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Growing a Successful Microgreens Business
350 Plays20 days ago
In this week’s episode, Kevin speaks with Shauna of Mom’s Micro Garden (and Sasquatch Family Farms, WA). Shauna discussing how she started her microgreens business, how to attract Buyers and the value of building local partnerships. Hear her advice for new Farmers and goals for scaling her business!
For more Farm resources, visit: barn2door.com/resources
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Farmer Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Independent Farmer podcast, the go-to podcast for do-it-yourself farmers who are taking control of their own business, skipping the middleman, and selling direct to local consumer and wholesale buyers.
00:00:20
Speaker
This podcast is hosted by Barn to Door, the number one business tool for independent farmers to manage their business, promote their brand, and sell online and in person. Let's dive in to today's Independent Farmer podcast.
Meet the Host: Kevin from Barn to Door
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome to the Independent Farmer Podcast. I'm Kevin on the success team at Barnador and your host for today's episode. My job all day, every day, is to support, coach, and work with farmers for their business to be successful.
00:00:57
Speaker
I've worked with hundreds of farms and have story after story of farmers crushing it with local customers, local partners, and increased sales, all the while using Barnador to manage their business and promote their farm brand, and offer convenient options for local buyers to buy from their farm.
00:01:14
Speaker
I'm a big fan of helping farmers work smarter, not harder, since I've never met a farm with extra time on their hands. As many of our listeners may be aware, Barnador offers an all-in-one business solution for independent farmers who are cutting out the middleman, taking control of their business, selling under their brand, and making sure their customers can purchase from their farm both online and in person.
Exploring Microgreens: Guest Shauna's Journey
00:01:36
Speaker
In today's conversation, we will get into growing a microgreens business. Today, I'm happy to welcome back Shauna of Sasquatch Family Farms and Mom's Micro Garden in Washington.
00:01:49
Speaker
Shauna is a part of our farm advisor network and has worked for us for two years. And since becoming an advisor has brought knowledge on starting a farm business and scaling it into two.
00:02:00
Speaker
I'm excited to talk to Shauna about growing a successful microgreens business, how she got started and her advice for others trying to build their operations. Welcome, Shauna. Thanks for having me today, Kevin.
00:02:12
Speaker
Yeah, of course. I'm so glad you're here. was just telling you before we started recording, microgreens is one of the most highly sought after podcasts I've been waiting for. And I'm super excited to dive in today's topic because I know many of our microgreens farms are looking to learn more. So we're going to start with an easy one.
00:02:31
Speaker
How did you get introduced to microgreens? Well, so we have the hog farm and the pigs love produce and a really great little Rainier fresh country store donated produce for our pigs every week. And they also owned mom's micro garden. and every week we go and pick up the most delicious produce for the pigs. And I learned a little bit more about microgreens.
00:02:54
Speaker
And we at our hog farm, Sasquatch family farms, It is a property that really needs some regeneration and needs a lot of cover crop. And microgreens happen to produce about 50 acres of byproduct seed and cover crop a month.
00:03:08
Speaker
And so as we started chatting about things, it was like, wow, well, like the pigs love them and the chickens and everything down here loves the microgreen byproduct.
00:03:19
Speaker
The conversation just evolved and added some partners and we got started in this project. Did you know anyone else around you growing microgreens? Yeah. So i maybe a part of the journey is last December we bought mom's microgreen, but August we went on this amazing Lewis County Farm Bureau tour and hot frog farms took us on a tour of their microgreens and their shared their whole business journey with us.
00:03:43
Speaker
And we were really inspired and like scratched our heads and said, wow, that's really cool. And you got all these grants to help you do this and build this. And wow, that's awesome. I wish we would known about that when we were starting in farming.
00:03:55
Speaker
That was so cool. They have 35 employees and wow, this just sounds incredible. Do you, it looking back at it, if you had known about microgreens before you started the hog business, do you think you would have started with microgreens first or not?
Structural Differences in Farming: Microgreens vs. Livestock
00:04:10
Speaker
I think we've learned a lot of things in the journey and hard to say is the chicken or the egg come first. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. So do you think having another farm business prepared you well for your microgreens business or they just so vastly different that it didn't really matter?
00:04:26
Speaker
I think they're really vastly different. I think some of the structural and systems things that Barn-to-Door helped us implement that I had a very steep learning curve on with our Sasquatch family farms. We knew three months prior to buying microgreens, Barn-to-Door started helping us on the back end.
00:04:42
Speaker
And I think I really, the second time around with Barn-to-Door, what I appreciated was the real systematic structure that you provide for a business as you onboard. They run very differently, but I think there's some systems and structures things that we've really benefited from. And a lot of it is the coaching around with Barn to Door.
00:05:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I've heard you talk about that on a previous episode, how much you really benefited from the coaching. What about customers? Is there any overlap there between the two businesses? I think that's super fun. It's really great. The microgreens came with an existing clientele of really amazing five-star restaurants. And then to say, Hey, we could also be your local protein producer has been really fun.
00:05:21
Speaker
And on the protein side, we were really well connected down in Lewis County. And so to be able to take some of those connections and join the hub as a second producer, there's just 35 farmers as part of the Southwest Washington Food Hub that we're part of.
00:05:36
Speaker
And to have two farms in that hub is pretty awesome. I imagine that in spite of some of the overlap, there's probably quite a few differences. Like some of your microgreen customers are probably never interested in your pork products and vice versa. So maybe talk to me a little bit about like the customer profile, like who you're targeting, who your ideal customer is for the microgreen business and what you really think about when looking to acquire new customers there.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think for us with microgreen, with both farm businesses, I think what's really important to us is that our businesses have ah diversity in sales channels. For example, we sell to retail customers with porch box deliveries.
00:06:14
Speaker
We sell to wholesale retail and hunger relief. And we found that some of those will ebb and flow up and down. And when you have a really strong base and a multitude of environments, we're able to kind of weather whatever the up or down is a bit better.
Innovative Delivery: Porch Box Program
00:06:30
Speaker
Talk to me more about the porch box delivery program. We love Barn to Door. You know what, Kevin, you and your team have been awesome in helping us. That's not something that mom's had. And it's a very strong sales channel for the Sasquatch family farms.
00:06:45
Speaker
And so you asked me to tell you more about porch box delivery. Yeah. Oh my goodness. That is a really amazing story. So we knew we really liked the system that Barn to Door puts out to help you get out in front of customers.
00:06:58
Speaker
And we've watched that grow. We just launched that in April and we're watching our sales and we're really proud of ourselves for this being our first season of the Porch Box Delivery Program. For us, it's really springboarded though. So Hunger Relief right now is really having a hard time with funding.
00:07:13
Speaker
And I mentioned that's one of our sales channels. So we've built into our porch boxes. We give back to hunger relief as a fundraiser for them. And we've learned a lot of people have been impacted by not having federal funding in this season.
00:07:28
Speaker
And for them to be able to partner with us for their customers and their clientele to say, hey, if we bought this great local box of produce, then it's sort of a fundraiser for us. And it's a win-win.
00:07:39
Speaker
And we have a large distributor, Cascadia Produce, who I call every farmer's best friend, who helps us with the logistics for our boxes every week. So they do all of the packing. And there are 17 farms that we source from that they handle all of that within their already existing system, which is pretty cool.
00:07:58
Speaker
Wow. So you mentioned the delivery program for, in terms of how you fulfill the two businesses, is there any overlap there? Like you have some of the same pickup locations or target some of the same neighborhoods or are those completely different as well for the two businesses?
00:08:14
Speaker
They're completely different. So the two businesses are roughly 90 miles apart. Yeah. So yeah. I think they definitely feed off, we feed off of each other a lot. And hey, this is like the Southwest Washington food hub.
00:08:27
Speaker
Being part of a food hub, barn to door, that was one of my first meetings with Alex when I came to his marketing class was be part of a food hub. They really help us a lot. So the pork and the microgreens, we both sell through the food hub.
00:08:40
Speaker
Gotcha.
Growing Microgreens: Advantages and Challenges
00:08:41
Speaker
So raising animals versus microgreens, talking about like pros and cons of each. I mean, the microgreens, you water them and they don't squeak or squeal, but they taste delicious as you walk through.
00:08:52
Speaker
and They don't get you up at 2 a.m. to have babies. I'm not up all night with the microgreens. They're pretty plug and play. And I think they both have their pros and cons. Sure. The microgreens, it's certainly nice to close the greenhouse door when we walk away at night. And you can truly close the greenhouse door and not worry that you're going to be chasing cows at 7 a.m.
00:09:11
Speaker
Sure. Any unexpected things that have occurred with the microgreen business? We're part of an incubator farm with the microgreens business. Riverside Growers, there's three, four farms now there.
00:09:23
Speaker
And it's really neat to be part of an incubator farm with that and just catch all of the positive energy and vibe off of everyone growing. What is an incubator farm?
00:09:34
Speaker
Well, an incubator farm, we have this amazing mentor who spent 50 seasons in farming, Ben Degote and Degote Farms. They have one of the largest hydroponic lettuce farms in Washington State.
00:09:46
Speaker
with an incredible grow. Like I've never seen swimming pools with lettuce floating on floating docks before. Right. And he also owns windmill gardens, which for 50 years has been the place that we go to buy our mother's day flower baskets. And it's just a real force in the community of amazing for gardening and farming and local.
00:10:06
Speaker
And he walks through our greenhouse every day and says, Hey, i was thinking you ought to Hey, what do you think about this? And, He sends us all these great, we recently got a tray washer. So we've gone from spending a lot of time washing trays, thanks to his nudge. We got an automatic tray washer and we do 100 trays in 15 minutes now.
00:10:28
Speaker
Huge labor savings for us, but just having somebody who's really experienced and he's really automated in his systems and his willingness to share has been great. We're going through the GAP and the organic certification process, but he's our host farm for our incubator farm and he's already gone through both of those.
00:10:45
Speaker
So when we needed something like, hey, what's the water analysis? He was like, oh yeah, let me explain that to you here. I got all the documentation and they come here. And so I think for the microgreens, we feel really supported and surrounded and that's really cool.
00:10:58
Speaker
Talk to us more about the process of growing microgreens. Like what's that process look like for actually growing the microgreens? We, ah so I think when you ask me what's the difference between microgreens and animals, the microgreen grow process is about seven days.
00:11:13
Speaker
So we get the soil, the seeds get laid on, it goes into the germ tent, comes out, the little baby veal of vegetables are grown. They get harvested, put in beautiful little packages and shipped off to the customer as opposed to the Animal operation, hogs take us about 13 months from the time we breed till the time we have bacon in a package. So it's a seven day turnaround. And I think initially we had some hiccups.
00:11:41
Speaker
Like when you take over something new, you have hiccups, right? And the cool thing about microgreens is if you make a mistake as a business owner, you have seven days and you can turn it right back around. And that's pretty awesome.
00:11:52
Speaker
I think it's one of the reasons I think we love microgreens so much as any microgreens problem is truly solvable in seven days. Amazing. How cool. How did you decide which varieties to focus on and grow for the microgreens?
00:12:04
Speaker
Moms came with this really great customer list already of chefs and already had an existing list of here's what we're growing. I think as we're entering our eighth month now owning Moms and we're starting to branch out and we have our chef clients who will call and say, hey, I'd really like in this season, we'd really love to have popcorn microgreen shoots.
00:12:26
Speaker
Can you do that for us? And we'll say, sure, let us give it a try. You know, it only takes seven days. Let's see how we do. And so it's been really fun. What's your most popular microgreens for like regular retail customers? Like people like me that are buying microgreens. What's the most popular one?
00:12:40
Speaker
Yeah, hands down. It's our custom mom's mix and it has seven different kinds of microgreens layered into it. I'm going to put you on the spot. do you know all seven off the top of your head? Yes, I definitely know all seven off the top of my head. You're so kind.
00:12:53
Speaker
Okay. You ready for the mom's mix? Yeah, please. May contain pea shoots, broccoli, kale, mustard, nasturtiums, radishes, fava, chervil, or cabbage.
00:13:05
Speaker
Okay, interesting. Yeah, pea shoots is probably one of the most common ones I see across the board. Between that and broccoli, those are probably the two most common ones I've seen. There's so many varieties. It seems endless for the varieties that are out there.
Marketing Strategies for Microgreens
00:13:21
Speaker
i think pea Two, Barn to Door really coached us up a lot about, hey, if you have an online store, you have consumer fatigue if you have more than 10 things. How do you pick the top 10 things to really list? And like I said, we do the popcorn shoots, but you probably don't see that on the store, right? Like that was my customer request.
00:13:39
Speaker
And so your top seller, then you just do essentially your own blend that you choose out of those varieties. And basically people get a ah sampling of your microgreens. That's awesome.
00:13:50
Speaker
When they purchase that one, how many ounces is that in that blend you were just describing? Well, so we've decided to go really deep with that blend. We sell an eight ounce blend that's really popular with like a first time sampler blend. We sell a container size of it that's 12 ounces, a 12 ounce container. And that's really popular for our porch boxes and retail base. Then our chef clients like that in a 32 ounce container.
00:14:15
Speaker
So you mentioned moms came with its own existing customers, right? I'm sure though, knowing you, you probably been out looking for new customers as well. So I'd like to talk about like what you've done to attract new customers.
00:14:27
Speaker
Maybe just start from like, maybe we'll break it down like a little bit of each section. Like when you look at in-person marketing efforts, what have been some of your in-person marketing efforts that you've done for the micro green business?
00:14:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think we really want to engage with the community. So we hosted an ag day with about 20 other farms and producers and agricultural related things at the greenhouse where you could tour and walk through and teamed with high schools and the community community.
00:14:53
Speaker
So that was a big outreach event about lettuce, tell you about microgreens, this career and technical education program from the high school came out and they did the floating lettuce, the hydroponic lettuce mixed with our microgreens. And they crafted up this delicious salad dressing.
00:15:07
Speaker
They tossed it all together so you could taste. What does this taste like? We talked to people about So when we cut those pea shoots, we're done with that, Matt.
00:15:18
Speaker
Like, right, that's our waste product. But it grows back and we harvest a lot of trays every week. So we gave people their own pea shoots. And I think what I have loved most is we gave them those pea shoots back in April.
00:15:30
Speaker
We're now getting all of these social media posts about, look at our pea shoots from Mom's Micro Garden. And there's these beautiful gardens growing all around the community from our waste product. So we really focus on being a circular farm.
00:15:43
Speaker
And as much as I love them down at Sasquatch, regrowing for our animals and them eating them, what's even more cool is all the partnerships that have formed out of that with schools and community gardens where they're taking our once harvest, so our seconds, replanting them and have made bountiful gardens.
00:15:59
Speaker
How cool. Yeah. It's kind of spills into the next part too. Cause that's like an in-person marketing effort that turned into an online marketing effort. You may not even foreseen that how you get people to then just post about you from their experience.
00:16:12
Speaker
What else have you done from an online marketing perspective for the business? Well, my business partner, Jill is really great with graphics, like shout out to Jill. She does all of our social media posting. So every week, Jill takes a picture of the three different boxes we sell for subscription boxes. And she gets a really great post that says, Hey, this is what we have going on this week. Isn't this awesome.
00:16:34
Speaker
Right. And then she lists out because most people don't just want a microgreens box, right? Like we found people want a variety. So we've partnered with those 17 farms that Cascadia Produce aggregates out for us and then packs into a box.
00:16:47
Speaker
So she'll post like, hey, your peas this week came from four elements. Or she's posting about where everything comes from and source. We really want to be transparent about what's coming in your box. Where does it come from?
00:17:00
Speaker
Where was it sourced from? Who grew it? Love that. So obviously there's some educational aspect there. What about education that's specific to microgreens? How much do y'all focus on that in terms of nutrients or usage or any of those aspects of these unique plants?
00:17:16
Speaker
I think I want to like... pitch the barn-to-door marketing class. Like in that class, you all taught us that we needed three to four posts a week. And you kind of like walked us through the formula of that. So we try to use that barn-to-door coaching in our social media posting. So we try to have a picture of what did we eat as a family this week that had microgreens on it? And what's the recipe for it?
00:17:37
Speaker
Did a customer eat something great with microgreens on it? Send us in a picture, post it, and we sent them back a freebie. just looking at, if we're making those three to four posts a week, what does the produce box look like? What does the greenhouse look like?
00:17:50
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I always appreciate that too, being someone that buys microgreens regularly and I just find myself kind of throwing them on top of stuff occasionally. So being able to get more concerted ways to use those is always helpful for me as a consumer.
Collaborations and Community Engagement
00:18:04
Speaker
Pickup locations. You have quite a few of them. How did you choose those pickup locations? Thank you We do have a lot of pickup locations. So Windmill Gardens is that incubator farm that we are already based at with our greenhouse. So that made sense to be a pickup location there.
00:18:19
Speaker
Plus, I think when we're looking for pickup locations, the microgreens are really temperature sensitive. So if they just sat out somewhere, they wouldn't be very happy. So does the pickup location have cold storage that they would let us use for this as part of our community farming efforts?
00:18:35
Speaker
Makes sense. Any other pickup locations you're considering right now that you're looking into? um I think we're always looking for more. i think what we're really excited about this fall is we're partnering with some high schools and some preschools and elementary schools around their need for fundraising and nutrient dense food.
00:18:54
Speaker
And so their parent organizations are going to like a little mini farmer's market pop-up for us. And we're very excited to get in the community. And so those will be some pickup locations coming once a month where your purchase not only supports us as a small farm, but then we'll also partner to support the community organization you're passionate about.
00:19:14
Speaker
So we have a couple of those that are partnerships with community organizations. We have Three Dogs Cider down here, and they've been a great resource. I would just say breweries and cideries are like thumbs up. We're trying to do some like, you know, if you do your beer tasting, you should do a microgreen tasting right alongside it.
00:19:31
Speaker
How cool. What a unique idea. Yeah, it's such a great thing to consider too, because especially local breweries and cideries, the people going, they're already paying more for local products. So they're naturally inclined to be willing to pay more for like locally raised produce and microgreens. it makes so much sense.
00:19:47
Speaker
I should tell you, one of our chef clients is called The Neighborhood. They're in West Seattle, and they took our cantaloupe microgreens, and they've now made it into a simple syrup that is one of their best-selling drinks this month. Like on the foodie scale, we're just appreciative that a lot of the places that work with us and buy our product then also partner with us.
00:20:05
Speaker
Yeah, how amazing. So this is maybe just kind of encompassing marketing efforts all across, like anything, like what's your focus right now in terms of bringing in new customers? Would you say some of the top tactics y'all are looking to employ to bring in new customers are right now?
00:20:20
Speaker
o that's a great question. I think that we are really working on, we talked about the different sales channels, right? So we have the produce boxes, we have the restaurants, we have our wholesale.
00:20:33
Speaker
How can we diversify that and add more clients that we serve every week? So we're just really working on how do we continue to increase that number of customers that we're serving every week.
00:20:45
Speaker
Any plans for any farmers markets? We currently go to two or three farmers markets a month. I think for like from the farmer hat, if I put the farmer hat side on, every time we choose to go to a farmer's market, we know that's going to cost us from a revenue side.
00:21:01
Speaker
When we've done the math on it, it costs me $500. before we get there. So if we're going, does it have the potential to make $500 or is it a marketing activity for us? I imagine regardless, you probably still always think of it as a marketing activity, right?
00:21:16
Speaker
I think the marketing activity is always an extra win. So we're going to one Friday. That's a really cool housing in the housing development that we're very excited about. I think it's a great time for us to talk about nutrient dense local farm food.
00:21:29
Speaker
And for us, it wasn't an every week farmer's market for them. It was just a hey, we're going to try this and see. And we thought, that's great. We don't have a long-term commitment. We'll try that and see with you. Makes sense.
00:21:40
Speaker
So when you're there in person at like a pickup location or at a market, what are some like really good practices you would say that you would give advice to newer farmers that haven't done that before?
00:21:52
Speaker
Yeah, I would say this comes again from your Barn-to-Door marketing class that I didn't know when we started this. So we have flyers and postcards and we leave those everywhere we go. So every community board for everywhere that's a pickup location, but also just like, hey, am I shopping at Safeway at a chain grocery store? And they have a board. I'm going to put a flyer up for my produce.
00:22:12
Speaker
Everywhere I go, I'm putting those up. Like we carry them in our purses with tape and tacks. Everywhere you go you put those up. Like the goal is to go through 500 postcards a month from personal putting those up somewhere. So our kids are tasked with that. Our husbands are tasked with that.
00:22:29
Speaker
Everybody we know hands out the flyers and the postcards. I love that. What's the core information that's on your flyers? We keep changing up. So we have recipe cards that on one side will have a recipe for like, how do you use pea shoots? And the other side tells you about order our fresh produce box, take that workload off of you.
00:22:48
Speaker
We try to double up on it and do a two-sided postcard. And then the flyers are just constantly seasonally changing. Like most places take down your flyers after 30 days. So like, where are we going that We need to put up a new flyer next month.
00:23:01
Speaker
Gotcha. So is there some information that's always constant, like website, QR code, or is it always different? I love that coach in you. Yes, always has the website, always has the QR code.
00:23:12
Speaker
Make it easy. People don't want multiple clicks. Right. And then we talked about partnerships. So how'd you form these? Obviously, were some partnerships that existed when you go to form a new partnership. Like what's your approach there when you're forming a partnership for the business?
00:23:28
Speaker
I think we just love our happy little microgreens so much. And we probably over the top talk about how much we love our microgreens. And it just organically seems to form partnerships when you're like, hey, Kevin, let me tell you about my microgreens. Like, come taste these cantaloupe greens. They are like the most juicy. I can't even describe the best cantaloupe you've ever had in a little green sprout, right? Like, it's totally mind-blowing. And I think we're just so excited about microgreens and talk about them everywhere we go to everyone we go that we have a lot of organic partnerships that pop up.
00:23:59
Speaker
cool. Yeah, your passion obviously really comes through that instance. I can say I've never had cantaloupe microgreens and I want them really badly right now. I will look endlessly for them.
00:24:10
Speaker
Okay, Kevin, will ship you out some cantaloupe microgreens. Amazing. So talk to me about partnerships and how they can be mutually beneficial for both businesses. Well, I really think for the Cascadia produce is probably the biggest mutually beneficial for us and it kind of radiates out. So they really helped us with this concept called economy of scale.
00:24:32
Speaker
And our packaging, because we purchase our packaging through them and they buy so much packaging is now 25% less than I can buy it from anywhere else. And for a small business to save 25% on something I need every day is pretty huge.
00:24:47
Speaker
And then. That sort of spider webbed out into there multiple other micrograin farmers we're connected to are like, hey, who are you using for packaging? We're getting this awesome deal. Want to jump on the economy of scale with us. And so now we're all saving that cost.
00:25:03
Speaker
And as we're like, just everything seems to get more expensive every day. So to save that much on packaging has been a huge economy of scale. How do we find an opportunity and then share it with our farm network?
00:25:16
Speaker
I love that. So goals, as you look towards like the end of this year and into next, what would you say some of the top goals are for Moms Micro?
Expansion Plans and Future Goals
00:25:24
Speaker
Our number one goal is to grow our produce box.
00:25:28
Speaker
We love that produce box. We have three of them. We have a wild harvest that's like the best deal in produce this week. We have the local box and we have an organic box. And we're finding that people love them as soon as they find out about us and that people don't know we exist.
00:25:43
Speaker
So for us, it's to grow the produce box and help everybody get really nutrient dense, healthy food. And so when you say that, just for clarification, that would be like a subscription to that produce box, right?
00:25:54
Speaker
Yes, a subscription to that produce box. And what we're finding is some of our larger and even smaller, like wholesale clients, like restaurant clients that we deliver to or institutions. When we say, hey, we have this produce box and you could have it as an employee benefit. And we're already coming here on Friday. You want us to drop this off and your employees that have tasty, fresh produce?
00:26:13
Speaker
They're like, yeah, that's awesome. So I think when you said, how do things mesh together? it It's what's our existing client base already ordering and how can we add value for them?
00:26:24
Speaker
Sure. What a great way to think about it. How do you hope to expand the business? We hope to grow by leaps and bounds. So we have one 3,000 foot cold frame right now that we grow in. And we're hoping that we really would like to double that by next year.
00:26:39
Speaker
Holy smokes. So we're we're pushing the edge of it today. And we're hoping business and microgreens kind of goes up and down. And today our farm manager, Elaine, called and she said, Hey, do you think you could pick me up some more racks? We're out of rack space.
00:26:54
Speaker
Wow. And so I think we're just looking at how much more can we push in the space we have. And the cool thing about where we're at is they have 11 more spaces for us to grow into. That's a lot of room. That's awesome.
00:27:06
Speaker
Unless we get some more like incubator farms. Like if people are interested in getting into farming in the Pacific Northwest, give us a shout and let us tell you about this cool place we grow our microgreens at. ah Great. I love that. Any dream partnerships that you're exploring or looking into?
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think what we've really learned is as we're growing in sales volume and the next step for us, we need that GAP and organic certification to take advantage of some opportunities being sent our way. And if for people who don't know, GAP certification is good agricultural practices. So we put in today for the USDA to come out and do the good agricultural practices audit of our farm.
00:27:44
Speaker
I know that can be a pretty lengthy process sometimes. How about advice for other farms that want to pursue a microgreen business?
Advice for New Farmers
00:27:51
Speaker
Do it yesterday. Do it yesterday. Get started. Just get started.
00:27:56
Speaker
I think you need really great soil, really great seeds. And you have to be passionate about how much you love the happy little green growing. yeah Yeah, passion makes a big difference for everything in life, right?
00:28:08
Speaker
Anything you want to mention that we haven't covered? Anything that you think is really important? Just thanks for having us. Yeah, course. Thank you, Shauna.
Conclusion and Thanks
00:28:16
Speaker
So yeah, I want to extend my thanks to Shauna for joining us on this week's podcast episode.
00:28:21
Speaker
You can check out more of Shauna and the farm on their website, momsmicrogarden.com. Here Barnador, we're humbled to support thousands of independent farmers across the country.
00:28:31
Speaker
We're delighted to offer services and tools to help farmers access more customers, increase their sales, and save time for their business. If you're an independent farmer who's just getting started or transitioning to selling direct, or if you've been at it a while and want to simplify your business management, please visit barnador.com slash learn dash more.
00:28:53
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in today. We look forward to joining you next time on the Independent Farmer Podcast.
00:29:08
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Independent Farmer Podcast. At Barn to Door, we are passionate about empowering independent farmers to build a thriving business. To all the farmers out there, thank you for all you do to grow amazing food, care for the soil, and serve your local communities.
00:29:23
Speaker
You are the backbone of our country. For free farm resources or to listen to prior podcasts, go to barntodore.com backslash resources. We hope you join us again and subscribe to the Independent Farmer Podcast wherever you stream your podcasts. Until next time.