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Big Berry Farm makes fast, successful shift from Farmer Markets to Online Orders & Home Delivery
199 Plays5 years ago
Angelica Hayton is a fifth generation farmer who owns and runs Hayton Farms Berries, located on Fir Island in Skagit Valley, Washington.
Angelica shares about how her farm adapted to COVID-19 and found great success, by beginning to offer pre-orders and home deliveries. Also sharing with us her exciting journey to grow a rare Pink Lemonade Blueberry!
Show Notes:
https://www.haytonfarmsberries.com/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Pandemic-Driven Opportunities
00:00:00
Speaker
things that I didn't think I'd want to do ended up being great and getting a lot of business that just wouldn't have been there. Like the people that wanted the home deliveries, if I'd been like, Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do that. Like that person wasn't going to go to a farmer's market and buy our half that they just would have
00:00:20
Speaker
not bought from us. So it seemed like because of COVID adapting to what people needed, all they needed was the peace of mind that they pre-ordered and their pickup is going to be ready and they don't have to pay, whether it was that or the home delivery, like adapting to those different things.
Podcast and Conference Introduction
00:00:43
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 to save time and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:01:05
Speaker
Alright welcome back everyone, you are listening to the direct farm podcast. It is nearly November, which is incredible, in part because we are even closer to the conference, coming up on November 10, it is the direct farm series on brand. And if you've been listening to the podcast you know we have these four levers for farm success.
00:01:25
Speaker
and those are quality, brand, price, and convenience. This coming conference is going to focus totally on brand and ahead of the off season when customers are really looking to connect and build loyalty, maybe even gift to their friends and family from your farm, this is a great opportunity to build some relationships whether you're selling seasonally or year-round.
Angelica Hayden's Farm Journey
00:01:49
Speaker
And so today I want to introduce you to Angelica Hayden. She will be speaking at that conference. If you listened to our episode a couple weeks ago with Grace Lemley, you heard a reference to Angelica because Grace worked for her for a while at Hayden Farms Berries. And it was fun to get to then talk to Angelica and hear more about
00:02:07
Speaker
Hayden Farms berries, the farm, her role in expanding their production and going to more markets, and then the ways that they adapted to continue serving customers through the COVID pandemic. So it was an absolute pleasure to talk to Angelica. I hope you enjoy this conversation. I'll let her go ahead and introduce herself. So I'm the fifth generation to farm in our family. So I grew up on the same farm where I'm working now and
00:02:36
Speaker
When I was a kid, my dad started doing like strawberries, but it was for processing. And then like my sisters and I started off just at a roadside stand selling just at the end of our driveway. And then when I was in high school, one of our neighbors started a different farmer. We started doing farmer's markets and he was the one that was like, Hey, you guys should try out Pike Place Market on the weekend.
00:03:04
Speaker
We started going down there. I have two older sisters. And then it was like the year after that, the same neighbor was like, oh, university district market is looking for some more farmers. And that was where we got our start was at the university district. And then that organization, as it grew and added more markets, we would add on with them. We started with just our plan of
00:03:29
Speaker
Oh, these markets are like a really good like business going direct to retail instead of wholesale. And we started actually planting like varieties just for like fresh market and farmer's markets. And that I got really interested in that and ended up
00:03:49
Speaker
I started doing the markets when I was like 15. So I've been doing them for like 20 years. And when I like, yeah, when I got out of college, my sisters quit to do other things. And I was like, Oh, this is what I want to do. And I got my dad to transition over to organic because I felt like that's really, that's what I wanted. But also what like everyone in Seattle at the farmer's markets, they were asking for certified organic. And that's how we got started with the farmer's markets.
00:04:15
Speaker
I was curious to hear from Angelica having taken over a part of the business from her parents and taking on more of a leadership role in the business. What changes she made and where she focused their efforts in order to continue growing and serving more markets.
Berry Variety Expansion
00:04:30
Speaker
So yeah, when I was younger and just starting out, we just did strawberries and raspberries. And so the season at the farmer's markets was really short. We'd start in like early June and then even by the end of like mid August.
00:04:48
Speaker
raspberries would be finishing and so then I was like okay once I realized this is what I want to do even when I'm done with school I was like oh we need to extend our season and we need more variety so I would always be like
00:05:02
Speaker
looking for like new varieties, different things to make our roots different, but also extend our season. We planted blueberries and blackberries, but then we started just planting a lot of different varieties of raspberries and blackberries to extend the season. So now we can start sometimes like mid-May and go till sometimes the end of October with fresh fruit.
00:05:26
Speaker
We used to just do like one type of raspberry and now we'll have six varieties to fill in all the gaps. And we grow, yeah, like yellow and black raspberry and te and Logan Berry. And we tried to get a lot of more like specialty items. One of those novelty items are pink lemonade berries. So I asked Angelica about growing them and then ultimately about marketing them too. Cause they have such an intriguing name. I'm really excited about those. I want to plant more.
00:05:56
Speaker
I was very excited about the flavor of the pink lemonade blueberries. Cause yeah, I felt like they were really sweet and maybe like less acidic. They were like just very different. It didn't taste like just eating like a blueberry. I was like, Oh yeah, this is special. I've, you know, posted on Instagram and Facebook about it. And then we hardly had any. So it was almost just like this tease, like people would be like,
00:06:24
Speaker
emailing and calling and I'd be like, no, we just had them like that one day. That is it.
00:06:30
Speaker
I planted them in 2016 and like the first two years you have to like strip off the blooms to get the plant like bigger and stronger. And then last year should have been the first year we got to pick, but it, the variety completely froze out. They're pretty sensitive. And so we didn't have any last year and then this was the first year there was like a small crop and
00:06:56
Speaker
It was like the first year I'd even tried one. Like the other years there was, I didn't even see one pink berry. I'd be like, Oh my God, do these exist? Is it real? And then yeah, this year it was so cool. And the plants put on so much growth this year, but I do feel like they're going to start giving a better crop. And they're so fun. People like went wild for them. I asked Angelica if the pink lemonade berries were then her favorite berry. And if not, what were, it seemed like an important question.
00:07:26
Speaker
And my favorite berry, I would have to say, it's kind of a hard question, but I mean, I probably, I love blueberries and I love the blue crop blueberries. They're really big and sweet, but I also really like our Albion strawberries. I'd say those are, yeah, my two favorite. Although now that I know the pink lemonade, I would say they're up there on my favorite list.
00:07:52
Speaker
So having learned a little bit more about Hayden Farms' berries and about Angelica, including her favorite berry, I wanted to turn and hear about what sales looked like before COVID. Obviously they were attending a bunch of farmer's markets and that was their main focus, but I wanted to hear from Angelica what the restrictions and the pandemic, how that affected the farmer's markets and how they then transitioned their sales so they were able to continue selling.
Shift to Online and Home Delivery
00:08:18
Speaker
Before COVID hit,
00:08:21
Speaker
We like I said most of my sales are like all based at farmers markets and did not have any way for customers to pre-order or prepay. You know people in the past would call an email like oh you're always sold out of strawberries can I like
00:08:38
Speaker
pre-order and pre-pay and have you reserve them? People would ask all the time and I'd be like, sorry, it's like, just gotta get there. Like first come, first serve. I felt like we're at maybe 60 markets a week, but I just didn't feel like there'd be a way for me to keep organized and keep everything straight. So I would never do it. And then yeah, when COVID hit and well, markets were all shut down and we didn't really know
00:09:06
Speaker
If they were going to open or how many were going to open, it was like a very quick thing of like farms felt like we need a way to accept pre-orders and prepay. And the home delivery was definitely something a lot of people were talking about. For most people, it's like a hard thing to.
00:09:24
Speaker
figure out like how to accept online payment. Most farmers, a lot of them take square in person, but you know, if you're trying to take lots of orders, it's not like you wanna like on the phone, be like manually entering in credit card. I remember telling my dad and my partner who I work with, I feel like I need to do something where I'm gonna like just fall behind of like people, some people are gonna adapt to this and then some people aren't. And I did feel like Barnadore was,
00:09:55
Speaker
perfect fit. I was looking at three different services that were a little, all a little different. And, you know, I am really happy. I went with Bornadore because the website they made was amazing, but I love how it integrated the store so much to the website. Whereas like some of the other companies, they wouldn't give you a website. It would maybe just be a link to a store.
00:10:21
Speaker
And then some of the other ones I was looking at were just a way to take a payment on your old website. But this was a whole package deal. And I did feel like for what was needed all of a sudden during COVID, like, Oh my gosh, I need to be able to have things like organized by market and day and all these orders. And I need to be able to take payment and I do need to figure out home delivery. It just like somehow took care of everything. And.
00:10:50
Speaker
So then yeah, things at farmer's markets, things changed. Like there were less shoppers and having this way to promote, Hey, you can prepay pre-order and you will be, if you do want to come to the market, you're going to be there less time just picking up your order. You won't be like doing any payment exchange at the market. And it was nice. Like even though on Saturday, maybe we'd be going to.
00:11:17
Speaker
15 markets, you know, like how the orders are organized on Barn to Door. It was really easy for me. Like I just kind of got in the habit of every day after 10 a.m. I would print out the orders for the next day and organize them. And that was something that always scared me of thinking, how am I going to organize all these different markets and pre-orders? But it became just like, oh, a new task I did every day. It was like,
00:11:43
Speaker
And it was super easy, super efficient. My kids, like all my employees, I'd print out their sheets and put it with their till and like, okay, you have three pre-orders today and make sure you set this aside. Don't tell it. And so that worked in great with what we needed. People really wanted it. And they were customers were so happy with being having this option and
00:12:08
Speaker
then there was still the people that really didn't want to leave their home. And that's where the like home delivery came in and it was awesome. Like I said, we had a handful of really good markets that never even opened for us this year. So not only was it another outlet like twice a week for us to move fruit that we were normally counting on that volume like that we'd be able to move.
00:12:37
Speaker
But it also, like for the people that didn't feel comfortable going to a market, which a lot of people didn't, it's, you know, still gave people a way to get like the, the home delivery. I'd like, yeah, get the route already for her the day before with, and like print out her sheets and it worked great. Customers were so happy. We went from just starting with North Seattle to like, including like the East side, Bellevue, Kirkland, and it ended up
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, being something she could manage. It would be a whole day for her, which she wanted. So she'd sometimes clock eight or nine hours on Wednesday and Friday, but it turned, yeah, it was great. We did these like mixed pack subscriptions where people could pay for five weeks. And, but we started it late in the season. I think for next year, I saw how well it worked. I want to add on maybe
00:13:31
Speaker
two more days of like deliveries and a different like some other zip codes and start the subscriptions earlier and so I would definitely want to promote the subscriptions more next year and add other types of subscriptions because we just did tried out one and it worked really well and add on I definitely want to add deliveries more than twice a week so it was funny things that I didn't think I'd want to do ended up being great and
00:14:00
Speaker
getting a lot of business that just wouldn't have been there like the people that wanted the home deliveries if i'd been like oh i'm sorry we don't do that like that person wasn't going to go to a farmer's market and buy our half that they just would have
00:14:15
Speaker
not bought from us. So it seemed like because of COVID adapting to what people needed, all they needed was the peace of mind that they pre-ordered and their pickup is going to be ready and they don't have to pay, whether it was that or the home delivery.
00:14:32
Speaker
like adapting to those different things. It seemed at first like it would be really hard, but I would definitely recommend people going to door just because it wasn't like I had to figure it out on my own. There was like the weekly Zooms and figuring it out little by little helped. And I would recommend people not wait till they need it and their busy season is starting. Maybe it is a slow time for people right now, but
00:15:00
Speaker
and maybe it's like going into fall and winter, that'd be a good time for farms to sign up so they can have all this time to figure it out before they get busy. And then their store would be like ready to go when their busy season starts.
Evolving the Hayden Farms Brand
00:15:16
Speaker
My next question for Angelica was about inheriting a brand and then making it her own. I wanted to know what the Hayden Farms Barry's brand was, what it meant, and how then she was able to take it online. It was my parents' business is Hayden Farms, and that's how we started under Hayden Farms. And then 12 years ago, I kind of wanted to like branch off. I still work a lot with my dad, but I wanted to
00:15:42
Speaker
do my own business instead of being under his business. I was like, okay, I want to just do the farmer's markets. I want to just do berries and really focus on that work. He does a lot more wholesale and vegetables too. So then I did the business like hate and farms berries opened up that separately. And it was nice because since it's a
00:16:06
Speaker
I'm fifth generation. It's still used like Hayden Farms in the name because so many people had known that at the markets. But I couldn't really come up with a different name for my business because no one would have known what it was. But I would say using that helped. People already knew our name, Hayden Farms, but more just focusing in on the berries. I would say now.
00:16:30
Speaker
because we have this online presence and like the option for home deliveries, we are trying to figure out ways now to extend our season even more. So we've gotten into like frozen berries and then my
00:16:45
Speaker
partner and I do eggs and beef and pork. So we are going to try and keep going on Barnadore and offer other things to extend the season. But I think that is something that will take a little bit of time to build up that. Like people only know us as like fresh berries right now. Once you're set up online with the store in Barnadore, I feel like it's a good opportunity to
00:17:09
Speaker
try new things once you have the online platform. Yeah, I'd say customers and people in general are on social media so much, especially if less people were, and less people were shopping at markets. It did seem like it was important to post more this year as far as just like what new varieties were coming out, what new products, what, yeah, what were we going to start picking and have at market soon. And
00:17:36
Speaker
What was really nice with the Instagram clip, you're on your link tree, the link in the bio, and then your farm store, like link was there, your website link was there. And even on Facebook, you'll be able to link to the shop now on Facebook. Not that many people are going to just like randomly type in my website, hatinfarmsvaries.com.
00:17:57
Speaker
But between people maybe looking on Instagram or Facebook, the website and the store through Barn to Door, it was easy to put those like points and other places to just get more traffic. And it seemed, it just all worked together really well. That's awesome.
00:18:17
Speaker
And I think that's true. That's something we talk about a lot too, is that your website is great. It helps people learn about you if they are directed to it, but not a lot of people are just going to find it organically. So on the Facebook and Instagram side, you guys have this really like a cheery presence. I'm curious, how do you feel like you took people's experience at farmer's markets or with Hayden Farms Berries and
00:18:41
Speaker
moved it online. Do you feel like people are getting a similar experience or they're having similar feelings as if they were purchasing from you in person?
00:18:51
Speaker
The social media is a great way for if you have people that are following you to learn more about the farm, what's going on behind the scenes. And they still get to know you more as far as what you're into and what you're taking your photos of. It's great to get people excited about something new and want to purchase your product. But I feel like more so it's customers just.
00:19:15
Speaker
feel good knowing where their food's coming from. Like the people that are going to go to a farmer's market or spend money to buy a local, shop a local, they want to know about you and feel like it's a good purchase coming from a good place. And so I do like to post for the customers that aren't going to be able to come up to the farm stand, but they could still see the farm and
00:19:39
Speaker
where we're located and all that. If you listen, you know that we love to ask people about time savings. So I asked Angelica what some of her most time saving advice would be to other farmers, both in terms of just running a business and in building a brand online. Yeah, I would say for time saving on the end of like barn to door, like online, the online pre-orders in the home deliveries
00:20:06
Speaker
I'd say for me it worked best to have a routine that I did every day so I wasn't doing it last minute or in a panic the day of. You can set when you want your order cut off to be and mine is 10 a.m. the day before. So a lot of times in the morning I'm working on stuff at my computer and I'd be looking for when it was gonna be 10 o'clock because I could be like,
00:20:30
Speaker
All right, I'm going to go in there. I'm going to get the orders for tomorrow printed off, organized to get a route made if it was a delivery day. And it always felt really good to just get it done the day before, have it ready to go. So the next day you have kids sometimes showing up at five 30 or six in the morning and things were just like ready. Like I wasn't ever, Oh my gosh, I forgot to send them with their pre-orders or I forgot to do this. That is what I would always recommend to people is just try and get like a routine.
00:20:59
Speaker
and like where you get it done the day before so then you're that next day is all ready to go and it like runs smoothly and as far as like social media side of things to try and save time you know if I was maybe driving not driving myself but in the passenger seat like I would a lot of times then try and do my posting or social media stuff when I was like had some downtime and
00:21:25
Speaker
wasn't busy doing something else. My last question for Angelica was that if she could go back a year ago and give herself a piece of advice, what would it be? I definitely would have done it sooner, not just a couple of months before my market season started, but just I would have liked to start this years ago just because now seeing like how it's really opened up a lot of opportunities, I'm like, oh man, like,
00:21:54
Speaker
We were really missing out all those other years and people had always asked me like, Oh, I see you'll deliver to restaurants if it's over seven, half less. Could you deliver to my house? And I was always like, Oh no, I just couldn't really figure out logistics and how I would do all that and keep organized.
00:22:14
Speaker
But now with Born to Door, I'm like, oh man, I wish I'd started this years ago and been offering home delivery and the pre-orders because it is what customers want. Even the customers that like to go to farmer's markets, a lot of times, depending on this
00:22:30
Speaker
When we are in the season and what variety it is, we don't have this like unlimited supply. And we're always going to have a stock table. A lot of times we'll maybe sell out of one thing halfway through the market. And if someone doesn't get off work till a certain time, people want to, even if they're going to a market pre-order and have it set aside. And we were just never able to offer that, but like with barn to door, it made it really easy.
00:22:55
Speaker
And people were just happy. Like the feedback we got from people pre-ordering or getting home delivery, they were just so happy that it was like available to them now. And it made me feel good not having to turn people down. And yeah, I would just say for people that maybe feel intimidated by taking on something new, I would say that's legit because I totally felt intimidated.
00:23:24
Speaker
by doing all these new things. And now I'm like, oh man, it's awesome. It went smoothly and I should have done it earlier. So again, that was Angelica Heaton from Heaton Farms Berries. If you want to hear more from her, the ways that they transitioned to pre-orders for markets, direct home delivery, and really push hard on that brand presence online, and the ways that you can then do the same things for your farm business,
00:23:52
Speaker
Please join us at the Direct Farm Series Brand Conference. Coming up on November 10th, it is totally free and totally virtual, and you can register at directfarmconference.com. Join us next week to hear about storytelling as a part of building your brand online. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week.