be hard? I'm not techie. I'm not getting it online, but I would say there was so much help like onboarding and doing the weekly kind of short 30 minute meetings. So even in my busy season, I mean that it was easy to fit in a 30 minute, a little session and.
00:22:09
Speaker
Before you know it, like the store was up, the website was out. So much help getting it all up and like working, but also just a lot of help on getting it to where I felt comfortable using the site, getting my invoices printed off for the next day and did my inventory. There was so much helpful in the way. And it was just like a little bit of new stuff every week. So it didn't overwhelm me. Like we would.
00:22:35
Speaker
The first main thing was just getting the store live and then the website live. But then we just took it little by little, then maybe the delivery route and a subscription. And so I would say it was a very fun, pleasant process. Very happy along the way.
00:22:54
Speaker
to have your guys' support. And so, just so happy with how the website and the online store turned out. I get compliments all the time. Like even just my friends will be like, look at your website. It's awesome. Like I love the online store. And like I said, how easy it is to use for them on their side, but also for me, like I said, it's so easy to manage my inventory, change my pricing.
00:23:17
Speaker
Or if I switch to a new variety, switch the description. Super Easter friendly. So happy to have it in place. And I love that Barn 2 Door, they're there for like any help you need, but it's also like, they have done so much changing and like new things.
00:23:33
Speaker
that they're offering, things that I still need to take advantage of. But like I said, I'm really excited about the route planning integration or partnership. But then there's a lot of other cool things too that I want to, like when things slow down, look into like MailChimp and I want to start sending out newsletters and there's so many other
00:23:53
Speaker
ways to use like the barn to door stuff that they have to offer that I, there's other things that I still need to learn, but yeah, it's been a great experience. I definitely always recommend it to other farms that don't have an online presence yet, or don't have a way to do the pre-order. I, I just love that it takes the payment too, because that was one thing is on my old website, people could submit an order to me for wholesale.
00:24:19
Speaker
I would get an email of what they wanted and what day and what market they wanted to pick up, but there was no way to take the payment. That's what's so nice about the Barnadore site is it completely takes that off my plate. I set mine to where people have to pay to place an order, and then it's done. All I have to worry about is my end of the thing.
00:24:42
Speaker
getting them the berries to the market or doing the home delivery. But it's nice that they, the customer, I think they like it. And I do that the payments done, it's taken care of. You don't have to worry about it. For a farmer who is either heard about Barnador or is thinking about signing up, what would be kind of your advice to them?
00:25:00
Speaker
I would say definitely do it. And even though like, like going to be coming into a slower time for people, well, depending on I guess what they're rolling, but I wouldn't say, um, you know, it's even now, even if you're busy, a season is winding down over. It's a really good time to do it. Maybe even better because.
00:25:20
Speaker
It'd be nice to get it all set up before your next business season hits, have it all in place. It also might give you some good ideas as far as like maybe your local farmer's market is going to close. Maybe it's a seasonal one and you still have stuff you want to sell. Well, if you get hooked up on barn to door and you could get a delivery system going or subscriptions and it will, it could help you. You know, the farmers still make sales, even if their local farmer's market is going to end.
Future Directions and Diversification
00:25:49
Speaker
The farmer's markets are great and they're our core business, but it was really nice to have the barn to door, like online sales and home delivery, because I was even more in control of that. And it was still an outlet that wasn't going to get shut down because of heat. So that's what's nice is it's kind of good to have some other options and diversify. So you know, I'll have all your eggs in one basket.
00:26:14
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, and like you were saying, it's a good time if you're not in a growing season or something like that to kind of get all those things set up ready to go so that when you do hit your growing season, customers can just go straight to the store. I guess just as a final question, what's kind of next for hate and farms varies in the coming year?
00:26:29
Speaker
Okay. Well, so I am really excited about planting more of the pink lemonade blueberries. Awesome. I put on a lot of new growth this year. So hopefully I don't get like hit with any like late frost next year and can have a better crop. I would say another exciting thing for next year will be planting two small projects this spring of a yellow raspberry and then also kind of like a peachy yellow raspberry.
00:26:57
Speaker
the crops look really good. So I'm excited to have that for next year. And then, yeah, I'm excited to offer more delivery days and more subscriptions and kind of build that side of things up. Awesome. Well, yeah, it's great to hear that you guys are growing, doing well, and hopefully we'll get to talk to you again in a year and keep hearing about how things are going. Yeah, for sure.
00:27:17
Speaker
I want to extend my thanks to Angelica for joining us on this week's podcast episode. Here at Barnadore, we are humbled to support thousands of farmers across the country, including farmers like Angelica who implement sustainable agricultural practices and support their local communities.
00:27:31
Speaker
For more information on hate and farms berries, visit hate and farms berries.com to learn more about barn to door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm. Go to barn to door.com slash resources. Thank you for tuning in. We'll see you next week.